Tag: save

Interest Rate Series (OCBC 360) [4 out of 5 Burger Patties]

On By RistrettzIn Interest Rate Series, Interest Rates, Personal Finance Series, Promotion, RandomLeave a comment

As on 3 November 2022

The week has been intercepted by headline interest rate hike news and OCBC 360 certainly did take out their competition with a banging headline. As of the 1st of November 2022, the entire suite of the OCBC 260 flagship account will revise its interest rate across the board.

As of their online quote, “The OCBC 360 Account has six bonus interest categories – Salary, Save, Spend, Wealth (Insure), Wealth (Invest) and Grow. By tapping on just three of these categories – Salary, Save and Spend – customers will be able to earn interest of 4.65% p.a. on the first S$100,000 in their bank account.”

Prior to this due to the interest rate environment, the first S$100,000 could get you 1.85% p.a. The biggest update is that for their spending options, you can use the OCBC 365 credit card, OCBC Titanium Rewards credit card, OCBC 90°N Visa card and OCBC 90°N Mastercard.

There are a total of 6 categories:

Salary, Save, Spend, Insure, Invest and Grow.

The basic of the high-yield account is to fulfil the following – Salary, Saving (Keeping the average daily balance by $500 increment monthly) and spending S4500 to the above-mentioned OCBC credit card each month. Quite simply put, by fulfilling these three options, your interest yield is 4.65% p.a. for up to $100,000. (technically 4.64962903% p.a.)

Over 365 days, the interest earned is S$4,649.63

Salary

You need to credit at least S$1,800 of your salary to fulfil the Salary Category. That is if your HR allows that or if you are not employed in another rival or financial institution.

Save

You need to have an incremental S$500 in your monthly balance. However, if this is your transaction account then it might be an issue. But as long as it is an incremental (Average daily balance)

Spend

You need to spend S$500 on selected OCBC credit cards. You can use the OCBC 365 credit card, OCBC Titanium Rewards credit card, OCBC 90°N Visa card and OCBC 90°N Mastercard.

Insure & Invest

Forget about the insurance and Investment portion, there’s probably no way around those.

Grow

For the Grow category, if you have an additional S$100,000 to keep the average daily balance of S$200,000, the first S$100,000 will get an additional 2.40% p.a. while your remaining S$100,000 remain at the 0.05% p.a.

To illustrate, the interest over this S$200,000 will be S$7,099.60 hence the yield for this amount will be 3.55% p.a. (technically 3.54980161% p.a.

To calculate your interest amount, use the link to calculate the expected interest on your saving amount here: Calculate your Interest Amount

Conclusion

This is very interesting indeed. Because competitors will drastically make these changes as well. The interest rate hike might be a good and bad thing. However, take note that these rates are never confirmed or fixed. They follow the current market conditions. By taking on investments or insurance, these interest rates might change fast and furious. Overall, valiant effort and quite good timing as well. In the next few weeks, we might see revisions to compete with this increase in interest rate.

A New Service in Town – Goldback on Hugo

On By RistrettzIn Alternative Income, Deals, Personal Finance SeriesLeave a comment

With the internet, news and services get rolled out pretty at a light speed. Recently, the blog community and several other channels (likely paid/sponsored) has seen a new service in town. It isn’t your usual savings or investment account but instead a Goldback account. At at current, it looks really simple at this point in time. I’m not sure what they have in store for future development. (https://onelink.to/hugosave)

Hugo Save or Wealthcare

Savings are made made simpler through the Hugo Save App. How this works is through Roundups – every transaction on the Hugo Platinum Visa Debit Card is rounded up to the nearest dollar. This weekly Roundup savings are then automatically invested into real physical gold via the Hugo Gold Vault.

There are also other options such as:

1. Micro Investments – Grab Invest (Nothing Fancy but also nothing exciting). These have no lock-ins.

2. Micro Insurance – SNACK by Income. They offer small insurance benefits that build up over time. They can be a good source of insurance coverage for freelancers or folks who just came to employment.

3. With Hugo, they focus on savings and what more can they do to provide it as a platform to save eventually rounded into Gold.

a. You sign up with your details here at Hugo: https://www.hugosave.com/, click on the download button.

b. Fill and submit your details. I believe they have a pretty quick turnaround. Meanwhile, you will need a photo of your NRIC and selfie as a check.

c. Within the next business day, you should have your account setup and proceed into the app to get your physical card. This portion takes about 2 weeks minimally to obtain the physical card and start spending.

