You would have heard the news by now about the new membership card which will be launched by the Migrant Workers’ Centre (MWC) and POSB on 1 April 2018.
And guess what? New foreign worker arrivals can sign up for the card as soon as 1 April 2018.
It sure sounds good, but what will migrant workers get when they become members?
Well, should their employers agree, their employers will open a POSB account for them and credit their salaries automatically.
Once the worker has activated the ATM/MWC-POSB membership card at the POSB Account Services Centre at Kaki Bukit Recreation Centre, he or she can send money back to Bangladesh, India, Indonesia and the Philippines via the POSB jolly app. The app will also help to top up their prepaid SIM cards easily.
What’s more, migrant workers will be able to take advantage of exclusive membership benefits such as insurance coverage, telco services and air travel.
They can also take up the affordable Migrant Worker Group Insurance with NTUC Income for just $1 a month!
So what can you as a union leader do about this?
If you have branches with many migrant workers, you may want to encourage your management partners to open an account for these workers and make life easier for them.
For your migrant members, it may be good to encourage them to take up the membership so that they don’t have to worry about where they stash their cash, plus enjoy some awesome discounts and promotions.
A Welcome Move
Executive Secretary of the Building Construction and Timber Industries Employees’ Union (BATU) Zainal Sapari has told me that he is already upbeat about the new membership card.
Here’s what he says: “We hope it will encourage the employers of these foreign workers to open a bank account for salary transfer. This will ensure the workers are paid timely and this sense of security will give them a peace of mind. In fact, we are promoting this card to our foreign members at our foreign worker engagement platforms such as our upcoming cricket game organised specially for them.”
What Our Workers Say
And before you think migrant workers already working here have been left out, the answer is NO.
They just have to wait a bit longer till September this year before they can get on board.
In fact, the news about the new membership launch has already reached the ears of many foreign workers. That is something I found out when I dropped in at a cricket game MWC organised for them last weekend.
I spoke to 30-year-old M Ravichandran from Tamil Nadu who works with a construction company here. He goes to a remittance centre every month to send money back home and already holds a POSB card.
Here’s what he thinks about the new membership programme: “I have to go to Little India to queue for nearly half an hour to send money back to my home. I will be happy to sign on for the POSB-MWC card since I will be able to remit my salary back to my family immediately with the facilities provided by the card.”
It’s the same story for 30-year-old Sharkar Manik. The MWC ambassador who goes to the Bangladesh National Bank branch here to remit money home welcomes the card and is excited about the group insurance with NTUC Income.
He says: “I will take it in September. It is a very good opportunity, the worker will get good insurance and I am happy.”
How It All Started
I met up with MWC’s Executive Director Bernard Menon and his team recently and we talked about how the idea for the membership card came about.
Mr Bernard calls the MWC-POSB membership card project the outcome of a year-long “labour of love” with the Ministry of Manpower (MOM), DBS and the various merchant partners offering privileges to migrant workers.
He says it all started at the beginning of 2017 when NTUC Secretary-General Chan Chun Sing himself broached the idea with MWC after meeting senior management from DBS at an event.
Mr Chan had asked MWC to look into tying up with POSB to enhance the banking proposition for migrant workers with a membership programme with a range of benefits.
What MWC Will Do
So, what are MWC’s plans to get more people into the new programme?
MWC will be tapping on the 2,000 ambassadors like Sharkar to spread the message about the new card to existing workers.
For them, this is a milestone achievement and workers without POSB accounts are already asking MWC how they can take advantage of the membership.
Here’s what Bernard told me: “Some of the workers here have bank accounts which are with the banks their employer is using. So the workers asked me what can they do if theirs was not a POSB account.
“My response has always been [that] you can have multiple bank accounts. It doesn’t matter if what you have is your salary bank account; you keep that one. But your savings can be put into a POSB account, and once you have that, it qualifies you for the membership. If this really takes off, maybe we will start to bring in OCBC and UOB in as well.
“Employers I have spoken to tell me they are happy this is being done. If an employer has nothing to hide, he will generally be paying the workers’ salaries by electronic banking.”
But first things first – MWC is now working with POSB to allow existing workers with POSB accounts to sign up for the membership via the POSB jolly app.
Once that is done, the migrant worker will receive a digital membership card which can be used to redeem the benefits.
MWC hopes to get feature ready for existing workers by August or September this year and then it will be “jolly good” app for all foreign workers in Singapore!
