During a Chinese New Year gathering, a conversation between my mother and her friends somehow shifted to how various Post Office Savings Bank (POSB) branches were silently being renovated into Development Bank of Singapore (DBS) outlets instead. They agreed that this was a “smart move that will not cause a lot of disapproval” since people were not aware that it was happening. They then talked about their childhood days when they had just started saving with the POSB. They excitedly recall how they exchanged their savings for stamps to paste on their cards.

This was not the first time I have heard of collecting stamps to save, but it was something I had not experienced before. As such, it made me question how my parents’ generation remembers the POSB, in contrast to my own experience, and why this experience is only articulated through the context of the acquisition of POSB by DBS.

Using my parent’s recollections of the POSB savings campaign as a start-point, this essay explores why this memory is seldom retrieved and talked about. Primarily, children are understood as a cohort with the unique experience of being inculcated with the value of savings through the campaign. However, there are other factors affecting their memory such as the campaign mechanisms which suggest that the experience is stratified. Furthermore, given the nature of the finance sector, the contribution of children remains relatively insignificant and neither are they concerned with issues of the economy. Finally, utilizing a generational perspective, I explore the generational subordination of childhood memories, by that of adults, and posit that after the children grow up, these memories remain subordinate.

In addition to interviewing my parents, I have also consulted various POSB Annual Reports and commemorative books for background information of the schemes introduced.[i] Newspaper articles were also useful for information regarding the outcomes of the schemes, as well as various public opinions towards the issue at hand.

The POSB was established by the British colonial government on 1 January 1877. Before Singapore’s independence, the POSB was part of the Postal Department. After 1965, the then Minister for Finance Dr Goh Keng Swee, noted POSB’s continuous decline in deposits (Tan, 2005:330), and saw potential in “mobilizing national savings” (Lim, 1997:21).

One outcome was the creation of the Savings Bank Committee to formulate measures to revitalize the bank. In 1968, a “thrift drive” for students was introduced to encourage them to “be thrifty and to save at the postal savings bank” through two schemes: the Schools’ Savings Competition (SSC) and the Students’ Gift Account Scheme (SGAS) (The Straits Times, 9 August 1968). The SSC was for the “highest average amount of savings per student over a specific period” made through their schools (The Straits Times, 25 April 1969); while the SGAS gave children with a minimum balance of $5 in their POSB account, an additional $5 by the Government payable to their account (Singapore POSB, 1969).

The ‘thrift drive’ was a success as a significant number of accounts were opened. For instance, it was reported that a total of 26,449 accounts were opened, “more than the combined figure for the first four months of the campaign (which was launched in January)” of which, 23,233 were opened at schools (The Straits Times, 7 June 1969). By the end of the year, a total of 144,383 new accounts were opened in schools, almost eighty-three percent of the 174,506 new accounts opened that year (Singapore POSB, 1969). The competitions lasted for ten years until 1977. POSB saw the programme as successful in “inculcating the habit of thrift among large numbers of young people in schools” (POSB, 1978:21).

Parents’ Memories

My parents both opened POSB accounts through their schools. My mother remembers the van coming to her school, and all the students would queue up to bring their savings and their bank card to collect the stamps. She also remembers the excitement and joy of getting a stamp. Because her family was not very well off, every five cents saved was considered an accomplishment.

Similarly, my father remembers wanting to have the money to “save” at the bank, even seeking out alternative means to get the money. When questioned about the SSC, they were unaware of the event, as they were more interested in collecting the stamps. They also debated over whether it was a bank book or a card. A blogger “laokokok” confirmed it was a card, sharing pictures of the “Save At School” stamp card (See Figure 1) and the five cents stamps (See Figure 2) they used to collect.

Figure 1: “Save At School” Logo (Photo Credit: laokokok, My First POSB)

Figure 2: Five Cents Stamps (Photo Credit: laokokok, My First POSB)

A Limited and Stratified Experience

The memory of the SSC is limited to the school-going children from 1968-1978. As such, I argue that they form a cohort which Ryder (1997:68) defines as “the aggregate of individuals (within some population definition) who experienced the same event within the same time interval. In this case, the students experience the same savings campaign in Primary and Secondary school across the limited time frame of 1968-1978.

I suggest that although the students are, as Mannheim (1997:41) described, “similarly located… as they are all exposed to the same phase of the collective process” of experiencing the thrift campaign, there is a further “stratification of experience.” By this, I refer to the stratification of the financial background of the children of the various schools.

As the competition was for the “highest average amount of savings per student over a specific period” made through their schools, it generally meant that the impact of the competition affects the winners most. Hence, the students of the school who won were able to save more, and suggesting that they came from a family of higher financial capability.

This is illustrated by my parents’ limited ability to save. As such, they were less able to participate in the event, and thus, less engaged in the event. The financial advantage of several schools can be seen in the winners of the competition. For instance, St Michael’s School and Nanyang Girls’ High School was always within the top five winners for six consecutive years (Singapore POSB Annual Report, 1969-1974). Hence, the status position of the children, and the school that they attended had an impact on the position of their experience within the “stratification” (Mannheim, 1997:41).

Apart from the stratification impact, the position of the students, as children as being in a subordinate position to the adults, causes a silence of their experience due to various practical and conventional views of the children’s experience. This is largely manifested in the lack of articles published in the newspapers regarding the SSC as compared to the monthly reports on the new accounts and deposits at POSB.

