Internet Convenience

If you're a busy parent and is working 8-5, you'd find that it's quite hard to do banking transactions especially since banking during your limited lunch break schedule will eat up the entire 45 minutes of your only time to rest during a day of work.

So here comes internet banking. A very convenient way introduced quite sometime ago.

Before, I used to ignore it and still go to the bank thinking I need to submit this and that, then I might as well just do the errand directly.

But times have changed. We've been much busier than usual and (I know you'll agree with me), some banks take forever to transact with! Talk about 30+ customers with 1 or 2 bank tellers only then here comes a corporate account who is a "preferred" or "loyal" customer who cuts the line and submits like a gazillion items for deposit or encashment...the horror!

Goodbye lunch break.

Hello Overlunch break + Memo from HR (no haven't experienced it personally because If I can't transact at a certain number of minutes, I leave but some office pals and friends have experienced it...plus I don't like Memos, I happen to have good HR stats at work..hehe).

So one time, I finally had the courage to go to the online site of BDO application, printed it out and went to the nearest branches to submit the signed document.

For BPI, I also enrolled online and went to an ATM and activated it.

Quick Review: BPI's system is much more convenient in terms of enrolling for online

Below are a few things I can do without having to run to the bank branches all the time:

BDO
- Check balances

- Pay Bills (enroll online, as long as you have your account number or subscriber number for the bill, it's so easy)

- Enrolling other accounts - you can request this for BDO accounts (not yet sure for other banks), you can do this online and wait for the confirmation. I have yet to get confirmation for my husband's account being enrolled into mine in case I need to transfer funds

- Enroll credit card to check balance, due date (but not the entire statement - you need to do this separately, request a PIN from customer service and you will get it in 2-3 weeks then you need to go to the BDO website and follow the steps)

BPI
- Check balances

- Pay Bills (same as BDO)

- Enroll other accounts - it's much more tedious for this one as you have to print out, sign 4 times on the sheet and send it a branch and wait a couple of days to get them enrolled (I enrolled my husband's and mom's accounts for easy fund transfer, will see how it goes)

- Enroll credit card (same as BDO)

Obviously, if you need to fund your account, you still need to go to the bank and make a deposit unless you have a trusted messenger or helper to do it for you.

But for me, online banking has been a great convenience since I don't need to go to Bayad Centers (unless that merchant isn't available in the options) or transfer or get deposits from my husband or mom (will enjoy more of this later on when they're all activated).

Please do take note that bills payments made online will take around 3-5 banking days for some institutions. So in case they're following up on your due date, just pull up your transaction history and give them the transaction number they are asking for so they can update their system if they haven't done so yet.

Now I'm trying to figure out this Mobile Banking thing and will post about it once it's done


=)