What?! 3.85% interest!

Yes, it's 3.85% p.a. interest. And it's not those invest $500/mth with us get 0.5% additional interest on savings, incremental savings get 0.8% bonus interest etc. The product I am sharing in this post is simply Fixed Deposit! Ok, not that simple, it is Renminbi (RMB) Fixed Deposit.

Why am I sharing this product? Because RMB-SGD has dropped to 4.9x now (nah, this is the actual rate from local money changers, can see CashChanger.co for an accurate guide) - same as half a year ago! But the difference is..half a year ago, the RMB Fixed Deposit interest was only 2.9% as compared to 3.85% now. Why I know it was 2.9%? Because I signed up half a year ago fml :(

Which Bank is offering such interest rate? ICBC! You may check out the interest rate here.  They have branches at Raffles Place, Chinatown, Paya Lebar, Jurong East, Sembawang, Simei, Punggol and Holland Village (click here to view the branches).

What are the risks? The most obvious would be the currency exchange risk. RMB may continue to slip and by the time your 1-year FD tenure is up, RMB-SGD may be >5! So, this RMB FD is good if you are able to stomach such risk and hold longer term should it be >5 when the tenure is up; or if you intend to go China for holiday one year later haha! But hey, it may go the other way round, i.e. RMB strengthen against SGD and we may see exchange rate at 4.6? When that happens, you would net currency gains (though we need to be worried about our economy when RMB strengthen too much).

Another risk I can think of is foreign currency FDs are not insured under Singapore Deposit Insurance Corporation. So please take note!

Disclaimer: these are my personal opinion and for general information only. Please seek professional advice if necessary.

Safe place to park your money?

What came to your mind first? Fixed deposit? You are not alone!

I am not sure how many of you still believe in FDs. Current FD interest rate is about 0.8% for 12mths tenure, if you put less than $10,000. One year later, you get $80 interest or less. You might do better putting your money in a normal savings account that offers bonus interest rates for salary crediting, spend on credit card, investment with the bank bla bla bla.

Many banks offer such savings account but some of us may find it a hassle to fulfil those bonus-interest requirements, e.g. your employee still issues cheque for salary! Haha! Or your savings in that account exceed the maximum limit for bonus interest. So what can you do?

Singapore Savings Bond!! Bond is a form of instrument to raise money. In return, bond holders get paid fixed interest periodically; and when the bond matures, like FDs, the bond holders usually get back the principal sum.

Why should you get interested in Singapore Savings Bond? SSB is fully backed by the Singapore Government, meaning you will get back your investment amount in full (unless something really bad happens?). Interest rate is typically higher than FD. For e.g. Feb18 bond stands at 1.55% interest for the first year which is not bad right? What’s more? The minimum investment amount is only $500 unlike FD which require at least $5000 yet offer a lower interest rate.

Still having reservations? The interest rate increase every year you continue to put your money in it. Taking Feb18 bond for example again. The interest rate is 1.59% for the second year...1.91% for the fifth year...and steadily increases to 2.75% for the tenth and final year! This mechanism encourage individual to save for long term. Ok, I heard you! Ten years seems very long, what if I need the money? Not to worry, coz flexibility is yet another advantage of SSBs. You can choose to redeem the bond anytime and get back the full amount within one month. And since the interest is only paid half-yearly, whatever interest will be pro-rated and paid to you. Very different from FDs whereby you lose all interest earned if you withdraw before maturity date.

To me, it’s a good way to start investment if you hadn’t, especially if you are afraid of the risks in buying shares and what not. I even have a friend who buys SSB only and doesn’t look at shares although the returns are generally more rewarding.

For more info, you can visit http://www.sgs.gov.sg/savingsbonds/Your-SSB/This-months-bond.aspx. There is even an Interest Calaculator for you to work out how much interest you willl be getting over ten years :D


Disclaimer: these are my personal opinion only. Please seek professional advice if necessary. 

Updates on saving loose change

It has been a while since my last post! Many things that I shared in the past have changed. Previously shared OCBC SmartChange but the bank has removed this feature.

Nonetheless, here’s an update on saving loose change. Look at what Ah Boys to Men’s IP Man has done!!

THIS IS WHY YOU SHOULD KEEP YOUR CHANGE! Looks like my Tokyo trip next week is settled 😂👌🏼 pic.twitter.com/wjCxiRkazl

— Noah Yap 叶荣耀 (@TrulyNoah) October 13, 2017

Accumulated almost $3000 worth of coins in a coke bottle and banked in! That’s quite impressive isn’t it? We can be motivated by such anecdotes.

This is what I used to do too! Saving all the loose change. But I changed...

