The Narcissistic Somniloquist

Many in Singapore trust their money with DBS, the dominant bank in this market. Little do we know that the it provides the lowest interest rates and as incumbents, have very little incentive to innovate. Here’s just one example.

For several months, while waiting for our visas before moving to California, I had liquidated much of my assets in Singapore - primarily my car (don’t ask me how much I lost in just one year due to dropping COE rates!), and placed this money in a Savings account in DBS. This account pays a measly 0.275% for amounts above $3000. OK, so immediately I thought of a Fixed Deposit. Placing $50K for a month gets you 1.6% p.a. interest. I felt a little better.

Until I came across Maybank’s savings account - the iSAVvy Savings Account pays 2.38% p.a. for amounts above $5,000. And this is not even a fixed deposit. The downside of higher interest rates is that you are charged for any over-the-counter services like visiting a branch, etc

OK, I don’t care much for the name, but this is an idea that is long overdue. Ever since the advent of Automated Teller Machines and more recently, Internet Banking, I’ve had few reasons to visit a bank office except to open and close accounts. An account that doesn’t force me to pay for this service makes a lot of sense!

Why haven’t any of the major banks (DBS, UOB, OCBC) come up with this? And Maybank isn’t one of those high-profile foreign banks that open offices here mainly to hawk credit card and personal loan accounts.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 20th, 2006 at 9:58 pm and is filed under Finance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.