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Sharing his views on how to choose the right savings account, SMU Assistant Professor of Finance (Education) Aurobindo Ghosh, who is also Director of the Citi Foundation-SMU Financial Literacy Programme for Young Adults said a main savings account needs to be readily available, with limited downtime, reliable apps, and little or no transaction costs. It also needs to have sufficient fraud detection capabilities and should be interoperable round the clock across multiple platforms such as online and mobile banking, with expense-tracking features, he added.

The latest Singapore Index of Inflation Expectations report released by DBS and SMU on Monday found that in September, Singaporeans expected headline inflation for the year ahead to be 4.6 per cent – up from 3.9 per cent in June. The September figure is an 11-year high. The report notes that Singaporeans surveyed also feel that they will have to fork out more because of rising prices, even if they cut back on spending.

Singaporeans’ headline inflation expectations for the year ahead hit an 11-year high, rising to 4.6 per cent in a September poll from 3.9 per cent in June, according to the latest quarterly results of the Singapore Index of Inflation Expectations (SInDEx) published jointly by DBS Bank and SMU on Monday (Oct 17). DBS and SMU said consumers believe that even with policies in place to ease the impact of the pandemic and its aftermath, global uncertainty and economic disruptions will negatively affect Singapore’s economic growth and inflation. SMU Assistant Professor of Finance (Education) Aurobindo Ghosh, who is the report’s founding principal investigator, said the International Monetary Fund recently projected a slowdown in global growth in 2023, at 2.7 per cent – the weakest forecast since 2001, barring global crises such as the global financial crisis and the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic. “(Our) findings seem to be tracking the global outlook of uncertainty, where Singaporeans expect a slightly negative impact on growth while overall inflation expectations heightened,” he said.