The news of the GCash IPO resulted in a significant shakeup in my COL Financial stocks. I concede that I'm really more of a value investor than an active trader, so I only go into my account periodically to see if I have enough dividends to buy more blue-chip stocks. I committed to avoiding adding new funds to the account, so most of my investments over the years have been funded by dividends from other stocks. In order to get in on the GCash action, I had to sell off a bunch of lower-performing stocks and make some hard decisions about some weird one-offs that I had earned as dividends but really weren't doing anything for my account. That helped me secure enough for 2,000 GCash shares with a fair bit leftover for other investments. That led to some AI-assisted research until I settled on trying my luck with REITs instead of just outright shares. Their share value may not look as great in the long term, but they do promise higher dividends, which may be more important to me in the medium term. I've made some initial investments in Ayala's REITs and some renewable energy ones, so we'll see how things go.
Then I came across news that CIMB is considering selling off its Philippine operations, which would directly impact me as a consumer. I had shifted my savings out of BPI when they significantly increased the interest requirements for their higher-yield savings accounts some time back, so I moved everything to GSave/CIMB. They had more competitive rates with weird bonus interest for accounts with minimal activity, which totally fit the profile of these funds. I managed to get around to trying one of their time deposits as well, as 4% seemed like a pretty good return for a 12-month lock-in.
With the possibility of a change of ownership, it felt like a good time to shop around and see what else is there on the market. I've periodically viewed various TikTok people promoting this or that digital bank or financial product, but hadn't put any serious thought into it. I went down the digital finance rabbit hole last night in a rather extensive AI-assisted research run that has lasted well into today. The short answer: I've decided to give Tonik Bank a shot. I briefly considered Maya with their promise of higher interest rates, but those rates are highly dependent on fulfilling various spending missions, which would totally disrupt my existing financial setup. I also considered MariBank given it's the one more often cited in social media videos, but I think that's more a testament to their overall performance as a digital bank and not necessarily the highest yield in terms of interest.
I wasn't very familiar with Tonik going into things, but they seem solid enough and are technically the first BSP-recognized digital bank in the country. They've been rather aggressive on the time deposit front with a promotion of 8% interest earlier this year. Their current time deposit offer is 4% for 6 months with a bonus 1% if I maintain a PHP10k ADB in the main savings account, which is more than reasonable and definitely higher than my CIMB time deposit. I will try to keep a better eye on things, as I expect these rates to fluctuate over time, so I'll have to regularly evaluate if it's still worth locking my money away in the future. Once my CIMB time deposit matures next year, I'll also consolidate those funds with Tonik (or whoever I'm using at that time) in order to continue to make the most of things.
I'm also cleaning up a lot of my different experiments with various mutual funds that didn't quite pan out. I had limited investments in BPI funds and the GCash-aligned ATRAM fund (which I had nearly forgotten entirely!), both of which I'm cashing in to settle more immediate debts and reduce interest payments. I'm also waiting for my COL Financial fund to recover before I cash that in, as they haven't really demonstrated financial savvy in how they've managed that supposed growth fund. I know it has been a tough year with things like the Iran fuel crisis, but I wish my losses didn't feel so significant. I'll stick to regular stocks moving forward since that experiment didn't pan out.
My longer-term savings and emergency funds growth efforts have been more of a fire-and-forget strategy up until this point. But I'm not getting any younger, so I'm trying to take a more active role in all this without going too crazy with the details. This means more consolidation of my savings efforts, staying laser-focused on new deals that offer better yields, and culling investments that didn't aren't as aggressive as I'd like them to be.
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