Each account is provided with an account number and a DBS Swift Code which is safeguarded within DBS Bank. You can load money via FAST to your account at Hugo

c. You can then explore to create moneypots (Savings) and if you spend on your card, there will be a round up function which will complete your micro savings into what they call Goldback.

Features

There are several features on the app:

  1. You can add money pots to create saving goals. (for example – different kid, PS5, new gadget) Take note though that there will not be any interest earned.
  2. Separately, there is a Gold Vault which you can:
    1. regularly invest in by setting a monthly date and amount to put into Gold
    2. Ad-hoc invest into the Gold account.

The Gold account in the Gold Vault is physical gold allocated against your investments. They are stored in an accredited London Bullion Market Association vault and insured by Lloyds of London.

Some Partnership links

It seems like HugoSave have a couple of partnership links that users can take advantage of:

a. From Circles (Telco): https://bit.ly/HugoXCirclesLife (minimum S$40 payment for 5 bills, get $S20 in staggered Goldback payment) You will need to be a Circles customers I suppose and looks like they have a promotion code to sign up too.

b. From Ohm Energy (Electricity Retailer): https://bit.ly/HugoXOhm (minimum S$40 payment for 5 bills, get $S30 in staggered Goldback payment) You will need to be an Ohm customer I suppose and looks like they have a promotion code to sign up too.

My Personal Thoughts

Pros

Good things first – When i first checked this out, the first thing that came to mind was a structured way to save money. This works for me in terms of setting saving goals for myself and pocket money for my kids.

The idea of roundups came in as a fresh perspective. Putting it into Gold was a little off-putting initially but i figured out that it is a safe haven so no harm to do so.

Next, I eventually thought about freelancers and people who say that they can’t really save every month. This put in to practice what you can really do now. Putting money pots and fix your savings without spending it.

With the increase and new generation into freelance work, this will help people in terms of educating savings. You have a fixed

Cons

I’m just thinking as a devil’s advocate. Should there be more than Gold as an option in this roundup function?

Next up, the physical card took rather long to arrive before I can use it. Perhaps, there can be consideration for spending on the numberless card before it arrives.

Are there any signup perks for customers? Since the objective is driven by savings instead of an interest bearing account. Considering that I can do the same via a Bank app, what is the edge other than purely savings.

Afterall, I’m pretty seasoned in this new app, new services stuff. They spend money to acquire customers, then roll a tight budget to stay sustainable. Nothing wrong in doing so, that’s just entrepreneurship and staying relevant.

Disclaimer

This is not a sponsored post. This is purely my own opinion after using their service and/or products. If you like what you are seeing, do remember to check they out and do your diligence. There is no one size fits all investment strategy.

Now, if what I am sharing does resonates with you, do use my referral codes here at Referral and Recommendations

If you like what I am sharing or if it resonates with you, do use my referral codes for other services at https://atomic-temporary-178675883.wpcomstaging.com/contact/

The pictures were taken from Hugo Save’s website for this article.

Singlife Reopens with new Marketing Strategy

On By RistrettzIn Alternative Income, Interest Rates, New IdeasLeave a comment

I like how Singlife uses the community to spread information. It is definitely a cheap way to spend money. It gives me content to publish while it provides Singlife with multiple arms to disseminate information. However, there isn’t any referral scheme with this re-open. Instead, I guess that to stay sustainable, they have to reduce the interest rates for the first S$10k.

I received the email from their Marketing Communications team and it reads:

The Central Banks continue to keep interest rates low, Singlife has introduced a new way to be rewarded for spending and investing, earning up to 2.0% p.a. return on the first S$10,000 through the following campaigns:

  • The Save, Spend, Earn Campaign and,

  • The Grow 0.5% p.a. Bonus Return Campaign.

The catch here is up to 2.0% p.a. return. Beginning 1 July 2021, the Singlife Account will offer up to 2.0% p.a. return on the first S$10,000. The base crediting rates will be revised to 1.0% p.a. on the first S$10,000 and 0.5% p.a. return on the next S$90,000, customers will still have the opportunity to enjoy up to 1.0% p.a. bonus return.

So, sustainability of the business is a way forward. I’ll say that the interest rate has been semi-nerfed for valid reasons. On top of that, you can still gain 0.5% more by spending and another 0.5% if you invest with GROW. Personally, I wouldn’t put money with GROW but I will spend to make the interest up to 1.5% for the first S$10k.

Disclaimer

This is not a sponsored post. This is purely my own opinion. If you like what you are seeing, do remember to check they out and do your diligence. There is no one size fits all investment strategy.

If you like what I am sharing or if it resonates with you, do use my referral codes here at Referral and Recommendations

In this article, the pictures were taken from websites for illustration only. Stay Safe!