Rejected by ST Forum
POSB
The current ongoing news now is What Happened? POSB? True enough, these recent days of Forum is filled with the unhappiness of the Singapore population of the minimum balance of $500 in their POSB Accounts. Through the years, POSB had always been 'the people's bank'. Ask anyone which is the first Bank A/c they owned and the answer is POSB. Which other banks give out application forms on the day a child is borned into the world to encourage parents to save for their future and the answer is also POSB. All these services had been drilled into all our heads until this announcement came.
Almost the whole Sin population owned a POSB A/c. Be it for their Giro payment, salary input, etc... It simply doesn't make sense at all that there should be a min. bal. required or a $2 fee will be incurred. Although it is said that anyone under 12 and above 65 are exempted, there are still a lot of 30 - 50 somethings running a household with their PUB bills, ST bills, child's school fees, TAS bills, TV charges, (and the list can go on and on...) deducted by Giro through what? - POSB of course! So, how much do you think these people earn per month? Does it mean that they will need to bank in at least $2000 for these Giro payment so that they can keep up with the min. bal? Bear in mind, these are the low-income household, not to even mention the lower-income! Just how many of them will have this sort of money?
POSB is said to be a convenient and easy bank which everyone is aware of. DSB stated on Ch 8 on Tuesday that they are actually encouraging people to consolidate their A/cs but it seems like they are actually forcing people to close their A/cs. instead! A $10 payment for cheque book is totally absurd! No bank has done that; it is a totally wrong move to be a leader in this way! DBS Chairman, Mr S Dhanabalan commented that they won't make a profit from $2 fee anyway. Just what is that suppose to mean? If that's the case, why in the first place did you still want to implement something that does not even meet up with your goals? If it doesn't make a profit, why implement it?
POSB went into a merger with DBS. But, it totally seems like as if POSB had been taken over by DBS! Doesn't POSB have anything to voice out at all? DBS stated that they will study this matter but shouldn't they be more responsive to this matter? Just how fast do they deal with crisis managment like what is happening now? Isn't it time for an answer to the Sin population?
C Shanteni's comment that DBS had no choice but to follow this banking trend is totally ridiculous! If DBS said they can't be blamed, so do we blame ourselves for the low salary that we are paid? The government is introducing and asking people to pay by Giro which makes payments easy, but now, with this new implementation, just who will have enough money to afford payment by Giro? Isn't this a contradiction? As POSB customers, I and we have every right to complain about this current situation. If DBS thinks that Singaporeans are just prone to complaining and will eventually follow suit, then they are very wrong! We are not stupid, we will only follow what deems right and not what is absurd!
Yong Meiling