One of my resolutions this year is to save money. Rather than keep the money at home, a much better way is to put it in the bank. My solution is to open  up a BPI Easy Saver account.

Why BPI Easy Saver? There are a lot of good things about this type of account. Check out below:

• Initial deposit is only P200 (Philippine peso).
• No maintaining balance. That is, even if you empty the account to the last peso, the account will not be closed so you can still use it to restart saving.
• Free from hassle of over-the-counter-thru-teller transactions. With BPI Express Deposit this is possible. They say its a first in the Philippines. These BPI ‘deposit ATMs’ can allow you to deposit with and thru the machine, literally. They can accept P100, P500, and P1000 denominations and in an instant, your deposit is credited to your account.
• Your money is secured. Of course, if your money is just lying in your secret hiding place, it’s not safe from anyone finding it and taking it away. Not even safe from you to spend it yourself. HAHA
• PLUS! Earn interest. Though very small, at least there is. Based on BPI’s website, an at least P1000 daily balance is required to earn an interest and the interest rate is 0.250% per annum. Save me from the computation. Let’s move on. Teehee.

So, how to have your own BPI Easy Saver account? Super E.A.S.Y.

1. Head over to your nearest BPI branch.
2. Bring the following: two (2) valid IDs (more preferably government issued IDs) and one (1) ID picture of any size. I apologize but actually I’m not too sure if they really require two valid IDs, it just so happen that I brought two during my application.
3. Fill up the application form.
4. Pay P250 to the teller. Two hundred pesos (P200) is for the initial deposit while P50 is for the card fee.
5. After everything done, right then and there you can get your Express Teller card. Even with your name on it. That’s indeed express!

Important to note:

• The next thing to be done is change the PIN. The temporary PIN must be changed to activate the account and it must be within 2 banking days unless you want to see a teller again to reactivate the card.
• Only a day after changing the PIN you can start using the card. I have to learn this from the guard. Right after changing the PIN, I tried to deposit an amount but the machine kept cancelling the transaction. And I did that three times. Yeah, I wasn’t reading the instruction and I didn’t ask in the first place. So this guard approached and asked what the problem was and there I learned about this information.
• Regarding withdrawal fees. Five pesos (P5) will be deducted in every withdrawal transaction done with BPI ATMs. With other banks’ ATMs, I still have to check on how much they will deduct. I will tell you about it soon.

So you too! Let us all save!

This is the 12th day of my vacation leave and so far securing my saving is biggest thing I’ve done. Kudos to me!