ANZ Business One Rewards

27 May 2009

Tags: anz|business|rewards

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ANZ Business One Rewards
Pros
  • Low purchase rate
  • Rewards program
  • Design your card
Cons
  • No interest free period
  • High per-card costs
Summary The ANZ Business One has a good purchase rate, but it's let down by the lack of an interest free period, a high annual fee and prohibitive per-card costs.
Interest Rate (purchases): 14.74 %
Interest Rate (cash): 14.74 %
Annual Fee: $190.00
Interest Free Days: 0
Travel Insurance:
Rewards Program:
I feel sorry for bank marketing departments sometimes. You know they've struggled to find something nice to say about a product when they list 'EFTPOS access' as a key feature on the product website. Damn all those non-EFTPOS credit cards!

Unfortunately, there isn't much else they could say about the ANZ Business One Rewards. It's a member of the Business One family of credit cards, of which there are four flavours: rewards, cash rewards, low rate and interest free days.

As the name implies, this card comes with a rewards program, which isn't particularly common in business credit cards. You'll earn one point per $1.50 spent and points can be redeemed on anything from holidays to movie tickets to Qantas Frequent Flyer points.

A $100 Myer Gift Card requires 12,500 points (for which you'll need to spend about $18,750), a nice Bosch electric drill will set you back 28,750 points ($43,125 spent) and for a dozen bottles of wine you'll need 19,375 points ($29,062).

It's difficult to make generalisations about business expenditure. Some businesses may spend $20,000 a month and for those, a $100 Myer gift card every 30 days will seem like a good deal. Other businesses might buy a box of stamps every other week, and for those businesses, a dozen bottles of wine every eon may not seem quite so worthwhile.

You'll also need to make a judgement about how many cards your business will need. Additional cards are an extra $80 per year - $20 for the card and $60 for reward program administration, which makes the ANZ Business One Rewards a fairly unattractive option if you need a few cards.

The annual fee is $130 plus, as mentioned above, $60 per card for the rewards program. As the rewards program isn't optional on this card, you'll pay at least $190 per year.

The interest rate is fairly low (14.74%), which is good, because the card has no interest free period. Again, you'll need to look at your own business cash flow to decide whether you can afford to pay the balances in full each month if you want to avoid paying interest.

Like other ANZ cards, the Business One comes with a Design Your Card feature, which allows you to upload an image to be used as the background on your card. While this is a fairly whimsical gimmick on a personal card, it could look quite professional to have your business logo on your credit card.

Bottom line: The Business One Rewards is OK. Just OK. The interest rate is quite low for a business card and the inclusion of a rewards program is good, but it's let down by the lack of an interest free period and a high annual fee, particularly if you require multiple cards.