From 1 September 2009, the average daily balance requirement for POSB Current Account will be S$1,500. The fall-below fee remains unchanged at S$2 per month for accounts with average daily balance of less than S$1,500.
People's bank??!!! Fuck I'm closing my account.
POSB belong to the LKY generation, at a time when people are encouraged to save and a bank where the bulk of the population can safely banked.
Since its merger with DBS, its identity is probably retained because of political implications and also because its huge source of liquid funds were merged with DBS.
Today, if you look at the queues inside the bank as well as the types of people using the ATMs, you will find that it is still mainly a bank for the majority of a certain segment of the population - students, elderly, blue-collared and the not-so-rich. Gone are the days when the rich will want to bank with POSB as the tax incentive is now common across banks.
So by raising the minimum balance, it is naturally safe to assume that the bank is telling the not-so-rich to ffuk off and put their pittance in tin cans.
But the bank may well say something like: "IT operations cost increase and a person can have multiple POSB-DBS accounts; such a policy will encourage them to consolidate, reduce our operational costs. Our cost savings can then be passed to our shareholders and customers."
Which is logical.
Except when you are dealing with people of very low incomes and have only one POSB account.
Then, the age old justification will be used - how many percent of such customers? 0.005%. Acceptable.
Moral of Today's Society? Don't be poor. You are a burden to everyone.