Methodology
How BankMate ranks and sources its data
Every number on this site can be traced to a source the provider itself publishes. This page sets out those sources, how often they refresh, how each list is ordered and what is deliberately left out.
Data sources by category
| Category | Source | Refresh |
|---|---|---|
| Savings accounts | Each bank's Consumer Data Right (CDR) product feed | Nightly |
| Credit cards | CDR product feeds, plus rewards-program variants and sign-up bonuses checked against the issuer's offer page | Nightly |
| Home loans | Each lender's CDR product feed | Nightly |
| Term deposits | Each bank's CDR product feed | Nightly |
| Personal loans | Each lender's CDR product feed | Nightly |
| Superannuation | APRA's Comprehensive Product Performance Package (CPPP) and MySuper heatmap data | Weekly check; APRA publishes quarterly |
| Share trading | Each broker's published pricing page, re-read on a schedule and verified in BankMate's admin tool | Scheduled scrape, reviewed before publishing |
| Crypto exchanges | Each exchange's published fee schedule, hand-curated and verified | Manual review |
What the Consumer Data Right gives us
Under Australia's Consumer Data Right, every bank must publish a machine-readable feed of its products with current rates, fees and eligibility conditions. BankMate reads those feeds directly rather than copying figures from marketing pages. Where a bank's feed is missing a field, an editor can pin a verified value so the nightly sync does not overwrite it; those fields are flagged internally and reviewed when the feed changes.
How each category is ranked
- Savings accounts
- Total rate (base plus bonus) assuming every monthly condition is met, then the interest that rate earns on your balance once you enter one. Announced upcoming rates replace the current rate on the day they take effect.
- Credit cards
- By the figure you choose to sort on: rewards earn rate, sign-up bonus, annual fee, purchase rate or balance-transfer period. Cards that carry several rewards programs appear once per program.
- Home loans
- Comparison rate (ASIC basis: $150,000 over 25 years including most fees), falling back to the advertised rate where a lender publishes none. Every variant of a loan is shown with its type, repayment basis and LVR band.
- Term deposits
- Interest rate per term, then interest at maturity on your deposit. Business, SMSF, broker and wholesale products are excluded.
- Personal loans
- Comparison rate, falling back to the advertised rate, with application, monthly and annual fees shown separately.
- Superannuation
- Net return over the longest published period, total fees on a $50,000 balance, and the APRA performance-test result. Options that failed or were not tested are hidden by default and can be shown with one switch.
- Share trading
- Modelled yearly cost for your trading pattern: brokerage at your trade size, FX spread on US trades at the ECB AUD/USD rate, and account or data fees. Leaderboards use a $5,000 reference trade so the ranking means the same thing for everyone.
- Crypto exchanges
- Modelled cost for how you buy: instant-buy fee, or maker and taker tiers at the 30-day volume your pattern implies, plus the deposit fee for how you pay. Instant-quote spreads are never sampled; where an exchange publishes no instant fee at all, an all-in estimate is shown and labelled as such.
Matching, not advising
When you answer the short questionnaire, BankMate splits each list into products you appear to qualify for and products you don't, and says which condition you miss. The tests are the provider's own eligibility rules (age, balance, deposit or card-spend conditions) applied to what you told us. That is a factual filter, not a recommendation, and the full list is always one click away.
Commercial arrangements
Some “Go to site” links are referral links. Ranking is never affected: lists are ordered by the published figure alone, and a product with no referral arrangement sits exactly where its figure puts it. BankMate does not sell placement, badges or “featured” spots.
Corrections
Every product carries a “report incorrect data” link. Reports go to a review queue where an editor checks the figure against the source and either corrects the record or pins it against the feed. Most corrections are live within a day. Read more about BankMate.