Fixed Deposits and Savings

How many of us can remember the POSB squirrel savers scheme? This was where primary school children were encouraged to save by purchasing stamps and pasting them on sheets of squirrel saver booklet. From there, we were also encouraged to open up POSB savings accounts.

I thought that was a brilliant scheme as it encouraged children to save up when young. I also recall the Standard Chartered Piggy Bank where one could deposit coins into the Piggy Bank and then periodically go and deposit those coins into our bank books. The children's passbook issued by Standard Chartered was also very colourful. I remember it contained pictures of Snow White or Dumbo the elephant. I do not have copies of those items anymore so I hope my memory serves me well! :-)

Interest rates in Singapore are at very low rates recently. I found out about qotion.com from Hardwarezone Forums and they confirmed that Maybank was offering the best deal at 2.08% (as at 23 Feb 2007) for their iSavvy internet banking savings account for balances >= $5,000. This is way ahead of the lowest at 0.125%. Do shop around for the best deals as it varies from financial institution to financial institution.

Qotion.com also does a good comparison of local fixed deposit balances as well. Using $10,000 as the amount and 3 month fixed deposits tenure, the best value for money (as at 23 Feb 2007) was Bank of India at 1.55%. If we use $25,000 as the cut-off amount and tenure of 3 months, the picture changes someone, Maybank is still offering a very aggressive 2.68% for their iSavvy Time Deposit while NTUC Thrift comes in at 1.765%.

What do we learn from all this? We need to shop around for the best bargains and the internet does help by lowering search costs. Imagine, the large disparity in fixed deposit interest rates among local banks.

Do your own homework and shop around to find the best deals because we work hard for
money, we should let our money work hard for us!


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