INTEREST RATES for COMMERCIAL BANKS

 

You can check out the latest interest rates of the following Commercial banks:

Metrobank

Bank of the Philippine Island (BPI)

Banco de Oro

Chinabank

Among the four, Chinabank offers the highest interest rates for their Time Deposit Products. If you have multi-million funds to open for a time deposit, i suggest you deal with the big commercial banks for stability. But if you’ re starting, and can conveniently chop your funds under multiple accounts and still comply with the 250K PDIC Limit (to secure your deposits), then if you’ll ask me, Rural Banks still offer far better rates than commercial banks. (i have a separate post about rural banks, though the rates may no longer be updated — but still definitely higher than commercial banks) COMMERCIAL vs. RURAL

BDO REWARDS

When you save and keep your money in commercial banks, they give you 0.75% p.a. interest rate, and yet they lend your money to you or to other people through Auto Loan, Personal Loan or Housing Loan with exorbitant interest rates ranging from 10% to 15% p.a. or even more. On top of that, they earn whenever you pay your bills, load your cellphones, or make other bank transactions. Banking is truly a profitable business — literally people line up everyday in banks to give them funds, which they can use to earn more money. And yet, at times you get crappy service from bank employees treating you like sh*t, as if they don’t benefit from your hard-earned money (I can devote a whole separate post for this topic — I sure have so many stories to tell.. hehehe)

Until, one bank thought of giving back (even a miniscule fraction) to their depositors. The birth of BDO Rewards. As they claim, a consumer-centric approach that provides opportunity to depositors to share the earnings of their money. When the Sy’s took over the merger of Equitable-PCI and BDO, I’m quite positive they’ll bring their retail experience in the banking world — im sure everyone knows about SM Advantage Card, and the BDO Rewards Card is like a twin brother which gives you peso-points for bank transactions, and the amount of money you keep in their bank (on top of the usual, and crappy interest rates) — Is it enough? NO — but, better than nothings! I’m not jumping up and down, but I’m sure this will be the beginning of many other developments in banking system.

To know more about it — especially, if you’re a BDO depositor, please check this website…

http://www.bdo.com.ph/Rewards/index.asp

Will this encourage me to keep more money in a commercial bank? Probably. Some amount to keep my l life going — to settle my monthly bills and other expenses. But, for real savings with better interest rates — i still put my bet on Rural Banks. As long as it’s PDIC insured, I can still sleep peacefully every night.