OCBC Bonus+ Savings Account Promotion for 2015

Those who are looking for banking account with good interest rate can take a look at OCBC Bonus+ Savings Account. This is an account that encourages the holder to save more money into it.
For example, it will award you extra interest if you do not make any withdrawal from that account in a month. On top of this, if no withdrawal was made from the account in a quarter, you will also throw in higher interest rate as a reward. This is a good deal if you are a saver.


For this lunar new year, they are offering extra promotion for this account. Fresh fund of at least $10,000 will be rewarded with an extra bonus of 1.2% p.a. for the month of march.


You can find out more details from OCBC website.

Standard Chartered Fix Deposit Promotion is BACK

Standard Chartered Bank is running a promotion on its Singapore Dollars Time Deposit again.
It is offering an interest rate of 1.5% for a 3 month Singapore Dollars Time Deposit. The condition is that it must be fresh fund of at least SGD$25,000. The promotion ends on 10 Nov 2014, so hurry down to your nearest Standard Chartered Bank branch now if you are interested in this promotion.

UOB bank is offering a 1.08% p.a. for Fixed Deposit

This news may be coming a little late, as the promotion is ending on 31 May. Nevertheless, I want to highlight that UOB is offering a 1.08% p.a. interest for a 13 month fixed deposit for Singapore Dollars. To qualify for this, you will need to bring in fresh funds of more than S$20,000.  Those who are interested can find out more at UOB branches or at their website.

Standard Chartered having a promotional rate of 1.5% p.a. for Fixed Deposit

Standard Chartered bank is having its Fixed Deposit promotion again to attract fresh funds.
This time round, it is give 1.5 % p.a. of interest for a 3-month SGD Time deposit. There as some terms and conditions as usual,

1. The maximum deposit that qualify for this promotion is S$50,000
2. It must be fresh fund and they have a new definition for this. From their website, it is stated that "Fresh funds refer to funds not originating from any existing account with the Bank and funds that are not withdrawn and re-deposited within the last 30 days".

But nevertheless, this is still a good time deposit promotion and those with excess cash and who are looking for short term deposit will certainly find this attractive.


Do check it out!

Comparing DBS Multiplier Program with OCBC 360 Account

Those who have been reading my posts will know that I have been blogging about these 2 different accounts for sometime now. From my point of view, these are fantastic new products by the banks that offer higher interest rate than what they supposing "high interest account" offers.


So with limit cash on our hands, which is the better account to deposit our money into? Lets take a look at them heads on.

Overview of DBS Multiplier program

DBS Multiplier  looks at the total transaction based on 4 activities in your associated DBS/POSB accounts. These are

• Salary crediting
• Credit Card spending
• Home Loans Instalment
• Investment Dividends

Once the total for all 4 activities in your account hit and exceed a certain threshold, you will be rewarded with a higher interest rate for the first $50,000 cash in your multiplier account. Details for the interest rate can be found
http://moneychatroom.blogspot.sg/2014/03/dbs-multipler-programme-has-increased.html


In short, there is no minimum amount that you must hit for each individual activity.

Overview of OCBC 360 Account

For this account, you will be awarded a base interest rate of 0.05% p.a. for your account. In additional, the first $50,000 in your account will be rewarded with an interest of 1% p.a. for each of the following activities.

• Credit Salary of at least $2,000 per month
• Make 3 unique bill payments from this account with OCBC Online Banking
• Spend $400 on all your OCBC credit cards per month

In theory, you can get a maximum of 3.05% p.a. of interest for the first $50,000 in the account. But even if you do not hit the requirement for all 3 activities, hitting each one would already have netted you 1% of interest.

Which one is for you?

Generally, I feel that the conditions from OCBC is easier to reach for middle income worker, as they revolves around activities that you most likely will do every month, such as paying 3 bills, spending $400 on credit cards.


Although DBS does not have a minimum amount for each activity, its minimum threshold for all activities is at $7,500, which shows that it is aiming at those who are earning and spending more. They are also targeting the group that has high home loan instalment and/or high investment income.


So you will need to work our based on your earning, spending and investment patterning to see which one can give the best return for your money.


