I just want a checking account

I wanted to open a joint account with checking facilities (meaning you can write cheques) with my gf. The main purpose of it is to allow each of us to contribute a part of our income to pay for joint expenses like mortgages, groceries, furnitures etc. Since I was at suntec yesterday and OCBC had their branch opened on Sunday, I popped by to enquire.

It seems that we intruded on their private small talk because the lady serving us seemed very annoyed and impatient. I asked her some simple questions but she didn't seem to know her stuff that well (she was reading it in front of us), so my gf asked her some stuffs about the practice of other banks and she replied that we have to check it out ourselves. Okay, I seriously must thank her for her good advice to check it out ourselves. Otherwise, I wouldn't have known that even a simple thing as opening a checking account can have such a wide differences between the major banks in Singapore.

You must hear it from me - OCBC offers the worst deal if you ever wanted to open a checking account in Singapore. Out of all the banks I compared, OCBC is the only one that requires a $2 fee per cheque written. Do check out this table for more details:


The above table is correct as of 5th April, 2010. You know how hard it can be to navigate and understand those statements and fine print, so I did my best. If there's any objections or mistakes, pls pls correct me.

That includes you, OCBC.

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After showering, I thought I was being unfair to OCBC. They do have an advantage over other local banks. It's the only bank that operates on Sunday. That is an extremely value added (costly, perhaps) service to busy people in Singapore.

If we compare local and foreign banks, you'll find that foreign banks generally offer more incentives to attract customers. It's the oh-so-valuable deposit money that is the lifeblood of banks. I suppose that the local banks already have high deposit ratios, hence they are not so eager to create new incentives to attract people to deposit. Just my hypothesis.

I'm not so excited over the 'high' interests in some checking accounts. A MMF fund easily beats it at around 1% per annum. Yes, it's a little tiny bit riskier and it's not guaranteed. Free cheque book is doesn't attract me much either, because I doubt I'll be using that often. It's one of those things that is good to have, in case you need it. I absolutely do not want to pay a fixed monthly fee, though a fall below fee is fine.

That being said, I think Citibank and Stanchart xtrasaver seems like a mightily good idea. Both are open on Sunday too, in case I need their services.