Getting free cheque books

Cheques are easy to use and a good replacement for cash. Today, it is widely used for various payments.

Often to have a chequing account, we must open a current account with at least $3000. If balance falls below that, then we must pay a penalty. If your balance falls below $1000, then you must pay $2 per cheque from 11th cheque onwards. This is standard among local banks. As for foreign banks, there are some special accounts like StanChart XtraSaver or Citibank Step-Up account, that gives free cheque books, but with conditions and strings attached as well.

So how to beat the banks? There's a saying, if you can't beat them, join them. Yes I joined them, they give me a free chequing account with no min balance required. If you don't want to join them, then there's another way.

I'm sure many have heard of credit line like Citibank's Readycredit, UOB Cashplus, OCBC Easicredit, etc. They are all personal credits with charges like 24% pa. They encourage you to use because they want to earn high interests from you. Many even come with free gifts, promotional interest rates, etc to attract you to apply for them. Now there's something that comes with these personal credit - free cheque books. The cheque book is given to you to use their credit line. They wont charge you for cheque books because they encourage you to use their money so that you will pay high interests to them.

The key is exploiting this personal credit. Firstly, apply for it daringly. There is no costs involved at all unless you touch their money. Once approved, you will receive a cheque book subsequently. You need to have a savings account in that bank also. For example, if you have OCBC savings account, then use OCBC Easicredit. If you have UOB Savings account, use UOB Cashplus. For convenience's sake, internet banking is preferred. So let's say, if you need to issue a cheque of $500, then transfer $500 from your savings account to your personal credit line using internet banking. This transfer is instantaeous because you transfer within the same bank. For example if your existing credit limit is 10,000, your balance will now be 10,500. This is called a CR balance, means you have positive balance of 500 which is your own money. When your cheque clears, you will not incur any charges because you are using your own money.

Remember never touch the bank's money (ie your credit line of 10,000), else you have to pay 24%pa interest for it. Best is to transfer money in before you issue the cheque, or transfer on the same day after you've issued it. Try not to postdate cheques also, may be bounced and hence chargeable. If you accidentally issued any cheque and forgot to transfer, rectify immediately cos they charge interests on daily basis. Then call the bank's hotline and ask them for waiver. If they refuse to waive, then no choice have to pay for your lesson, blame MAS.