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Cash Card top-ups can be effected by both savings and current account holders as long as they have an ATM card issued by one of the participating banks. Bank customers who wish to use their current account to top-up their Cash Cards may contact their banks to apply for an ATM card if they do not already have one.

Under the Telemarketing Guidelines for the Financial Industry issued by The Contact Centre Association of Singapore, all financial institutions whould maintain a "Do-Not-Call" list. Consumers who do not wish to receive calls from telemarketers should inform their banks about it. For more details, please check http://www.ccas.org.sg/.

Rule of 78 is a method used to apportion interest (charged on a flat rate basis) throughout the life of the loan.. This rule is also known as “sum of digits” method. In fact, 78 is the sum of the digits of the months in a year ie, sum of 1 to 12. In using this rule, the sum of digits of the loan period (in months) is always used as the base. Hence, for a 2-year loan, the sum of digits is 300, for a 3-year loan, sum of digits is 666, and so on. The formula for computing the sum of digits for any loan is:

Sum of digits = N (N+1)/2………where N is the loan period in months

In the flat rate basis of interest computation, the interest amount is computed as a lump sum upfront and added on to the loan amount to derive the monthly instalment repayment.

This method of interest computation is commonly used in hire-purchase transactions. Take for example, a two-year (24 months) loan of $10,000 at 4% flat interest, the interest amount of $800 (4% x $10,000 x 2) is added to the loan amount, making a total of $10,800. This amount is then divided by 24 months to arrive at the monthly repayment of $450. Of the monthly instalment of $450, a part of it goes to pay for interest, and the balance to repay the loan. How the interest of $800 is apportioned throughout the 24-month loan period is computed by using the Rule.

Each month, a fraction of the $800 is apportioned as interest charged for the month. For a two-year loan, denominator of the fraction is fixed at 300 (ie sum of digits of 1 to 24), and the numerator (for the first month) is the number of months in the loan ie, 24. Hence, in the first month, 24/300 of $800 is earned by the bank. In the following months, the numerator is reduced by one, every month, so that by the 24th month, the amount of interest earned is 1/300 of $800. The same methodology is used for longer loan tenors, eg in a 3-year loan, sum of digits from 1 to 36 is 666. The fractions for monthly interest apportionment will be 36/666, 35/666, 34/666, and so on until it reduces to 1/666 in the 36th month.

For a numerical illustration of how Rule of 78 works, please click here.

No. The bank cannot refund the money to you immediately. It has to obtain the authorization from the recipient of the money to debit his account before the money can be returned to you. The reasons are as follows:-

• Banks operate on the mandate of its customers. For any withdrawal from a customer's account, the bank must have the authorisation from the account holder, whether in the form of a cheque, a withdrawal slip, instructions through the ATM or internet banking, or any other written instructions. Therefore, if there is a claim from a third party transferor that money has been wrongly credited into an account, the bank cannot reverse the transaction (ie take money out of that account to return to the third party) unilaterally, without the expressed authorisation of the account holder.
• In the many cases of wrongful transfers of money through ATMs in the past, the banks concerned have done their best in contacting the recipients whose accounts were wrongly credited, to get their authorisations for the bank to debit their accounts and return the money to the transferor. However, the bank can only return the money to the transferor only after they have received the authorisation from the recipient of the funds. So far the success rate has been very good.

The Association would like to advise consumers of the following when making funds transfers through ATMs:

• they should ensure that they have the correct account number of the recipient
• they should make sure that they key in the account number correctly
• they should check the account number again before they confirm the transfer

In case a mistake is made, customers should inform the bank immediately, and the bank will try to recover the money from the recipient. However, the bank can only return the money after it has obtained the authorisation from the recipient to do so.