Wednesday, June 8, 2016

Comparing The Best Savings Accounts For Higher Interest Rate In Singapore

Its time to get higher interest rates for our bank accounts now. Interest rates on bank accounts have been very low the past few years at an average of 0.15%. But, all these will change soon as in the past few months, many banks have started to offer good interest rates on selected savings account. This is in line with what the US is doing, increasing interest rates slowly and steadily.
So, which are the bank accounts that will give us higher interest at the moment? I've looked through a few banks and shortlisted 2 banks which have the most attractive rates:

Best Savings Account

CIMB 

CIMB savings account lets you earn up to 1% without any spending required. They have 2 good savings account namely CIMB fast saver account and CIMB StarSaver account.

For CIMB fast saver account, you just need to maintain a minimum balance of $1000 in the account and you can earn 1% on the first $50,000 and 0.6% on any amounts above $50,000. No other conditions required.

For CIMB StarSaver account, you just need to maintain an incremental deposit of S$100 or more monthly to enjoy an interest rate of 0.8% p.a. on the entire account balance.



OCBC

OCBC has the highest and most attractive interest rates so far. The OCBC 360 account lets you earn up to 3.25% on the first $60,000 in your account. Just by crediting your salary of at least $2000 and you get 1.2%. Pay any 3 bills and you get additional 0.5%. Spend at least $500 on your credit card and another 0.5% is given to you. Its easy to get more than 2% interest through the OCBC 360 account.



Furthermore, with their credit cards which has attractive rebates such as the OCBC 365 credit card which gives us up to 6% cashback on dining, 3% cashback on all online spendings, groceries and telecommunication bills and up to 18.3% on petrol, we can enjoy even greater savings on our daily necessities.

Bank Of China

Lastly, we have the BOC smart saver. This savings account is added in due to the suggestions of readers who brought my attention to it. You can earn up to 3.55% interest on this account.

1. Bonus Interest


You can earn bonus interest in the following ways:


  • Earn 0.80% p.a. when you spend at least S$500 across your BOC Credit Cards and/or Debit Cards and 1.6% when you spend more than $1500
  • Earn 0.80% p.a. when your company credits your salary of at least S$2,000 or 1.2% with salary crediting of more than $6000 into your BOC MCS Account.
  • Earn 0.35% p.a. when you transact 3 bill payments from your BOC MCS Account.
  • Enjoy 0.60% p.a. Extra bonus interest when you have fulfilled at least one of the requirements for either Card Spend, Salary Crediting or Payment bonus interest.

This is on top of the prevailing interest which you earn


For me, I have a special corporate account under Standard Chartered Bank which gives 1.4% on any amount in that account. That account is good enough for me as of now. It really makes a difference as I can get much more interest on a monthly basis. Its much better than leaving my money in an account which only gives 0.15%. For $50,000, the interest is $700 per year on 1.4% but on 0.15%, the interest is only $75. This extra few hundred dollars is enough to go on a short holiday trip or offset some of our expenses.

Being smarter with our money is not too difficult. Try one of the accounts above and take the first step to make money work harder for you.

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14 comments:

  1. Hi there,

    Personally, I think OCBC 360 account is unbeatable and a game-changer among the Singapore banking industry. I am unable to find similar local bank that offers such high interest for the saving account. In addition, I like the new feature - the Incremental Bonus of 1%! Just imagine, topping up $100,000 will give you $1000!

    Regards,
    SG Wealth Builder
    www.sgwealthbuilder.com

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Gerald,

      Yes the incremental bonus is quite good. OCBC really has one of the highest interest rate for now.

      Delete
  2. Please take a look at BOC SmartSaver

    ReplyDelete
  3. BOC smartsaver beats OCBC 360 account any time. I think it is time to update this article, even though it is only a day old. There is also the UOB One account, maxigain, etc ...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi,

      I've updated with the BOC smart saver. The other accounts are quite comparable in my opinion.

      Delete
  4. This is lazy blogging. There are comparable and even better accounts out there. Please do your research.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi,

      Maybe you would like to share what are the better accounts out there?

      Delete
  5. Great article! Thanks for writing this! I did alot of research myself and your write up is really accurate.
    What is this special Stan Chart Corporate account that you have?
    To the idiot who wrote the comment on lazy blogging, well, you're an idiot.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi,

      The stan chart corporate account is a tie up between my company and the bank so stagf get special interest rates but for 1 year only.

      Thanks for your kind words and your appreciation of my blogging efforts. It really means a lot :)

      Delete
    2. Thanks for the update! I tried digging information on the Stan Chart bank about that special account but nothing turned up. Thanks for clarifying!
      Opened the CIMB StarSaver account in the end. The process and approval was very quick and easy! Really the era of FinTech is dawning.

      Delete
    3. Cimb ia a good one too. Higher interest with no conditions to meet such as minimum spending etc. Yes Fintech will become even more popular. My next post will be on jobs that are going to he replaced. Which is quite a scary thing if we are in that job.

      Delete
  6. Hi, Now BOC has revised his interest policy... Please check and update accordingly..

    ReplyDelete
  7. BOC wins out if your monthly credit card spend is 1,500 and above. The BOC Family Card has very competitive cash rebate rates (e.g. 7% on Dining, 5% on Supermarkets and Online), and the rebate cap is relatively high at $100 per billing cycle (monthly). If you do not spend that much monthly, Maybank's Smartsaver would be a better alternative - their credit card rebate rates are not competitive though.

    ReplyDelete