On one hand, this could be argued as due to the relatively lowered importance of the students’ savings experience as they save a lot less than an average adult, although they make up the bulk of the accounts. This was suggested by Tsao (1973:13) as she analyzed the “severe drop of the average amount of $148 in 1966 to $129 in 1969.” Moreover, as seen from my parents’ experiences, the students were less concerned with the outcome of the campaign in terms of the amount that they save, than with the excitement that collecting stamps brought about.

Furthermore, the experiences of the students were unique to them. This is because as students and children, they possess a generational subordinate position to their parents and other adults (Mayall, 2002:36). Hence, accounts of childhood experiences are often silenced by the conventional view of children as lacking a moral agency, thus ignoring their participation rights (Mayall, 2002:136).

In this sense, the collective remembering of their lived experiences of saving and collecting stamps is limited to the children. Although the Singapore POSB Annual Reports published the results, or provided statements concerning the competitions, they remained reports on the competition, and were seldom concerned with the experiences of the children beyond the winners.

Finally, the generational subordination of children replicates itself in the minds of the growing children who become adults. Hence, their impressions “coalesce into a natural view of the world” (Mannheim, 1997:42). The children, after becoming adults, continue to perpetuate the ideology of children as subordinate as they require care and often lacking moral agency (Mayall, 2002:110). As such, their memories remain silenced as they belong to a “generation” which is kept subordinated.

Such recollections of the POSB are moreover slowly replaced and altered by other influences such as bank loans or taking out a mortgage. Those emotions and recollections seem to only emerge after the acquisition of POSB by DBS, particularly in the aftermath of the imposition of the $2 surcharge on accounts with less than $500 (The Straits Times, 8 May 2000).

Conclusion

My interest in the POSB savings campaign was sparked by the older generation’s excitement of some sense. Their experiences are foreign to me, despite a common interaction with POSB. Hence, I sought to understand, using the POSB savings campaign as a medium, how the children are understood as a cohort, limiting their experiences, albeit stratified, to themselves. Furthermore, through the use of a generational perspective, childhood memories are generally subordinated by adults, and as a result, the childhood memories remain ignored or forgotten, after the adults grow up.

Melissa Sim is a MSocSci Candidate in Sociology at the National University of Singapore. She is currently researching on the childhood in Singapore.

[i] Presently, a majority of the literature presented on the POSB in Singapore is by financial analysts, or economics students. Tan’s (2005) 11^th edition of Financial Markets and Institutions in Singapore situates the POSB as one of the financial institutions within Singapore, tracing its development. Tsao (1973) and Low (1979) analyzed the POSB’s utilization of funds and its mobilization of the domestic savings of Singapore. Tan (1987) went a step further to compare the bank’s utilization with other financial institutions and their performances. Lastly, Teo (1998) analyzed the acquisition of POSB by DBS, considering the benefits and costs to both financial institutions and their customers. Other publications include the Annual Reports of Singapore POSB and various commemorative books charting POSB’s 100^th year anniversary from their founding of 1877 (Consulton Research Bureau, 1977), or celebrating their 25 years from 1972 (Lim, 1997).

References

Consultation Research Bureau. (1977). The First Hundred Years of the Post Office Savings Bank of Singapore. Singapore: Post Office Savings Bank.

Development Bank of Singapore. (1998). The Development Bank of Singapore LTD To Acquire the Business Undertaking of the Post Office Savings Bank of Singapore Strengthening its Position as the Largest Southeast Asian Bank with Total Assets of Approximately $93 Billion. [URL]

Laokokok. (9 March 2007). My First POSB. Times of My Life, [Date, URL]

Lim, Richard. (1997). Banking on a Virtue: POSBank: 1972-1997 Celebrating 25 years. Singapore: POSBank.

Low, Hwee Huan.(1979). “Post Office Savings Bank of Singapore”. Unpublished honours academic exercise, National University of Singapore.

Mannheim, Karl. (1997). “The Problem of Generations.” In Studying Aging and Social Change: Conceptual and Methodological Issues, Hardy, Melissa A. (ed). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, pp. 22-65.

Mayall, Berry. (2002).Towards a Sociology for Childhood: Thinking from Children’s Lives. Buckingham; Philadelphia: Open University Press.

Ryder, Norman B. (1997). “The Cohort as a Concept in the Study of Social Change.” In Studying Aging and Social Change: Conceptual and Methodological Issues, Hardy, Melissa A. (ed). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, p 66-92.

Singapore Post Office Savings Bank. (1968-1979). Annual Report. Singapore: Printed by Govt. Printer.

Tan, Chwee Huat. (2005). Financial Markets and Institutions in Singapore. Singapore: Singapore University Press

Tan, Yao Hui. (1987). “An Economic Analysis of the Post Office Savings Bank of Singapore”. Unpublished honours academic exercise, National University of Singapore.

Teo, Siew Pan. (1998). “Bank Acquisition: The Case of DBSBank and POSBank”. Unpublished honours academic exercise, National University of Singapore.

The Straits Times. (8 August 1968). Singapore Govt Launches a ‘Thrift Drive’ for Students.

_______. (25 April 1969). Postal Savings Contest for Govt School students.

_______. (7 June 1969). Savings Drive.

_______. (28 April 2000). POSBank Furore.

_______. (8 May 2000). Furore over $2 Fee.

Tsao, May. (1973). “The Post Office Savings Bank of Singapore”. Unpublished honours academic exercise, National University of Singapore.