Instead of keeping all the loose change at home, I have been keeping only $1 coins in my coin box. What do I do to the rest of the denominations? I try to bring out and spend the next day. For e.g. I bring 80c worth of coins out; if that Old Chang Kee curry puff costs $1.60, I give the cashier $2 note + 60c coins and get $1 coin in return. Repeat this and I will reduce the coins to $1 coins at the end of the day.

So why this change? You may notice that IP Man incurred a coin deposit fee of $90 for the 7500pcs coins he deposited. If I deposit 3000pcs of $1 coins instead, the fee can be reduced to $36 only. Fees aside, it is also less frustrating and less time-consuming to count only $1 coins.

But TheMoneyFace is still not satisfied. Why should I let the bank eat my money? It’s easy to skirt around this fee... change with coffeeshop/hawker stalls and mama shops (don’t make things difficult for them by trying to change or use 5c coins on them as these small businesses rarely sell things in that denomination); deposit into kids savings account (zero coin deposit fee; e.g. POSB); or throw all coins into the coin acceptance machine at supermarkets (but make sure no long queue okay)!

Save on! There are still many ways to save! Please comment below to share what’s your saving technique $_$

Let's wave it!

Heads up, if you have UOB ONE card! This credit card comes with the payWave feature whereby you can pay for your purchases just by tapping your card on the reader (machiam EZ-Link card). Quick and easy, no signature needed! The cap per transaction is $100 though, for security reason.

(picture from UOB ONE website)

Being the MONEY FACE, I would't write on this feature unless there is some monetary gain. As you can see from the above banner, you can get $1 cash rebate for every Visa payWave transaction from now till 31 July 2012. All you need to do is to type SMS ONE <space> 16-digit One Card principal account number to 77862 to register, pay for your purchases using payWave and you will receive the cashback into your credit card account on or before 31 October 2012. The catch is that the cash rebate is capped at $10. Full Terms and Conditions are available in this PDF file (link) and click here for the official UOB ONE website!

If you are going to purchase some miscellaneous items, just use payWave! For example, when you buy a Mentos which would cost you 70-cents from Guardian, you can just payWave it and a $1 cash rebate will be yours! As strange as it is, you get to receive 30-cents for buying a Mentos ($_$)

What are you waiting for? Let's start waving! $$$$$

StanChart CNY 2012 Shop for Free

Wish The Money Face Readers a HAPPY 2012!

May you move closer to your financial goals / achieve greater heights financially in the year 2012!

Now, what is The Money Face going to tell you dear readers? I just saw Standard Chartered Bank has a new promotion. It's the Shop for free this Chinese New Year promotion.

There are two parts to this promotion..let's see!


Part One - Win back your spending!
For every transaction you make between 1 January 2012 and 15 February 2012, you will qualify for a lucky draw in which you can win back your spending (a cap of $500)  for that particular transaction.

There will be 3 winners every hour of the day, so it sums up to be 72 winners per day and 3312 winners for the whole promotional period. How it works is that StanChart will group the transactions made within the same hour of the day and there will be a computerised system to random select 3 winning transactions from the same group.

I personally like the way they group their sample size by the hours, instead of day, week or even the promotional period; probability of winning if you spend during the wee hours of the day seems quite high eh? However, I shan't pin too much hope on winning anything. For me, I am more interested in Part Two of this promotion, i.e. getting a guaranteed gift $_$

Part Two - Guaranteed Gift
This is the real deal for me! Part A is just a good-to-have :)

On top of standing a chance to win back your spending, StanChart will give you a Sony Audio Dock ICFDS15iP (I suppose is some speaker which will play musics from your docked iPhone) if you spend at least S$3,500.00 during the period of 1 January 2012 to 15 February 2012!

(picture from StanChart website)

StanChart is pretty generous in giving free stuffs and I love it!! :)

Before you start shopping, you must...

register your StanChart card in order to qualify for this promotion.

To participate in both promotions, simply send an SMS to 78722 in this format:

WIN<space>16-digit Standard Chartered Card number. For example: WIN 4508123456789000

For more information, please visit StanChart website http://www.standardchartered.com.sg/promotion/shopforfree2/index.html

Wish all of you luck! :)

Investment - how to get started on buying shares?

Hey folks, apologies for the lack of update the past three weeks because some dreaded things happened and I just had to get them right. Well, all was not bad for there were some other stuffs to divert my attention elsewhere. Okay, before this turns into a personal blog....

Let's start talking about investment. While the topics on this blog have so far focused on getting free money, earning more interest from banks and such, I personally believe that if one wants to go on to the road of riches, he would have to look towards investments.