If you do not have problem hitting the all the requirements for both, the OCBC will be better as it offers a higher interest rate of 3.05%. DBS highest interest rate is only at 2.08%. Better yet, put into both if you have more than $50,000 so that you can enjoy higher interest rate for higher amount of your cash.

OCBC 360 Account

Some time back, I wrote an article about DBS Multiplier Program where DBS rewards you with higher interest based on the total banking relationship with the bank. Hot to the heels of DBS is OCBC, where they have recently launched their OCBC 360 Account.

How does it works?

It earns a base interest of 0.05% p.a. for all money in the account.


In addition, it will award extra interest in the month on the following condition,
1% p.a. on the first $50,000 in the account if you credit your salary to that account.
1% p.a. on the first $50,000 in the account if you pay any 3 bills in that month.
1% p.a. on the first $50,000 in the account if you spend more than $400 in credit card


With everything in, this means that the maximum interest rate that one can possible earn from $50,000 is 3.05% p.a. This is a very good rate, taking into account the current low interest environment that we are living in.

Conclusion

If you indeed have banking relation with OCBC, do consider using this account to increase the rate of return of your money

Benefits of having different types of accounts

Do you find it hard to track where your hard earn money goes to? At the end of every month, do you keep asking yourself why its so hard to save any money for the month? Fear not, you are not alone. This is a very common scenario for a number of working adults. To overcome this problem, financial experts advocate splitting your monthly pay into several accounts once you get hold of the money.

Pay yourself first

The very first account is your "saving" account. Every month after getting your pay, you should immediately take out a portion of it and put into this account. Regardless of how small the amount, "paying yourself" before you spend the rest will allow you to slowly accumulate savings over the long run. Ideally, you should save up to the point where you have 6 months of living expenses. Thereafter, you can consider channelling the excess to the "investment" account.

Invest for the long run

Reader of this blog will know what I am a strong believer of investment. Depending on interest rate of savings account will never be enough to fight inflation in the long run, so its better to invest the excess to enjoy compounding effect. This is especially useful if you are young and can ride out the investment cycles along the way. Therefore, as more money start to fill into your "investment" account, you can slowly opt to invest them. I have also written another article on regular savings plan, where you pay a fix amount every month to invest in a financial product. You can check that out.

Enjoyment fund

After paying yourself and spending for the month, if you have any left over amount for the month, you can then set it aside and transfer to the enjoyment fund. I always think that its best you save up for things that you want, be it the latest gadget or your dream holiday. Its always unwise to take up debt and credit for enjoyment purposes.




After this, the whole cycle will repeat itself in the following month. Therefore, by following this, you will be sure that you will always spend within your means and not overspend.

DBS Multipler Programme has increased the interest rate!

DBS Multiplier programme encourages consumers to perform total banking with DBS. For those who are not familiar with the DBS multiplier Programme, you can check out one of my earlier posting here.

With immediate effect, DBS bank has revised the interest rates of this programme and its to the benefit of the consumers. Below are the new interest rates. 

Total Monthly Cash Flow#	Higher Interest Rate (p.a.)*
S$7,500 to <S$10,000	0.98%
S$10,000 to <S$12,500	1.28%
S$12,500 to <S$15,000	1.48%
S$15,000 to <S$20,000	1.68%
S$20,000 and above	2.08%

When compared to the old interest rates, DBS bank has raised the interest rates of the top 3 tiers. The highest tier now enjoys the interest rate of 2.08% ( up from 1.58%  previously). This certainly makes things even more compiling to consolidate all financial transactions with DBS now.

Promotional Deposit Interest Rate for the Lunar New Year

Its the time of the year where Chinese are preparing the Lunar New Year celebrations. Shops are coming out with all sorts of promotions to entice consumers to part with their money and banks are no exception. The only difference is that banks want you to leave your cash with them by giving you a higher interest rate for your money.


By giving you a few tenth of a percentage more in interest, the banks hope that you will leave more of your hard earned cash with them, so that they can use that funds to earn more money for themselves. This is why most of these promotions are only applicable if you deposit fresh funds with them. Fresh funds, in this case, are money that do not originate from the banks. Some of them may even add in conditions to the promotion that funds withdrawn and re-deposit within X amount of weeks cannot be counted as fresh funds.


What are some of the available promotions for cash deposit at this point in time?

