Paperless bank accounts for the net-savvy

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Perform all banking transactions online and prefer statements to be delivered electronically? Two banks launched online savings account in early April - United Overseas Bank (M) Bhd and CIMB Bank Bhd.

Tay Han Chong, senior head, personal financial services division at UOB says that the UOB eAccount offers interest of 0.3% pa for balances of up to RM10,000. The account offers two free Inter-Bank GIRO (IBG) every month and subsequent IBG transactions at RM0.80. Meanwhile, UOB's basic savings account rates is 0.25% pa for balances of up to RM10,000.
CIMB’s AirAsiaSAVERS Account, which is created in partnership with AirAsia and Tune Money offers a 0.8% pa interest rate for balances of RM5,000 and above, and also has a RM5 cash back for customers that maintain an average monthly balance of RM5,000 with no over-the-counter transactions in any day of the month. The cash back offer together with the interest rate payments can translate to an effective rate as high as 2% per annum, says Peter England, head of retail banking at CIMB Bank.

England sees says that the CIMB AirAsiaSAVERS Account is suited for customers who do all their banking online or through ATM’s and really aren’t interested in paper statements or passbooks.
“This is our second account designed specifically for online customers. The whole approach of an online savings account is that we return our savings on things that many customers don’t want anyway, back to the customers.”
"The introduction of the online account is suited towards the younger generation who are constantly utilising the Internet," says Tay.

UOB’s eAccount offers 24 hours online banking facilities. CIMB’s AirAsiaSAVERS account offers online transactions almost 24 hours a day (one hour shutdown a day to process updated files). Minimum deposits for CIMB’s AirAsiaSAVERS Account and UOB’s eAccount are RM50 and RM500 respectively.