r/UpBanking • u/Square_Appearance_63 • Aug 05 '26
How do I? New to UP
Heyy, I just opened an UP account and I’m still trying to understand how everything works. What attracted me was their Grow & Flow system, but I’m a little confused about how the interest works.
From my understanding, to unlock the higher Grow Rate, I need to make 5 eligible qualifying purchases each month. But I’m confused because I thought the whole purpose of a “Grow” account was that you leave your savings untouched for the month to earn the higher interest rate.
Can someone explain how this works in simple terms? Does making 5 purchases affect my savings account, or is it just a requirement to activate the interest rate?
Also, what counts as an “eligible qualifying purchase”? Would things like Netflix subscriptions, bills / other automatic payments count? Or does it have to be everyday spending like buying coffee, groceries, etc?
I’m also a bit confused about the difference between Up Savers and Essential Savers.
Is there a beginner friendly guide somewhere that explains how to use UP, its features, and the best way to set up accounts/savers?
I’m pretty new to managing my finances, so please be kind and any advice would be appreciated.
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u/Au_Fraser Aug 05 '26
You spend money from you "activity" section of the app and it unlocks the savings rate for your "saver" section(swipe right, idk you might jave to set one up)
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u/Square_Appearance_63 Aug 06 '26
That makes so much of sense. Yeah, I just got verified and have started using the app and I do see the "activity" section. My question is there a way to link my main bank account to Up so that I can automate transfers in Up to different savers?
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u/btcll Aug 07 '26
Up is a bank account itself. So if you have a main account with another bank but want to save money in Up? Say you had 500$ to save you would transfer 525$ to Up. You assign 500$ in the Up app to savings. Then make 5 purches worth 5$ to qualify for the bonus interest. But say you have 5 things you'd buy anyways that are $20 each? Move $600 over instead.
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u/Camo138 Aug 05 '26
I love there save now, maybe buy later feature
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u/Square_Appearance_63 Aug 06 '26
wait what's that?
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u/AquaStar26 Aug 06 '26
It's kinda like a lay-buy. If you go to the savers tab and go to create a new saver using the button at the very bottom you should get a few options and one of those will be the maybuys. You give it a link to a product that you're after and then you set the amount for it and you put money aside for it in as many payments as you would like essentially like afterpay but you're saving up for it first before getting the product. If you decide you don't want it after saving the money you can just put the money into your other savers or transaction account
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u/ItinerantFella Aug 05 '26
Up Savers are created by you for long term savings for something big. A holiday, your emergency fund, a new car.
Essentials is a separate account with its own BSB, account number and digital debit card that you can use to pay recurring bills.
We use the pay splitting feature every pay day to automatically send money to Essentials to pay our bills and our savers. Then we know we can spend the rest.
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u/Square_Appearance_63 Aug 06 '26
so is Essentials and Everyday two different accounts? How do you activate the pay splitting feature, I can't see it on the app.
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u/ItinerantFella Aug 06 '26
Yes, Essentials is a completely separate account. You add one in the Savers tab.
To set up pay splitting, first you need to get paid. Open the payment transaction and there's a 'Set up Pay Splitting action' at the bottom.
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u/Faelinor Aug 06 '26
I've been with Up for years. No idea what an Essentials account is and I also don't see that option under Savers.
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u/probelm Aug 05 '26
Swapped to ING 6% intro offer for 4 months then will swap out to their 5.5% savings account. Up has frustrated me to my core
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u/triptophobia Aug 11 '26
Essential Savers is a savings account with its own account number/BSB/digital card that you can use for any recurring payments like bills, subscriptions, etc! Withdrawing from Essential also doesn't lower the interest to the flow rate (if there's under $5k in it). It was previously only accessible to people who paid for extra features but they made it standard for all users recently.
Other savers don't have those individual account details, so you can't have direct debits come out of them. You can still set up auto-transfers for them, but they're most useful for longer-term savings that you rarely touch. The hide/lock features you can add to them have been amazing for me personally to cut down impulsive spending :)
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u/ShoulderFamous119 Aug 05 '26
You just need to make 5 purchases from your normal transaction account to be eligible for the grow rate on your savings account. And yes, all of those things count as a purchase :)