OCBC

The bank is offering a promotional interest rate of 1.1% p.a. for a 12 month SGD time deposit with a fresh fund of at least $20,000.


They also have a Bonus+ account that offers 0.9%p.a. effective interest rate for 3 months with $10,000 fresh fund. Their premier customer will be offered a 1.0%p.a. effective interest rate for 3 months with $100,000 of fresh funds

UOB

UOB is offering a 1% p.a. 13 month SGD time deposit with a fresh fund of at least $20,000. In addition, their savings account can earn extra bonus rate of up to 0.9%p.a. until 28 Feb 2014 if you top them up with fresh funds

CIMB

CIMB is offering interest rate of 1.1% for a 12 month SGD time deposit of at least $25,000. For normal saving accounts, CIMB still offer a good rate of 0.8% p.a. if the monthly increment is more than $100

Interesting account that rewards banking relationship with DBS, the new DBS Multiplier Programme

Just came across this new program from DBS that rewards total banking relationship for their average retail clients, called the DBS Multiplier Programme. Ok, I admit that I am a little slow and this programme is actually not so new, as it was launched in December 2013. Nevertheless, it promote a interesting concept of total banking relationship with a bank that was previously only available to the affluent segment of the banking customer.

How it works?

Basically, the bank will track your monthly cash flow on the following segments

1. Salary credited to the bank
2. Credit card spending
3. Home loan
4. Dividends from CDP

At the end of the month, it will tally to see how much cashflow is involved in the above activities.
From this final cashflow figure, interest rate of various tiers will then be paid out.

Below is an extract from their website on the type of interest rate that you can expect when your cashflow hits certain level.

Total Monthly Cash Flow#	Higher Interest Rate (p.a.)*
S$7,500 to <S$10,000	0.98%
S$10,000 to <S$12,500	1.28%
S$12,500 to <S$15,000	1.38%
S$15,000 to <S$20,000	1.48%
S$20,000 and above	1.58%

My thoughts

The interest rates being offered are actually pretty good for the current low interest environment. Those who are interested can check out the information at http://www.dbs.com.sg/personal/deposit/multiplier/default.page

As with all other banking products, there are certain fine prints associated with it. Do check out the T&C and make sure that you understand them before opening the account.


UPDATE
Follow-up article can be found at
http://moneychatroom.blogspot.sg/2014/03/dbs-multipler-programme-has-increased.html

Chasing Interest Rate

For the last few years, bank interest rate has been hovering at record low levels. In Singapore, a normal saving account yields a negligible 0.05% to 0.1% interest per annum. The supposing higher yielding Fixed Deposits accounts are also not faring any better. A 12 months fixed deposit account in Singapore dollars yield only 0.25% interest per annum.

Because of the low interest environment, putting cash into your savings accounts is not a very good option. In fact, as inflation rate is way higher than the returns from interest, you are actually poorer if you take inflation into account. For example, assuming that inflation is at 3%, a $100 product will cost $103 in one year, but if you save that $100 into a bank, it will only grow into $100.10 after 1 year (at 0.1% interest). In real terms, you are better off spending the money than trying to save it.

Nevertheless, financial planners always advocate the need to have up to 6 months of living expenses in liquid assets and this means that it is unwise to totally invest all your spare cash. The question will be, where do I park the cash?

For cash savings account, the rate offered by CIMB is one of the highest in town. Their StartSavers account offers an interest rate of 0.8% per annum if the balance of your account increases by more than $500 every month. If its less than $500, the basic interest rate is 0.5% per annum, which is considered quite decent as well. The only problem that I had saving with CIMB is that it only has 2 branches in Singapore, one at Raffles Place and the other at Orchard. Its rather inconvenient if you need to personally visit the branch.

If you are looking for a bank that has branches that are easily accessible, then OCBC will be the best alternative. Their Higher Interest Deposit Account (Bonus+) offers an effective interest rate of 0.69% per annum after averaging out all the monthly and quarterly bonus interest. Personally, I find this as a better option, as

• The 0.11% per annum interest is not going to be a lot if this is only for 6 months of emergency cash
• The large number of branches makes it easy to visit the bank if the need arise. Furthermore, some branches have Sunday banking and this makes it even easier for working folks.

What other interesting ways of chasing interest rate do you have? Do share with us by leaving them in the comments below.