Nostalgia - Banking Souvenir

Although still having a vague memory of the old “China Building”, the owner does not remember since when and how this money box, which is a scale model of the old “China Building”, appear at a corner of the living room.

There are “OCBC”, “CHINA BUILDING”, and “华侨银行有限公司” on the front of the money box.

At the back of the money box, it list out as at Dec 1962, its paid up capital and branches location, e.g. Shanghai, Xiamen, Kowloon, Malacca, Kuching, ……

In the fifties and the sixties of the last century, peoples were encouraged to save. In lines with this policy, the banks had come out with some souvenirs to encourage children to open a saving account.

These doll model plastic piggybanks (there were also made of porcelain) were introduced by Chunk Khiaw Bank. Its hands holding a piglet with the words “CHUNG KHIAW BANK LTD” or “崇侨银行有限公司”. There is a hole on the piggy back for putting in coins. After the piggybank is full of coins, the coins can be poured out by twisting off the doll’s head.

Chung Khiaw Bank also came out with some animal decorations; depositor would receive one with a minimum deposit of S$50. There were also some bigger animal decorations that were also a piggy banks, they serve as a souvenir for those who opened a children saving account.

Besides, Chung Khiaw Bank also came out with a story book that relates to the above animal decorations, its content was to promote the benefits of depositing money into bank.

This picture bring back my memories of those young days, when I went to the Chung Khiaw Bank with my grandmother and auntie during primary school holidays, I always saw those lady staff in cheongsam talking to them friendly like a old friend. As time passes, the impression became vague; I always thought that those office ladies were in their forties or fifties then. Many years later, We recall those bank staff in one family gathering, I was told that they were actually only in their twenties or early thirties.

During primary school days, every student were arranged to open a saving account with POSB. I remember we had to buy stamps to paste on a card, after the card was filled up with the stamps, we then submitted the card to our teacher to deposit the “money” into our saving account. Although I was too young to understand the operation logic, I have had savings habit since then.

As times flies, things changed unknowingly. In the eighties, my colleague taught me that one should make use of credit lines to fully utilize one’s cash in investments, e.g stock. He said the return in share investment will normally more than the interest we pay for the credit card. That was an impact to my money management concept. Although I had an intuitive feeling that there was something not right about what he said, but I was not able to tell what was wrong.

Came to the nineties, that was an era that encouraging the people to be a shareholder. Later, we were encouraged to upgrade our housing. During those years, most of the people were either busy in trading stocks or busy in buying/selling house for upgrading (Housing upgrading was one of the major topics during election). Most of us had a new concept of financial management: saving our money in the bank is not a good cash management as the interest rate will never catch up with the inflation rate.

Later, after the merging in the banking industry, we don’t see Chung Khiaw Bank anymore, and the “People’s Bank” had also become a pass event.