successful Keep the Change automatic savings programme, one of the
most successful product launches of recent years (and winner of an
RBI award in 2006), is fast becoming one of the most
copied retail products in recent history. Canada’s Scotiabank is
the latest to roll out its own scheme, Bank the Rest – a first for
the debit-card-dominated Canadian market.
Bank the Rest, which is being promoted by an integrated
advertising campaign (see image), enables Scotiabank’s existing and
new customers using their debit cards for purchases to choose to
round up the total purchase amount to the nearest C$1 or C$5, and
have the difference deposited automatically into their Scotiabank
high-interest savings account. To participate in the scheme,
customers need to open a Scotiabank Money Master savings account,
as well as a Scotiabank chequeing account and debit card.
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Unlike earlier automatic savings launches spawned by the runaway
success of Keep the Change – such as Lloyds TSB’s Save the Change
in the UK and Wachovia’s Way2Save in the US – Bank the Rest does
not offer any bonus payments for customers who make regular
deposits to their savings accounts. “At this point, we are not
offering a bonus incentive. This is the first time that this
service will have been offered by a Canadian bank and it's
been very well received,” a bank spokeswoman told RBI.
The bank has launched a microsite at http://www.banktherest.com/ which
offers a tutorial explaining how the new savings programme
operates. According to Scotiabank, Bank the Rest transfers will not
be processed if the transfer would place an account in overdraft or
put it further into overdraft.
Scotiabank’s motivation for launching the programme is partly in
recognition of the fact that Canadian consumers, like their US
counterparts, have had difficulty in setting enough aside in
savings.
In the fourth quarter of 2007, Statistics Canada reported that
the personal savings rate was on the decline, falling by 1.4
percent in the fourth quarter of 2006 to just 0.8 percent in the
fourth quarter of 2007.
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By GlobalDataBank of America’s Keep the Change savings programme, launched
with a flurry of publicity in October 2005, has now resulted in US
consumers saving more than $1 billion dollars in customer round-ups
and bank-matching funds, the bank has declared.
Over eight million consumers are now enrolled in the Keep the
Change scheme, which sees consumers’ debit card purchases rounded
up to the nearest dollar, with the difference being automatically
transferred to users’ savings accounts. Bank of America (BofA)
contributes an equal amount for the first three months and five
percent thereafter, to a total of $250 per year.
