Do not attach a cheque book to your everyday transaction account. In most states, every withdrawal you perform will incur "Debits Tax" simply because you have a cheque book attached. Open a separate account for cheque-book usage.

Smaller and regional banks, as well as credit unions, often offer lower fees and fee free transaction accounts in order to attract customers away from the big 5 (ANZ, Commonwealth, National, Westpac, St. George). For those that offer phone and internet banking, using a bank or credit union with less branches is becoming less of an inconvenience.

As covered in our Mortgage Reduction Strategies article, many lenders will provide fee waivers on all your accounts if you have a mortgage and consolidate all your banking with them

Keep the number of accounts you have open to a minimum, and do some research to ensure the account matches your usage patterns

Keep the number of transactions you do to a minimum

Use telephone or internet banking where possible

Use ATM’s and EFTPOS for cash withdrawals, and try to only use ATM’s with your own bank’s branding

Children, students and pensioners are usually offered fee free accounts

The best way to minimise or eliminate fees is unfortunately quite time consuming. It involves documenting your monthly usage patterns, and then researching what account types are available through the banks and matching the account type to your usage pattern to ensure you avoid fees. However, this can become a never ending task as the banks tend to change their terms and conditions periodically. It also means you will have to document the number and type of monthly withdrawals you make to ensure you don’t overshoot the account threshold and incur a fee!!

Once you open the account which suits your needs, always read the "Fee changes" brochures sent out to you with your statement. For example, prior to June 2002, ANZ’s Access accounts were fee free if you maintained a minimum $2000 balance and stayed below a transaction limit. From June 2002, they heralded a change. Access accounts would now fall into 2 categories: Access Advantage, which comprised a $5 monthly fee irrespective of your balance but with unlimited withdrawals; and Access Select which comprised no monthly fee but only 6 free monthly withdrawals via ATM / EFTPOS / Phone Banking, but unlimited for internet banking. The tricky thing is… they automatically switched all their customer accounts over to the new $5 p/mth one by default. Only those who had read their terms and conditions booklet would have been wise to the change and would have been able to assess which of the 2 choices was best for them.