AMP Bank cuts fees for ‘simplicity’

Effective from 30 November, the banking arm of AMP Limited said that it would abolish nine fees and reduce a further 11, including one-off transaction fees, in a bid to “make things simpler for [customers]”.

Additional moves will be made next year to simplify fees on other products, such as mortgages fees, the bank said.

Further, AMP Bank said that it was simplifying its suite of transaction accounts, including by removing legacy accounts and switching customers automatically to newer products with similar or better features from December this year.

Speaking of the changes, AMP Bank group executive Sally Bruce said: “We know banking products can be confusing, so we are doing all we can to simplify.

“Simplifying our products and fees is good for customers, for advisers and brokers and good for our people.”

AMP also removed its self-managed super fund (SMSF) loan product, SuperEdge, from sale on 20 October 2018, with existing customers of AMP SuperEdge loans to be prevented from switching to interest-only repayments, refinancing or extending their loan term after 10 November 2018.

Similar moves were made by other lenders such as Westpac and Commonwealth Bank.

The announcement followed AMP revealing in September that it would no longer be offering interest-only terms on new SuperEdge Loans.

However, the wealth manager said that it was keeping its SMSF administration and software business, SuperConcepts.

AMP Bank also recently reported a $129 million drop in its loan book in its third-quarter cash flow update, attributing the decline to slowed credit growth, conservative liquidity management and increased flows to non-banks.

[Related: Bank reports $129m drop in loan book]