2012.11.19 - "bonus" pitfall

some time ago i've opened myself a new bank account. the nice thing was that they give extra % of the biggest incoming transaction within the month (aka “bonus”). for most ppl this means monthly payment. it worked well for a few months, but recently % was way lower than the expected (i.e. last month's one). out of the curiosity i called the bank to ask what just happened. how surprised i was when i got informed that “month” for them means “27 day of month N to 27 day of month (N+1)mod12” and this cannot be changed!

since ppl often get irregular payment, around the end of the month, it means that from time to time, bank will randomly receive two payments within a single “month” (as defined previous), while none in the other. now a second term goes into account – the “bonus” is a % of the transfer, but with the upper limit. if you earn enough for your 2 month payment to pass this magical threshold you actually loose money, since you do not get two month worth “bonus”, while keeping the account does cost. of course this little detail is never placed on the advertisement.

fortunately there are ways to overcome it as well. ultimately building better mouse traps forces nature to produce better mice.