With the introduction of the debit MasterCard in Australia just a few years ago (2005), there are only three credit card providers in Australia that offer a debit card through MasterCard’s credit facilities. Westpac just happens to be one of them.

For a standard debit card, the Westpac Debit MasterCard has a trifecta of security measures in place in order to protect its cardholder’s from credit fraud and theft. For starters, when you use your debit card you’ll have the option of signing the receipt or using a PIN for your purchase.

Secondly, Westpac uses the Falcon system which detects unusual purchase activity on your card. So if you’ve made some purchases outside of the usual purchases you make, you’ll get a call from Westpac just to check that it’s you using your card and not someone who shouldn’t be.

Last but not least, the Westpac debit card is covered by MasterCard’s Zero Liability policy. So if someone has been racking up purchases on your debit card, you won’t be liable for them.

There are 7 different everyday banking accounts and six different loan accounts that you can link a Westpac debit card to, and your monthly fee will only be that of the account that you choose to link it to (minimum $0, maximum $10). With so many account options with a variety of features available, Westpac has most definitely catered for the needs of a wide range of people.

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The Bendigo Blue Visa debit card is one of only a few cards with credit card capabilities on offer from Bendigo Bank. It is a very basic card with only the bare minimum in terms of features.

This debit card can be used at over 840,000 ATMs across the world, so you can use the cash in your Bendigo account without any hassle anywhere you go. With a cheap monthly fee of just $3, you can link your Bendigo Visa debit to any everyday banking account at Bendigo, including your deposit account and any mortgage or personal loan accounts you might have.

Additional cards are available free of charge if you want to share this account with a friend or family member. However, with multiple cards in use it is much harder to keep track of your debit card balance, and if you have an overdraft on your account then this could be a recipe for disaster as it will be much easier to go into debt.

Interest on an overdraft debt will accumulate much faster than it would on a normal credit card because you won’t get any interest-free days in which to pay it off. While Bendigo is overall a good bank, the Blue debit card lacks in many areas, things that most banks provide in a debit card.

This includes minimum security measures put in place to protect cardholders (only those put in place by Visa are effective on the debit card), so it doesn’t really measure up to the majority of debit cards available from other banks.

Overall, despite this card being cheaper than the majority of debit cards on the market, it seems like if you get this debit card then you are most definitely only getting what you pay for.

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Like the Bendigo Blue debit card, the Bank of Queensland Visa debit card is quite basic, but it does offer a couple of things that the Bendigo card does not.

There are seven different accounts on offer from Bank of Queensland to which you can link your Bank of Queensland Visa debit card. The monthly fee for this debit card is $1, which is a little unusual as the majority of Australian banks give debit cards out for free.

In addition to this is the monthly account fee, which varies depending on what kind of account you have and how much money you have in your account. These fees are all set out in Bank of Queensland’s personal banking guide to fees and charges which can be found on the bank’s website.

The monthly account fee can however be waived if you are a full-time student at a University, TAFE, Secondary School, if you’re under 18, if you have a Bank of Queensland home loan, or (depending on what kind of bank account you get) if you have over a certain amount of money in your account.

Unlike most other debit card providers you cannot apply for Bank of Queensland’s Visa debit card online which puts this card on the back foot in terms of convenience for its customers. Instead you have to go into a branch to set it up.

Transactions on this card at Bank of Queensland ATM’s are unlimited, but it’s not on any other banks ATM networks so you will get charged fees if you use the Visa debit card at other banks ATMs. The same goes for using Australia Post banking facilities, although the Australia Post Bank@Post service is a bonus as it increases the number of facilities there are for cardholders to carryout banking activities that they can’t do at ATM’s.

See our top credit card picks in the Editor’s Choice category