It’s amazing how technology works nowadays. Do you know that you can open bank accounts using your phone? I’m quite curious as to how these virtual banks operate.

“Virtual banks are similar to traditional retail banking services in that they will be able to accept deposits and give out loans. They aren’t expected to set up physical branches. Analysts at Citigroup estimate around 10 per cent of existing banks’ revenue is at risk over the next decade.” https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/banking-finance/hong-kong-starts-granting-licenses-for-virtual-banks

There are two known (as least what I know at this point in time) virtual banks in the Philippines. These are ING and CIMB. I will be trying both in the coming months. At this point, I really don’t have any preference, since I haven’t tried any of these.

Save Money With GCASH

Today, I found out though that GCASH partnered with CIMB. I, apparently, already have this new feature in GCASH called Save Money. And guess what? The money that you save here earns 2.3% interest, which is higher than what the your standard commercial bank offers.

The maximum daily withdrawal though is at Php 50,000 (still higher than the Php 20,000 withdrawal caps from ATMs and debit card transactions of some banks). The downside though is that the Maximum Deposit Limit is only at Php 100,000 over 12 months. I hope that they increase this limit to at least Pp 500,000.

Your money is also insured by the PDIC or Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation. Another advantage is that there is no need to maintain a minimum balance in your account.

So, how do you compute for the interest? Check this out. I got this from GCASH.

I just started depositing money mid this month, so let’s see how this goes. I love though how banks are not making it convenient, too, for people to save and invest money (not just to spend it).

With these tools, you can automate the way you save and forget that you even have those funds. Save it for a rainy day!

I remember one of my favorite books: The Automatic Millionaire. You can check out the gist of the book here:

Goodluck on saving! 🙂