How to Open a BPI Save Up Account
One of the easiest way to save money, be it for your emergency funds, future travel, dream bag etc, is to automate it. The idea is to whisk money straight from your account into a separate account that's intended for a special purpose, this way, there will be less temptation to get your grubby hands on your cash because it's already gone (of course, it's not really gone, it's merely in a separate account from your regular/payroll account).
When it comes to automated savings, I cannot recommend BPI Save Up enough because not only does it make it easy to save, it also bundles life insurance with your ATM savings account. Aside from BPI, the only other bank I know that offers automated savings is Land Bank,* but the latter does not offer life insurance, making BPI the more attractive alternative.
In order to open a BPI Save Up account, you need to have an existing BPI savings account as your source account. To open a BPI savings account, you have to go to a BPI branch and fill out and sign some documents. The initial deposits vary depending on the type of savings account, but the general documentary requirements are:
Once you have successfully opened a BPI account, enroll your account for online banking access. I did this in the same branch where I opened my account, I think it was also the same day that I got my ATM card.
Now this is the part where I got stumped.
I remember I was able to open a BPI Save Up account online, designate the frequency of transfer (i.e. weekly, every two weeks, monthly) and indicate the amount to be transferred by following some simple instructions on the BPI Direct website, kind of like what Ed Puno of the One Armed Wanderer chronicled in his blog post. But this time around, while I was trying to recreate the experience in order to write this post, after clicking "Open a Deposit Account", instead of an application form for Save Up, I was faced with these three options for time deposit accounts:
After clicking one of the links, I was led to the sign in page of BPI Express Online (aka the online bank)
and after signing in, I was greeted by a form on time deposit accounts.
Wtf?!
I double-checked the Save Up account page to see if it was still an active product, and right there at the bottom it said to visit a BPI branch in order to open a Save Up account.
I therefore conclude that you can no longer open a BPI Save Up account online and can only do so in a BPI branch. My guess for the change is that you have to designate who your beneficiary will be for the insurance proceeds, so there's a need to open it in an actual brick and mortar branch, although I don't see why you can't do that online too. Whatever, the reason may be and although it's now slightly inconvenient to open a Save Up account, I still highly recommend that you get one for yourself, specially if you need life insurance since your Save Up deposit account is insured up to 5x its value:
Another thing to point out is that even if the idea is to automate savings, you can still manually transfer money from your source account to your Save Up account using the online banking facility. I have set up my own Save Up account to receive Php1,000 every month from my source account, but I also regularly top up my account every chance I get in order to reach my emergency funds target faster. I'll have to admit though that more than the automated savings, the bigger draw for me was the insurance coverage since BPI is not my payroll account so I really do need to regularly deposit money in it to fund my accounts. But if BPI was my payroll account, I would set it up to transfer between Php5,000-Php10,000 to my Save Up account every two weeks when I receive my salary for a painless, no-brainer savings experience.
Do you have a BPI Save Up account too? If not, where do you park your emergency funds?
*If you know of any other bank that offers a similar product, please leave a comment and I'll update this post. Thanks!
Comments
Having 2x your monthly salary is a good problem to have! And good on you for increasing your emergency funds too in order to account for the increase in your income.
I don't see why you won't be allowed to open several Save-Up accounts, since I know BPI allows multiple savings/ checkings accounts for a single depositor. But just to be sure, you should bring this up directly with BPI.
And good idea on having different accounts to host your emergency and travel funds :)
I don't think BPI Save Up has a maintaining balance. It also doesn't come with a passbook and you can only access it through your BPI Express Online account. If you want to withdraw money from your Save Up account, you go online and transfer money from your Save Up account to your ATM or passbook BPI account and you withdraw money from your ATM or passbook.
If the account is less than PhP1000, the bank will charge you PhP250 pesos.
Thanks
It would be best if you contact BPI directly at 89-100 to ask for assistance. I think my BPI Save Up account automatically showed up under my savings account when I checked online. So I don't know why yours is not the same.
Yup, no initial deposit is needed. And you can't deposit directly into your BPI Save Up account, you have to make a transfer from your parent account.
Yup, the Save Up account is a sub-account under an existing BPI savings/checking account and can only be accessed online.
But you don't have to worry about the temptation of withdrawing your money with only a click, because Save Up is designed to be withdrawn with TWO clicks :P
Seriously though, to withdraw money from your Save Up account, you'll need to first transfer it to your mother account and from there either withdraw it through an ATM or transfer it to a third party account electronically. So it's a click and a trip to the ATM OR two clicks to be able to withdraw your money.
Thanks.
Assuming that the Save Up account can be considered as Express Teller Savings (since it seems to be the most analogous product), it will have a yearly interest rate of 0.25% if you're able to maintain an average daily balance of Php5,000. https://www.bpiexpressonline.com/p/1/326/deposit-rates-savings-and-checking
I am currently an OFW and would like to ask BPI about a question, but sadly they are not replying. Will it be good on your end if you specify the life insurance benefits? I actually don't fully understand the terms:
Coverage equal to as much as 10x the account’s balance
Basic Life: 5x the account's average MTD-ADB** up to PHP 2 million.
Accidental Death: additional 5x the account's average MTD-ADB** up to PHP 2 million.
Accidental Dismemberment up to PHP 2 million.
Cheng
Life insurance proceeds will be five times the amount of your average daily balance for the last three months prior to death, but not to exceed Php2M. This is why I intend to only bank no more than 400k in my BPI Save Up account.
Accidental death insurance proceeds will be 10x the amount of your average daily balance for the last 3 months prior to the accidental death.
Accidental dismemberment proceeds is equal to life insurance proceeds.
I hope I was able to clarify Save Up's insurance benefits!
Do i really need to open up a BPI Savings account to open Save-Up account? Di po ba pwedeng from my other bank savings account na manggaling yung automatic deduction? Thank you po.
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