Investment is quite a broad term - it can range from the commonly-known company shares, properties, commodities, forex, to another spectrum such as collections of art pieces, antiques, numismatics. All these are leveraging of resources, I would say. As I shared with my colleague before, leveraging of resources is probably the only way to multiply your earnings; this would be another topic all together.

Although I have mentioned a few investment vehicles in the previous paragraph, the focus of this post would only be on company shares.Specifically, this post aims to shed some light on how to get started on trading (buy or sell) shares listed on the Singapore Exchange (SGX). There are two essential accounts which you need in order to start trading - a brokerage account and a Central Depository Pte Ltd (CDP) account.

A. Brokerage account
This is the account you need to trade shares and the broker you choose has to be an SGX member (please refer to http://www.sgx.com/wps/wcm/connect/sgx_en/Misc/regulations/directory+of+members/ for the listing). There is no limit to the number of brokers to open an account with, for example, I have accounts with Philip Securities, UOB Kay Hian, DBS Vickers and Kim Eng Securities. I shall briefly talk about the pros and cons of these brokers in another post.

B. CDP account
A CDP account is where all the shares you bought on the SGX are kept. Conversely, any shares sold on the SGX would be debited from your CDP account. In case you are wondering, SGX is based on a scripless system in which there are no shares certificate moving around like in the past.

C. Good-to-have services
(i) Electronic Payment for Shares (EPS)
Gone are the days you need to send cheques or make a trip to the broker to pay for share purchase, and vice versa. The EPS is a service where you can designate your bank account to receive sales proceeds and pay for shares purchases directly. When this service has been set up, you can make transactions through your bank's ATM or Internet Banking platform.

(ii) Direct Crediting Service (DCS)
Okay, this is quite important - it is for the receiving of dividends ($_$) or other cash entitlements given by the companies which you have shares with. With this service, you will be able to receive the $$$ on the payment date; no need to wait for cheques no more!

(iii) CDP Internet Access
By default, a person would receive half-yearly paper statement on his share holdings in the CDP account; or a monthly statement if there are trading activities made that month. It is kind of inconvenient as you would need to wait till month-end to check on your positions. Good news is that you could apply for CDP Internet Access and with that, you would be able to check your positions anytime, anywhere!

How to get started?
I shall share with you my personal experience of "getting started". When I first started, I chose Philip Securities (http://www.poems.com.sg/) - reason being they are commonly-known. What I did was to walk in to their investor centre and said I want to open a trading account. As I was totally new back then, they gave me the forms to open a trading account and CDP account; the application for EPS and DCS services were also done on the same trip. Well, that's quite hassle-free.

Thereafter, you would need to wait for a few letters to arrive in your mailbox, to name a few: i) welcome package from your broker, ii) phone/internet pin for your trading account, iii) welcome from CDP, iv) confirmation of bank account linkage for EPS and v) confirmation of bank account linkage for DCS.

That's basically all you need to start trading. I guess the process is more or less the same if you go for other brokers. As for the CDP Internet Access, I guess you would need to make a trip to the CDP Customer Service to get the application form and submit it. That's kind of troublesome, but no choice (CDP seems quite strict when it comes to signatures).

How about $260 for you?

Update: the promotion period has been extended to 31st December 2011

Yes, it's free money again. This time round, it's from Standard Chartered Bank.

StanChart always have free-cash promotions, just by signing up their credit cards. I had gotten $300+ cash  for signing up their cards a couple of months back. :D

So, what are they offering this time? You can get $80 when your online application for a credit card is approved. However, this free-cash promotion is only valid for a maximum two card applications, i.e. you can only receive $160 ($80x2). You may check out http://www.standardchartered.com.sg/personal-banking/cards/en/ for more information on this promotion. Do sign up fast as the promotion is ending on 30th Nov 2011 (Update: the promotion period has been extended to 31st December 2011).

Before you start to think there's something wrong with the title of this post, let me introduce to you another offer by StanChart -- Service Guarantee. When you apply for a card online and submit all the supporting documents before 2pm on a working day, StanChart promises to deliver the card to your doorstep by the next working day. Otherwise, they will give you $50 for not meeting this Service Guarantee. But of course, the card application must be approved first.

That's where the missing $100 comes from. If you apply for two cards, you might get an addition of $100 ($50x2) for this Service Guarantee thingy. (p.s. there is a high chance of getting this, especially if you apply on a Monday during lunchtime, since they need to clear the backlogs accumulated over the weekend?) For more information on this Service Guarantee, do check out http://www.standardchartered.com.sg/personal-banking/cards/features/service-guarantee/en/.

If you are eligible for a credit card, why not go apply for two StanChart credit cards?   Been there, done that. Free money is better than none!

Update: the promotion period has been extended to 31st December 2011