Friday, November 11, 2011

Interest rate on bank deposits

Which bank offers the best interest rate on fixed deposits in Singapore? The lowest interest rate for 12 month deposit is 0.075% (less than 0.1%) and the highest is 0.625% (less than 1%).
Find out from FISCA website, http://easyapps.sg/assn/Org/Information.aspx?id=5

Should you invest in foreign currency to earn a higher interest rate? Here are the tips. Remember to consider the cost of coversion from Singapore dollar to the foreign currency and converting back. After considering this cost, and considering that the interest rate is so low, it is not worth investing in foreign currency. Read this:
http://tankinlian.com/Admin/File.aspx?id=91&PK=49eface4e1da102d8bb0a4b0889554e4





10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Try Maybank online FD, they have promo now, min $25K at 1% for 12 months.

yujuan said...

Someone mentioned CIMB offers the best rates for savers in Singapore.
Maybe park some of Vit M there, but also try Maybank.
Banks could fail, but guess the Malaysian Govt die die must prop up Maybank, also this Malaysian Bank do business with a heart of gold, and have more banking locations too.

Tan Kin Lian said...

Hi Mr Tan

Maybank actually have another fixed deposit called iSavvy which offers 0.75% interest rate for $50001-249999 (table below).
The net interest rate is even higher because there is upfront interest.
The link is: https://sslsecure.maybank.com.sg/cgi-bin/mbs/JSPscripts/mbb_rates/deposit_rate.jsp

Tommy Wong

Anonymous said...

If you have confident that banks in Singapore will not fail. Maybe you can buy their preference shares in open market. Some of their preference share trade below their issue price and has yield more than 3.5%.

I do not see any major risk in investing in these preference shares. If you think otherwise, plese share your concern.

Anonymous said...

Malaysian banks FD rates:
Maybank : 1 month 3% pa
6 months 3.1% pa
12 months 3.15% pa

RHB : 1 month 3% pa
6 months 3.2% pa
12 months 3.3% pa

BSN ( Formerly their POSB )
1 month 3% pa
6 months 3.1% pa
12 months 3.35% pa

Usually there are promotional products which give about 3.25% pa for 8 months at RHB. If you use their debit cards you'll get rebates. So if you shop frequently in JB it may be worthwhile to put some money in the bank. The guarantee is up to RM$250k.

Maybank has Etiqa products with capital GUARANTEED, not protected.
The cost of money transfer for e.g. SGD50k ( about RM$120k ) would be recovered in just one month of FD.
The risk is SGD becoming stronger. But if you use your returns in Malaysia, it does not make that much difference.

Anonymous said...

Anon 10.22 AM

Is it easy to sell away bank preference shares in the market? Especially if you have a lot of them? Because their issue price per share may already be around $10 or more, which is not cheap.

If not, it is not so liquid.

Retired...at 55 said...

Bank interest rates are not so straight forward.

Rates are highly dependant on the deposit amount and also the type of deposit and the length of time.

Those of us who are 50 years and older, can take advantage of higher rate with Maybank's Privilege Banking. Between now and Dec31, you get $50 cash if you open that.

The rate is 1% for deposits above 50K. Its a savings passbook account that has internet access and also gives you accident cover.

The remainder from other banks have conditions such as min deposits above 20K, min 1 year, fresh funds, must be associated with credit card and a host of other stuff.

Privilege Plus is just straight forward no fuss, min $10 deposit.
withdrawal anytime 24hrs access.

Anonymous said...

Retired...at 55 11:06 PM

Where got 1%? It is a tiered interest rate and the highest tier is 0.5% for above $50K.

Go check the website.

Timothy said...

Doesn't Maybank have a $2 monthly maintenance fee on many or most of its accounts? This is one of the many tricks banks play and are increasingly playing: fee-based revenue generators. Such fees reduce effective yields, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot.

I recommend doing what DepositAccounts.com does in the U.S.: yes, publish the interest rate details, but also publish alongside it the actual number of dollars you would receive in net interest (after fees, including any withdrawal fees) if you deposit $X and withdraw that sum Y months (or years) later. Then sort the banks in rank order that way.

prudent said...

you can find out from this website

http://singaporedepositrate.com

currently the highest is Bank of China at 1.15% for 12 months

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