I was reading Business Times a few days back and came across a ad by Bank of China Singapore offering 3.55% on a savings account and on analysis I find it the best offer in the market as of now.
Salient features of the account:
| Prevailing Savings Interest Rate (SGD) | |
|---|---|
| Below S$5,000 | 0.25% |
| S$5,000 and above | 0.275% |
| S$20,000 and above | 0.35% |
| S$50,000 and above | 0.40% |
Bonus Interest:
On top of prevailing savings interests, you can earn bonus interests on the first S$60,000 of your account balance when you perform any or all of these:
- Earn 1.55% p.a. when you spend at least S$500 across your BOC Credit Cards and/or Debit Cards.
- Earn 1.00% p.a. when your company credits your salary of at least S$2,000 into your BOC MCS Account.
- Earn 0.60% p.a. when you transact 3 bill payments or 1 BOC Mortgage Repayment from your BOC MCS Account.
What I liked about this account was that by just crediting your salary and spending 500$ on a BOC credit or Debit Card you can get additional 2.55% of interest which is more than DBS Multiplier, UOB One and OCBC account.
If someone is a little more savvy they could make GIRO payments through BOC bank and earn additional 0.60% – Payment for StarHub/Singtel, Electricity/Gas are two simple regular Bill payments that everyone would have, add in a third for say school fee, club fee or any other recurring Bill payment and you have your additional 0.60%.
It is very interesting to see the local banks offering better rates on savings accounts as the Central Banks across the world are going into negative interest rate zones. I think that these offers represent the anticipated interest rate increase in Singapore banking system.
Moreover this account from BOC is a multi currency account and I think a must have for anyone looking to earn higher interest on savings.
Aditya Ladia 
Hello Aditya,
Thank you, as always for your prompt and enlightening response.
Ditto!
My fears are the same, however I overlooked the accumulated interest for upto 3 yrs. Amounting to almost 24 %.
Doesn’t appear to be such a good idea after all.
I would rather take the simpler meat and potatoes approach and go with an NRE FD.
Thanks and regards!
D. S..
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Hi Aditya,
What’s your opinion on Smart Owner property investment in real estate for NRI or OCI individuals?
Is legitimate?
Is it safe? Is it lucrative?
Do you advise it?
D.S.
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Hi D. S.,
I had not heard about Smart Owner before you mentioned it. Did a quick search and it seems like a crowd funded real estate scheme.
The selling point is getting a property for about 20 to 30% off the market rate but the catch is that you would not know the builder or property till it’s 100% funded (sold). Also you are to pay the amount 100% upfront.
Logically looking at the structure – a construction takes 2 to 3 years minimum to complete (could take longer) and by paying upfront you are loosing the opportunity of earned interest which would amount to around 16 to 24% @ 8% p. a. So the discount that you get is basically your own earned interest.
I am personally not comfortable putting in money without knowing the builder or the project and it’s absolutely possible to get 20-30% discount if you approach the builder and pay up the whole amount upfront. So all in all not something I would put my money in.
Thanks
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Interesting. I am currently having ocbc 360 account. Basically that also gives bonus for salary credit as 1.2% and for 3 payments it gives 0.5%. So ocbc 360 is still better without including credit card spend.
The BOC card main difference is the credit card bonus of 1.5% instead of 0.5% in ocbc. If you have a balance of max 60k, then annual bonus of credit cards is 900$ so monthly it becomes $90. 90 over 500 spend is like 20% saving on credit card bills which is awesome.
On the other hand if account balance is like 10k then credit card monthly bonus becomes like 15$. This can be earned from using individual credit card discounts like anz Optimum card has 5% rebate on chosen category. This is my favorite card.
But nevertheless this is interesting!
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Hi Aditya,
Interesting and noteworthy indeed!
Regards!
D. S.
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