How to read a row
What the columns mean
There is no blended score. A bonus rate, an introductory rate, a fixed term, and a fund yield answer different questions. The columns keep them apart.
Why there is no score
A single “best cash park” number would hide the thing that matters: what you have to do to earn the rate, and what the product is. Sorting high to low is a sort of the large number on each row. It is not a recommendation, and it is not a risk rating.
The large number
The large figure is the rate or yield the issuer leads with on the page we cite. The metric under it says whether that figure is an ongoing variable rate, a bonus total, an introductory rate, a fixed term rate, a net cash yield, a yield to maturity, or a 12-month trailing yield.
Where the issuer also prints what happens next, that figure is in the same cell: the rate after an intro ends, or the rate when a monthly test is missed. We do not average those numbers, and we do not drop the lower one.
HISA, term deposit, cash ETF
A high interest savings account is an at-call deposit. The rate is variable. Many of the higher rates are bonus rates: miss the monthly test and you earn a much smaller base rate, sometimes close to zero.
A term deposit locks a fixed rate for a term. You generally cannot take the money out early without notice or a cost. The rate on the board is the one for the term and interest-payment option named in the row. A monthly-interest option is often lower. That lower rate is mentioned when the issuer printed it next to the headline.
A cash ETF is a managed fund with units traded on the ASX. You pay brokerage, you cross a buy-sell spread, and the price can differ from the net asset value. Distributions are not the same thing as bank interest. The yield measures are not promises.
Three different ETF yields
- Net cash yield, used for AAA: the annualised yield on what the fund holds now, after the management fee, as Betashares defines it.
- Yield to maturity net of fees, used for MMKT: an estimate that assumes holdings are kept to maturity. For floating-rate securities it depends on a path for the bank bill swap rate.
- 12-month trailing yield, used for BILL and ISEC: last year’s distributions. It is not a forecast. iShares did not label those figures as a current net cash yield, so we did not invent one.
Where the issuer also prints a trailing distribution yield next to a current yield, both are on the row. After a run of rate rises, the trailing number is often lower than the current one.
Government guarantee
The Financial Claims Scheme can protect eligible deposits held with an Australian authorised deposit-taking institution, up to $250,000 per account holder, per ADI, if that ADI fails. It does not protect the interest rate. Two brand names can be the same ADI. This version does not map brands to ADI licences. The account documents name the ADI.
Cash ETFs are marked “not a deposit”. AAA holds bank deposits inside the fund. You still hold units, not a deposit in your name, so the scheme does not cover you as a unitholder.
Dates
“Issuer date” is the date printed on the source, or the effective date of the issuer’s own announcement. “Checked” is the day we opened that page: 24 October 2026 for this version of the file. If a page showed a rate and did not print a date, the issuer date is left blank and the note says so.
The CommBank 12-month term deposit row is the clearest example. The rate sheet is dated 18 September 2026, which is before the cash rate target moved on 30 September. The row stays, with that warning, rather than being quietly updated to a number we did not read.
What we leave out
If a rate is not on the issuer page, it is not on the board. We do not fill gaps from comparison sites, from memory, or from a calculator. Business-only accounts, age-restricted bonuses we could not reconcile with a later rate change, and products whose rate card did not render a number are skipped rather than guessed.
Stepped and tiered rates are described in the row. The large number is only the slice the issuer puts first, usually the first balance band. It is not the rate on every dollar once you are over the cap.
Corrections
If a row disagrees with the issuer page, the issuer page wins. Write via the contact page and include the URL. Updates are made in src/data/products.ts. There is no CMS.