The rise in popularity of deposit accounts that award bonus interest on your deposits doesn’t really come as much of a surprise, as Singaporeans find ways to grow their money in the wake of rising living costs. These accounts allow you to earn bonus interest on your deposits by rewarding certain specific expenditure.

Standard Chartered’s Bonus$aver account is one of the better savings accounts in Singapore. How good? How does earning up to 3.88% p.a. on the first S$100,000 deposit balances sound? But more on that later. Let’s have a quick look at the current landscape for bonus interest accounts:

It’s quite clear off the bat that if you had more money that you wanted to earn interest on, the Bonus$aver account is certainly worth considering. Here’s a breakdown of what you need to do to earn that bonus interest:

You can try the simple calculator to find out how much money you actually get in your account at the end of the month just by salary crediting and bill payments. Additionally, opening an account  is extremely simple, and Singaporeans and PRs alike can open one using their MyInfo login.

You also get full access to the suite of transactional banking services such as online banking, payments via Mastercard, FAST transactions as well as the usage of PayNow so you don’t lose out on any of the normal banking functions you would get from a normal savings account!’

Also, Standard Chartered has introduced a new feature, soCash, that makes searching for an ATM a thing of the past. With soCash, you can now get cash at selected neighbourhood shops and mini marts without even needing to purchase anything! And trust me, the selection of places you can get cash from is surprisingly huge.

But ok let’s get back to the bonus interest. Here are the 4 key areas related to earning bonus interest that you need to be aware of:

1. Card Spend

With the Bonus$aver account, you need to spend at least S$2,000 each month to earn 1.88% interest for the month. Don’t worry if you don’t meet the S$2,000 spending requirement. You can still earn interest at 0.88% if you spend at least S$500 for the month.

But if you would like to earn more interest, there are three new ways (which we will explain below) to do so. You don’t have to do them all, and as long as you meet any one of these categories, you will earn the respective bonus interest provided.

2. Salary Crediting

Stand to earn 1.00% p.a. bonus interest with your Bonus$aver account if you ensure that your salary is credited into that account each month.

Your monthly salary needs to be credited via GIRO directly from your employer and needs to be at least S$3,000 nett. Your HR department should be able to handle this.

3. Bill Payments

If you thought crediting your salary was easy, this is even easier. We all have to pay bills, whether it’s recurring bills like payments for utilities, telecommunication services or even to your condominium management or HDB town council, or one-off payments like taxes, or for hospitals or charities.

Now, if you make at least three eligible payments of at least S$50 each month via Standard Chartered’s Online Banking platform or via GIRO, you can earn 0.25% p.a. bonus interest with your Bonus$aver account.

4. Insurance and investments

This way to earn bonus interest may not be for everyone, but if you are thinking of investing or buying an insurance policy, you can also take the opportunity to earn an additional 0.75% p.a. bonus interest on your Bonus$aver account.

Either (a) sign up for a regular premium life insurance policy with a minimum annual premium of S$12,000 or (b) subscribe for an eligible unit trust with a minimum subscription sum of S$30,000 with Standard Chartered, and you will earn bonus interest of 0.75% p.a. bonus interest for the next 12 months from your sign up of the insurance policy or subscription of the eligible unit trust.

So who would benefit the most from the new Bonus$aver account?

Clearly, to maximise the amount of interest you can earn, you would want to put in as much money into the account as possible. Bonus$aver accords bonus interest on the first S$100,000 deposit balances in the account. That’s a significant amount.

With the Bonus$aver account, assuming you have S$100,000 in the account and met the S$500 card ­spend requirement, you would be eligible for up to 0.88% p.a bonus interest. That’s up to S$880 in interest in a year.

Now imagine if you meet the S$2,000 card spend, salary credit, bill payment and investment/insurance requirements each month. You would be eligible for up to S$3,880 in interest in a year.

So the more you deposit into the new Bonus$aver account, up to the first S$100,000 in the account, the more you stand to earn in interest.

Deposit Insurance Scheme

Singapore dollar deposits of non-bank depositors are insured by the Singapore Deposit Insurance Corporation, for up to S$50,000 in aggregate per depositor per Scheme member by law. Foreign currency deposits, dual currency investments, structured deposits and other investment products are not insured.

This article is written in collaboration with Standard Chartered Bank (Singapore) Limited. All views expressed in the article are the independent opinions of MoneySmart.sg . All information provided is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be construed as advice or an offer for any product or service. Standard Chartered is not liable for any informational errors, incompleteness, delays, or for any actions taken in reliance on information contained herein. The article is accurate as [at the time of its original publication on MoneySmart.sg . Visit [www.sc.com/sg/save/current-accounts/bonussaver/] for more information on Standard Chartered’s Bonus$aver.

This article was originally published on MoneySmart.sg on 25 May 2018.