Comparing Time Deposit Rates of Philippine Banks Part 2

Updated: March 28, 2017

This article is part of a series, read the previous post here: Comparing Time Deposit Rates of Philippine Banks Part 1

Welcome to the second installation of this post.

For today, we continue with two more banks, Banco de Oro and China Bank.

Thanks to the influx of requests, and the good opportunity I had yesterday to once again go around my area.

That’s why I’ve now decided to extend this series to 4 parts from the original plan of 2.

Banco De Oro (BDO)

Time deposit rate given to me: 2.500% pa

“Extra money ko kasi yung P300,000. Wala akong plano dito for 1-2 years. Mas maganda kaya kung sa UITF ko na lang siya ilagay?”

“Ah sir, kung interested kayo sa UITF. Mas maganda kung si Ma’am na lang po ang kausapin ninyo.”

The bank staff ushered me to the desk of another bank officer, who I assume handles the investment inquiries.

I repeated my question above and this was the answer I got.

“Sir, kung gusto ninyong mag-UITF, kailangan niyo pong mag-fill up at pumirma nitong UITF client suitability assessment and risk disclosure. Then doon po natin malalaman kung anong UITF po ang pwede sa inyo.”

“Pwede bang i-uwi ko na lang yan para mabasa? Medyo nagmamadali kasi ako.”

“Okay lang sir. Isama ko na rin po yung brochure namin ng UITF.”

I looked through the brochure, then I prepared to ask my next question.

“Ang dami pala nito. Ikaw, saan ka naka-invest dito?”

“Dati po may money market fund ako, pero kinuha ko na nung nag-asawa ako. Ginamit namin ng husband ko para sa wedding namin. Ngayon, wala na kasi ayaw ng husband ko.”

As much as I wanted to know why her husband doesn’t want to invest in UITF’s – I thought it might be too personal already to ask. So I just smiled and accepted the brown envelope that she handed to me and left the bank.

Looking back, I thought the customer service I received was fair. I sort of didn’t like was how they never really answered my question if investing in UITF was a better alternative for me than getting a time deposit.

If you read through their answers again, you’ll see that they just immediately assumed that I’m interested on investing in UITF and gave me the standard procedures on how to go about it.

However, I give them props for being able to produce the necessary documents and brochures regarding UITF investments, which is something that the next bank failed to produce.

China Bank

Time deposit rate given to me: 3.000% pa

“Extra money ko kasi yung P300,000. Wala akong plano dito for 1-2 years. Mas maganda kaya kung sa UITF ko na lang siya ilagay?”

“Kayo sir, choice ninyo yan. Teka sir, ikuha ko kayo ng information about it.”

The bank officer went inside a room for a few minutes and then came back empty handed.

“Sir, mukhang naubusan na kami. Pero available po yung information about our trust services sa website namin. In any case, baka maging interested din kayo sa iba namin investment products.”

She then called out to another bank staff, they talked for a moment and then the second lady took a couple of brochures from her desk and approached me.

“Sir, sa tingin ko po mas maganda para sa inyo itong Money Max products namin. Guaranteed po ang earnings plus may life insurance kayo from Manulife. Ilang taon na po ba kayo sir, para magawan ko kayo ng personalized illustration habang binabasa ninyo itong brochures.”

I told her my age and while she got busy on her computer. I studied the brochures she handed me. After a while, she came back and showed me my potential earnings if I chose to get the endowment product. I listened to her pitch, and then went for my final question.

“Thank you dito. Pag-aralan ko muna ha. Ikaw ba, meron ka nito?”

“Bago pa lang po ako sa Manulife, so hindi pa po ako nakakakuha nito. Pero yes sir, kukuha din ako nito soon. Maganda po kasi siyang retirement fund.”

I smiled and thanked her. I was ready to leave when she insisted on getting my mobile number so she could follow up on me. I politely told her that I would rather prefer that I come back to the bank if ever I do decide to get the product.

As I was leaving the bank, I couldn’t help but wonder how many people have gone to that branch, initially interested in doing short to medium-term UITF investments, but ended up buying life insurance.

And after going through everything that has just transpired, I realized that the best thing that happened to me there was discovering that China Bank had so far, the highest time deposit rate offer of 3.000% pa.

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This ends Part 2 of this article.

Author’s Note:
The conversations above are solely based on my personal experience with the specific bank branches. Duplicating the situation in any of the branches of the same bank, may result to a different experience.

The objective of this “experiment” is not to seek which bank is better, but to help you assess if a bank personnel (regardless where he or she works) is a good and capable resource person to talk with about your investment concerns.

Quick Reference:

• Comparing Time Deposit Rates of Philippine Banks Part 1
• Comparing Time Deposit Rates of Philippine Banks Part 2
• Comparing Time Deposit Rates of Philippine Banks Part 3
• Comparing Time Deposit Rates of Philippine Banks: Lessons Learned