Term deposits pay 5% again. The catch is in the word again.
The RBA raised rates three times this year and a one-year term deposit now pays more than the ASX 200 yields, even counting franking. What that comparison leaves out: the rollover, inflation, and who sets each rate.
The Reserve Bank raised the cash rate three times this year, in February, March and May, and one-year term deposit rates moved further than the cash rate did. A one-year deposit that paid a quarter of one percent in 2021 was paying about 5% by August. The ASX 200 yields 3.22%. For anyone living on dividend shares, the arithmetic looks as though somebody has already done it for them.
This year, somebody has. The rest of this piece is about the years that aren't this one.
This year, the deposit wins
Start with the part that isn't close. Put the deposit's 4.95% beside the index's 3.22% and count every dividend as fully franked, which is generous, because the index isn't. The deposit still leaves more in your hand at every tax rate.
Show the numbers
| Term deposit | ASX 200, fully franked | |
|---|---|---|
| Nil | 4.95% | 4.60% |
| 15% | 4.21% | 3.91% |
| 30% | 3.47% | 3.22% |
| 37% | 3.12% | 2.90% |
| 45% | 2.72% | 2.53% |
It also carries a guarantee no dividend has ever had. The Financial Claims Scheme covers deposits up to A$250,000 per account holder per bank if the bank fails. On the narrow question of which pays more over the next twelve months, the deposit does, and pretending otherwise would be selling you something.
The catch is in the word again
A deposit's rate is set the day it rolls over, by a cash rate the RBA reviews eight times a year and a bank that decides how much of it to pass on. This year the cash rate went from 3.60% to 3.85% from 4 February 2026, 4.10% from 18 March 2026 and 4.35% from 6 May 2026. The rate is then fixed until the next rollover, when it is set again, by whatever the world looks like that week.
Show the numbers
| Interest that year | |
|---|---|
| 2006 | A$5,400 |
| 2007 | A$5,900 |
| 2008 | A$7,600 |
| 2009 | A$3,550 |
| 2010 | A$6,000 |
| 2011 | A$6,000 |
| 2012 | A$4,600 |
| 2013 | A$3,850 |
| 2014 | A$3,300 |
| 2015 | A$2,450 |
| 2016 | A$2,350 |
| 2017 | A$2,250 |
| 2018 | A$2,200 |
| 2019 | A$1,800 |
| 2020 | A$800 |
| 2021 | A$250 |
| 2022 | A$800 |
| 2023 | A$4,300 |
| 2024 | A$4,500 |
| 2025 | A$3,700 |
| 2026 | A$5,050 |
Somebody who retired in 2011 planning on 6.00% was living on 2.35% five years later and a quarter of a percent ten years later. The one-year rate sat at or below half a percent for 19 months straight, from November 2020 to May 2022. The deposit kept its promise the whole time. It promised the rate for a year, and a year is all it promised.
The rate you see and the rate you keep
Then there is inflation, which a deposit never mentions. The fair way to judge a one-year deposit is against the prices of the year it was locked up for.
Show the numbers
| Value | Rate and inflation | |
|---|---|---|
| June 2015 | 1.45% | 2.45% interest, 1.00% inflation to June 2016 |
| June 2016 | 0.45% | 2.35% interest, 1.90% inflation to June 2017 |
| June 2017 | 0.15% | 2.25% interest, 2.10% inflation to June 2018 |
| June 2018 | 0.70% | 2.20% interest, 1.50% inflation to June 2019 |
| June 2019 | 2.10% | 1.80% interest, -0.30% inflation to June 2020 |
| June 2020 | −3.00% | 0.80% interest, 3.80% inflation to June 2021 |
| June 2021 | −5.95% | 0.25% interest, 6.20% inflation to June 2022 |
| June 2022 | −5.20% | 0.80% interest, 6.00% inflation to June 2023 |
| June 2023 | 0.50% | 4.30% interest, 3.80% inflation to June 2024 |
| June 2024 | 2.40% | 4.50% interest, 2.10% inflation to June 2025 |
| June 2025 | −0.20% | 3.70% interest, 3.90% inflation to June 2026 |
A deposit taken in June 2021 paid 0.25% while prices rose 6.20%, so it came back about 6% poorer in what it could buy. The one after it did barely better. The one taken last June, at 3.70%, finished just behind the 3.90% inflation of its year. Of these eleven deposits, 4 came back able to buy less than they could when they went in. The dollars always come back. What they buy is another matter, and it is the only thing a retiree actually spends.
Who sets each one
A deposit's income is set by the RBA and your bank, again at every rollover. A dividend is set by a board, which decides rather than owes. Boards cut, and in 2020 the banks cut together at a regulator's request. Boards also raise, which a deposit can't do between rollovers, and that is the whole case for dividends in a year like this one: a payment that can grow, set by people who aren't the RBA.
So the choice is between a known rate for a year and an unknown one for longer, and neither is a promise about the year after. How long the growth takes to pay back a lower starting yield is plain arithmetic, and slower than people like.
What to check before moving money
The rollover. What the income becomes if the rate at the next one is 3%, or 1%. The same one-year deposit has paid a quarter of a percent and five percent within five years.
The after-tax number at your own rate, with your holdings' actual franking, not the headline.
Inflation over the term, which is what the deposit actually costs you.
The A$250,000 limit, which applies per account holder per banking licence, and two bank brands can share one licence.
And what the shares were for. If they were bought to grow, a comparison of one year's income is answering a question nobody asked. If they fund a pension with a minimum to pay, the months the income lands in matter as much as the rate.
Where Guardian fits
Guardian doesn't do term deposits, and it won't tell you which to hold. It watches the half of your income the RBA doesn't set: what each holding pays, per share, the months it lands in over the next year, and the day a company confirms a change. In a year when the deposit is the easy comparison, that's the half worth watching, because it is the half that can move without a rollover.
Watch the half of your income the RBA doesn't set
Start free, with no account and no broker login. Paste your holdings and see what they pay over a year, which months it lands in, and which of your bills it already covers.
For A$6 a month or A$60 a year, Guardian keeps watching: every payment recorded per share, your income by company and by sector, and a note when a company confirms a change to what it pays. There's a 30 day money-back guarantee.
Build my Dividend PaycheckDividend Guardian provides information and estimates from public data, not personal financial advice, and nothing here is a recommendation to move money between deposits and shares or to buy, hold or sell anything. Deposit rates and inflation are from the RBA's statistical tables F4 and G1, the cash rate decisions from the RBA, the index yield from State Street's STW factsheet, the Financial Claims Scheme limit from APRA and tax rates from the ATO. Past rates say nothing certain about future ones. Check your own position with a licensed adviser. Guardian reports confirmed changes; it does not predict them.