Saving time with Internet Banking in Singapore

I remember my days when I first got my ATM card in 1998 in India from ABN Amro Bank!. Wow.I was so exited I showed it to everybody I met after that for few days !. Well it sounds crazy but now people have more credit cards and ATM/Debit Cards they ever need. ATM / Debit Cards saved lot of time as you would never need to goto Bank Branch to get cash!..also it made people spend more too :)

After that came Internet Banking and that saved more time. Also enalbed us to do more with ease any time any where ;)

So now how this is in differnet in Singapore? here u go ...

Adding post dated Fund Transfers or Payments

• This seems to me the best feature I have ever seen in Internet Banking after coming to Singapore in DBS iBanking. I am sure it would be there in other banks too. This saves lot of time for me as I can put my Utility or Rental Payments by setting a future date on it and it get tarnsferred on that date! It also enables me to schedule my payment activities in one go.

Setting up Maximum Limit on Transfers

• This feature for some faint hearted who feel that if they do some automated payments via Internet banking one day due to some software code malfunction bank would transfer all of their money to someone including some more in over-draft!. You could think of this scenario but essentially we need to keep good faith in the system and legal stuff so that Banks and other Institutions can improve their softwares to provide more sofisticated features to their customers. I heard there is a feature too by which you can open an non-transactional Internet Banking account too - that sounds cool!

Pre-defined list of companies for GIRO and Payments

• Again this is a cool feature which provides you list of most of the companies to which you would ideally pay like - Supermarket, Income Tax Authority, Utility etc. So with few clicks you can select the Payee and do your work quickly.
• GIRO(It is Inter banking payment facility). Again I hear about this term more in Singapore only. This is what is Electronic Clearing System(ECS) is all about.The best part I found is that when I do a GIRO ..I can cancel the GIRO arrangement anytime by going to my Internet Banking portal. Similar systems are in place in I guess most of the countries. But the feature is only good if it is fully automated. For example ..Indian Railway has excellent online tickting portal but when you need to cancel the ticket you need to visit the counter!

Enjoy Internet Banking!