Rich Bank; Poor Boy

Come save with POSB but pay $4.50 to deposit coins

Basically, this boy (and many other children) was given a free piggy bank from POSB to encourage them to put aside some spare change on a daily basis.

The boy religiously saves his spare pocket money, fills up his piggy bank to the brim, and happily trots to the local Post Office Savings Bank (POSB) to deposit his coins into his account.

I know how he must have felt. After all, there was a (somewhat) similar scheme when I was a kid. It was called Squirrel Savers or something like that. I still have the ceramic piggy bank. I say 'somewhat' because things have changed.

You see, the boy deposits his hard-earned 500-plus coins and finds out that he has amassed a princely sum of $86.60. For a kid his age, it must be a fortune. To suddenly see a figure of $86.60 is akin to a windfall!

Alas, there's a catch. The article goes on to explain that this poor boy has to fork out $4.50 to get his coins counted. It's an administrative fee from POSB.

$4.50!

Let's do some financial analysis here:

$4.50 is 5.20% of his savings;

At current POSB interest rates of (a meagrely) 0.25% per annum, this poor boy has to save $1800 (ONE THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED) a year just to cover his stupid admin fee of $4.50.

Is this fleecing or what?!?!??!?!