Reading tea leaves

Have you notice that DBS has been changing the denominations and minimum withdrawal accounts at their ATMs?

First, ATMs with a minimum withdrawal of $200 appeared. For the folks trying to withdraw the bare minimum amount of $20 for whatever reasons (don't lie, it is because they are broke and/or didn't have financial discipline), not because of the fear of loss), sorry, you are out of luck.

Then with time, even more ATMs dispensing only $50 appeared. And lately, they started to dispense $100 notes as well.

How I interpret the bank's actions is that these are the bank's reaction to inflation. When inflation is creeping upwards, customer draws cash in ever larger amounts and therefore forced the bank to refill the ATMs at a higher frequency.

Moreover, it makes little sense to spend more to employ more Certis Cisco guards for more ATMs refilling runs.

What I am expecting is that inflation will be rearing its ugly head again and MAS is likely to strengthen the Singapore dollar to rein it in.

And so our overseas holidays will likely to become even cheaper in the future.