Planning Your Withdrawals for the Holidays
Posted on December 21st, 2008
The official declaration of December 26 and 29 as special non-working holidays effectively created the longest holiday week in the Philippines. With the official banking day being December 24, the next day December 25 starts the 8-day long holiday ending on January 1, 2009.
Although some banks have announced intentions of opening on some days during the 8-day break to accommodate their clients, some people would opt to rely and depend on the good old automated teller machined or ATM.
The ATM is a convenient way to get our money in cases of emergencies, but with the long holidays coming in, we can expect long queues on those machines. And no matter how the three ATM consortiums in country (MegaLink, BancNet and ExpressNet) promise to provide a greater percentage of uptime, there will be times that these machines will be down.
It’s best to prepare for those times and avoid being in a compromising predicament because we can’t find a working ATM when we need them most (yes, it happens).
Here are some useful tips to avoid those situations, all it takes is common sense really, plus being aware of some features that our ATM cards have that we can use.
First up, the ATM is not your wallet. Withdrawing only the exact amount you need may not be a good decision, thinking that you can always withdraw again when you need more money. Remember what I said, expect long queues and ATM downtime to happen more frequently. You may not always get the money when you need them most.
So properly schedule your expenses and plan your cash requirements so you can avoid those emergency trips and avoid being in a compromising situation.
Second, do you know that you don’t always need to pay with cash on your transactions? Most ATM cards today have a debit card feature where you just need to swipe your card on the cashier’s counter, enter your PIN and the amount will be automatically deducted from your account. This would minimize your cash transactions if you prefer not to carry big amounts of money with you.
And one last word of advice, and it is posted in most ATMs too, be wary of the people around you whenever you are withdrawing your money. It is in this season where crooks and criminals are working double time preying on unsuspecting victims who are withdrawing money from ATMs.
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