The Most Affordable Bank Accounts in the Philippines (2026 Guide)

A current look at no-maintaining-balance and low-fee savings accounts worth opening in 2026, plus what changed since the prepaid card shake-up of 2024-2025.

SBC

Written & reviewed by the

ShopByCards Editorial

Last updated June 2026

4 min read

The Most Affordable Bank Accounts in the Philippines (2026 Guide) — Photo: wal_172619 · Pixabay (Pixabay Content License)

Key takeaways

CIMB UpSave still leads on plain interest at 2.5% p.a. with zero maintaining balance and zero opening deposit.

Maya Savings pays 3.0% base and can boost up to 15% p.a. on the first PHP 100,000, but only if you hit daily activity tasks.

BDO Basic Deposit Account is the easiest traditional-bank option, capped at a PHP 100,000 balance and openable in-app.

Several prepaid cards from old guides are gone: EON, BPI Amore, RCBC MyWallet, and the BDO Cash Card have all been retired.

All deposits are PDIC-insured up to PHP 500,000 per depositor, per bank, so splitting funds across banks is a real risk-management lever.

What changed since the last version of this guide

If you landed here from an older ShopByCards article, a quick heads-up: the Philippine prepaid-card landscape was cleared out between 2024 and early 2025, and several products we used to recommend no longer exist. UnionBank EON Prepaid Visa was discontinued on 22 July 2024. BPI Amore Prepaid Visa followed on 27 December 2024. RCBC MyWallet was retired on 11 November 2024, and the BDO Cash Card was wound down in March 2025.

The practical effect is that the "cheapest way to bank" in the Philippines is no longer a prepaid card you top up at a 7-Eleven. It is a no-maintaining-balance digital savings account, opened in-app, that doubles as your e-wallet and your card. This guide reflects that shift. Where prepaid still makes sense, we point to the products that are actually still in market in 2026: Maya Mastercard, GCash Mastercard, PSBank Prepaid Mastercard, and the BDO Pay Card that replaced the old Cash Card.

The headline rule is unchanged: deposits in any Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas-supervised bank are insured by the PDIC up to PHP 500,000 per depositor, per bank. If you are parking serious savings, splitting across two or three of the accounts below is the cleanest way to stretch that cover.

The best no-maintaining-balance accounts in 2026

CIMB UpSave: 2.50% p.a., no strings

UpSave remains the simplest answer to "where do I keep my emergency fund." There is no opening deposit, no maintaining balance, and the 2.50% p.a. rate is paid on the whole balance with no tasks, no boosts, and no monthly hoops. Onboarding is fully digital and usually takes under fifteen minutes. The trade-off is that CIMB does not have branches, so cash deposits go through partner channels and can take a day to post.

Maya Savings: 3.0% base, up to 15% with boosts

Maya pays 3.0% p.a. as a base rate on your savings balance, which is already the highest unconditional rate among the digital banks in this list. The widely-advertised "up to 15% p.a." headline applies only to your first PHP 100,000 and only if you complete daily and weekly activity tasks (transactions, log-ins, top-ups). Treat the boost as a bonus you sometimes earn, not the rate you plan around. The Maya app also gives you a free virtual Mastercard and an optional physical card with no annual fee, which is why it tends to replace a prepaid card outright.

UnionBank Online Savings

UnionBank's Online Savings has no maintaining balance and is openable in-app in about ten minutes with a valid government ID. Interest is modest, so this is the account to use if you want a full traditional-bank relationship (large transfer limits, branch access, payroll, loans) without paying for it. It pairs well with CIMB or Maya, which hold the higher-yield bucket.

RCBC OneAccount iSave

OneAccount iSave has no initial deposit requirement and pays a tiered 0.15% to 0.20% p.a. depending on balance. The rate is, frankly, weak in 2026, and we would not recommend iSave as your primary savings account. It earns a spot here only because RCBC's app integrates iSave with their digital cards and bills hub, which some readers will value over a higher headline rate.

BDO Basic Deposit Account

BDO's Basic Deposit is the easiest way into the country's largest bank if you want branch access and a familiar ATM network. There is no maintaining balance, you can open it in the BDO app or at any branch with one valid ID, and there is no opening deposit. The catch is a hard PHP 100,000 balance cap. If your balance crosses that, BDO will either ask you to upgrade to a regular account (with maintaining-balance rules) or stop accepting deposits. It is excellent as a starter or as a secondary cash account, but it is not where you build a six-figure savings.

If you still need a prepaid card

Most readers no longer do. A Maya or GCash account already gives you a free Mastercard tied to a digital wallet, which covers almost every prepaid use case. If you specifically need a reloadable card that is not tied to an e-wallet, the PSBank Prepaid Mastercard and the BDO Pay Card (the official replacement for the discontinued Cash Card) are the two options still in market. The Maya Mastercard is free to issue. The GCash Mastercard has no annual fee but charges a PHP 250 one-time issuance plus shipping.

One small housekeeping note on PayPal

Because so many readers ask: the PayPal verification charge for Philippine accounts is now PHP 100, refundable, and the four-digit code still posts to your statement in two to three business days. Older guides quoting USD 1.95 or PHP 110 are out of date.

How we would actually combine these

A reasonable 2026 setup for most readers is CIMB UpSave for the emergency fund (clean 2.5% on everything), Maya Savings for daily spending and the free Mastercard, and a UnionBank or BDO account for payroll, branch deposits, and any product that still asks for a "real" bank. That stack costs zero pesos a month to maintain and keeps each bucket under the PDIC PHP 500,000 cap.