Gone are the days when having a stockbroker means you’re a millionaire with a lot of cash to spare. Thanks to the advent of new and secure online stock trading platforms, investing in the stock market can be as easy as opening a deposit account with your bank, or even easier.
Category: On The Market
Take a pick from different financial products that are out there on the market
Some of the best financial products are quite easy to miss. Take for example this Certificate of Time Deposit product offered by Premiere Bank. Premiere Bank is a rather medium-sized bank with a handful of branches in Metro Manila and the surrounding provinces. As a small bank, you have to compete with the big players for new client and this leads to innovative products being introduced into the market.
Retail treasury bonds or RTB’s are included in another class of investment securities you can put your money in. The article below fairly gives an detailed explanation of what retail treasury bonds are. If you want to invest in these treasury bonds, contact the Trust department of the banks acting as issue managers as mentioned below. I will soon write an article about bonds and other debt securities.
P25B raised from retail treasury bonds
By Ronnel Domingo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 18:09:00 08/10/2010
MANILA, Philippines—The Bureau of Treasury raised on Tuesday P25 billion from retail treasury bonds in a price setting auction for five-year, seven-year and 10-year issues.
The five-year bond fetched 5.875 percent, the seven-year 6.625 percent, and the 10-year 7.25 percent.
Issue managers said they would recommend offering another P50 billion worth of the RTBs to the public, to be available under August 17.
Gov’t sets yields of retail T-bonds
By Ronnel Domingo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 21:17:00 08/10/2010
THE BUREAU of the Treasury on Tuesday raised P25 billion in retail treasury bonds (RTBs) through a price-setting auction for the debt paper maturing in five, seven and 10 years.
We’ve been talking about building our emergency fund to shield us from financial worries should any change in our current financial status changes. At the moment, your emergency fund is most likely stashed in an interest-earning passbook savings account, which is all good. However, we’ve also been talking about making our money work for us and we’ve started exploring special savings as a way to make our money work harder and grow.
I’m putting forward the idea that you should put your emergency fund money in a special savings account. Why? Two reasons: first, since you’re not going to touch this money anyway unless absolutely necessary, why don’t you stash it away so that you really won’t be tempted to use it. Also, you don’t want to make it too inaccessible, like a time-deposit, which you can only access without charges at the end of the term.
Let’s assume that your emergency fund is at least 100,000 pesos. I’ve searched for some of the special savings products in the market offering the most competitive rates for this amount and one of them is Chinatrust Commercial Banking Corporation’s Ultimate Earner savings account. As of August 6, 2010, the interest rate for deposits with an average balance of 50,000-499,999.99 pesos is 2.45% per annum. You may open an account for as low as 5,000 pesos, maintaining balance is 10,000 pesos and balance to earn interest is 50,000. Since interests are tiered, the higher you save, the higher you earn.
ChinaBank always makes it to our market survey because they offer products that are accessible and rates that are competitive. Their special savings product, MoneyPlus Savings, requires 20,000 pesos to open, maintain and earn interest. Interest is also tiered with 1.125% per annum for deposit of 20,000 to 99,999.99 and 1.25% per annum for deposit of 100,000 to 499,999.99 pesos. A maximum of 2 withdrawals is allowed per month.
Security Bank’s special savings product, “Build-Up Savings Account”, may be opened with a little as 10,000 pesos and will earn interest for as low as that amount. It’s rate of 2% is also very competitive. Maximum number of withdrawals is 3 per quarter.
Almost all banks offer a special savings product. Before you open one, remember to ask how much the interest rate it and how many withdrawals are allowed per month. Always get the product that will give you the most benefits.
Categories
Open A Checking Account With P5,000
You can use a checking account as your current account, some sort of a clearinghouse for your funds. Put your payroll here, transfer your savings to your savings account, and make payments using checks or other facilities using this account. The best checking accounts are 3-in-1 accounts (kind of like instant coffee) that combine a checking account with the convenience of an ATM card and the documentation of a passbook or a statement of account. Here, we explore a few banks offering similar checking product for an opening balance of as low as 5,000 pesos.
I was browsing through some of the websites of local banks and I was pleasantly surprised to see this. For a relatively large, stable and publicly-listed bank, China Banking Corporation (China Bank) offers deposit products with such low requirements.
Here’s a good product out there in the market that will help you build your savings. I’m not advertising BPI but whenever I find a product that I think is very well thought out, I’d like to share it with my readers.
BPI Direct, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Bank of the Philippine Islands or BPI, offers BPI Direct Save-Up, and Automatic Savings + Insurance product that aims to help you save bit by bit, payday after payday.
Manila Finance Guy 