DBS Multiplier Upcoming Changes

DBS will be decreasing the Multiplier interest w.e.f 1st August. Most impacted will be those with salary crediting and 1 category (credit card). Surprisingly, DBS has decided to leave the 3 or more categories alone this time round when one would think this group of people are less likely to leave/change their savings account.

Anyway, I took a quick look at the various savings account and felt that the Multiplier is still one of the better savings accounts that do not really encourage/require you to meet a minimum spending per month. However, the low 1%+ interest is really a hard pill to swallow so we have decided to fulfill another category - Investments by starting a $100 monthly/regular savings plan (DBS Invest-Saver) on Nikko STI ETF which will only be recognized for the first 12 consecutive months. Alternatively, you can consider refinancing your housing loan but that is out of the question for us when we refinance a few months ago with UOB - My Experience with Mortgage Brokers - Redbrick and iCompareLoan.

There is really nothing new here. When we blogged about DBS Multiplier + SSBs + Joint Account = Higher Interest! 2 years ago, we decided to take the SSBs bond ladder route because it seems less troublesome and "permanent" but I guess not. lol. Since the SSBs are now useless, we went to redeem all 6 of them in order to partially finance this new plan as well as to hold more cash for the crash/baby whichever comes first. Haha.

If you have not tried redeeming the SSB before, you can take a look above. Honestly, it is not very intuitive as one will have to select the year and month you would like to redeem. To do it correctly, you will have to log in to your CDP in order to view them. Not sure how it is going to work if one were to redeem the incorrect bond, will the $2 admin fee be forfeited?

DBS Invest-Saver has a sales charge/fee of 0.82% which is a small price to pay for more interest. Assuming if we have $20k in our savings account, with 1.8% interest, we can get ~$30 by "sacrificing" $0.82 monthly. On the other hand, doing nothing will net us just ~$18 interest with 1.1% interest. Meanwhile, the $99.18 monthly investment might continue to grow too. The only troublesome part is this will only be recognized for the first 12 consecutive months so one will have to take note of its ending period and change to another ETF in order to fulfill the Investments category. Another benefit of fulfilling 2 or more categories is the increase in account balance (from $25k to $50k) that will be eligible for the bonus/higher interest.

In my opinion, DBS will probably nerf/cut the interest for the Multiplier account again in the next few months but it will be targeting those people with 3 or more categories. It is simply unsustainable in this low interest environment. Wait for it, it is definitely coming!

Do like any of the following for the latest update/post!
1. FB Page - KPO and CZM
2. Twitter - KPO and CZM
3. Click here to subscribe using email :)
4. Instagram - KPO_and_CZM (Did you see those delicious food photos to the right --> Unfortunately, you can't see it on mobile.)

STI Components Dividend Yield

With prices falling so much in the last few weeks, there are a lot more opportunities now as compared to a few months back. One of Warren Buffett's famous quote is "It’s far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price, than a fair company at a wonderful price" and for simplicity, let's just assume the companies in the STI components are wonderful and evaluate if the prices are fair now. lol.

Anyway, I took some time to compile the dividends declared for FY 2019 for each STI components and make some assumption to see if they would really be a good buy/fit for our portfolio since our goal is to build one with a 5% dividend yield.

We all know that all the businesses/companies have been impacted by COVID-19, the oil price war or whatever other reasons, hence their revenue/profit is bound to decrease as compared to last year. Hence, I assumed that the dividends will be cut by 10%, 15%, 20%, etc.

Did the top few companies turn out to be a surprise to you? I will just provide a quick commentary/opinion on the top 3 companies.

1. Singtel @ 6.21% and 5.59% (10% dividend cut)
My guess is Singtel will highly likely cut its dividend... Firstly, Singtel's dividend policy states that "Barring unforeseen circumstances, it expects to maintain its ordinary dividends at 17.5 cents per share for the financial year ending 31 March 2020."

Secondly, there is a significant decrease in net profit due to operating losses at Airtel and lower contribution from Telkomsel amid aggressive price competition in India and Indonesia as well as an exceptional gain from the divestment of units in NetLink Trust.

Lastly, with news like this - Singtel freezing wages of all staff this year, except for operational and support workers, it is hard to imagine that they will not be cutting their dividend. On the bright side, even at this price, the possibility of getting more than 5% dividend yield is still pretty high.

2. SPH @ 5.88% and 5.29% (10% dividend cut)
I would say the probability of SPH cutting dividend is much higher than Singtel and the following 2 charts from their dividends history will explain it all.

SPH has been cutting dividends since 2015. If you think this time it will be different, let's look at the next chart.

The dividend paid out in FY 2019 has a payout ratio of 133%. It is simply unsustainable and it will only be heading in one direction...

3. DBS @ 5.85% and 5.27% (10% dividend cut)
My guess is DBS will most likely not cut its dividend. The decision to raise their dividends back in 2018 was a prudent one and the CEO, Piyush Gupta said, "The significant increase in dividends reflects the quality of our earnings, the strength of our balance sheet and the improved returns we are generating for shareholders". Although the Fed is cutting the interest rate which will have an impact on the banks' revenue (lower), the payout ratio is still pretty comfortable (~50%) and I don't believe the CEO would want to eat his own words so soon.

You can make a copy of the spreadsheet here and play with it. Note that the prices are static and are as of 11th March 2020.

As for the rest of the companies in the STI components, you can decide if they are wonderful/fair companies at a wonderful/fair price :)

Do like any of the following for the latest update/post!
1. FB Page - KPO and CZM
2. Twitter - KPO and CZM
3. Click here to subscribe using email :)
4. Instagram - KPO_and_CZM (Did you see those delicious food photos to the right --> Unfortunately, you can't see it on mobile.)

DBS Multiplier Account Changes For The Worst

Happy New Year everyone! Hopefully, this year will be a better year for all of us although it wasn't much of a good start for DBS Multiplier account holders (ourselves) >.<" I think a lot of us were still hoping for a repeat of last year Cathay error fare only to see this news by DBS.

When they relaunched the Multiplier Account a few years back, it was a game-changer. There were no minimum credit card spendings required, encourages people to invest genuinely through CDP (stocks or SSB instead of getting funds from the respective bank), treated everything as a transaction and awarded interest accordingly. Categories can be easily fulfilled with SSB and shared by couples using a joint account which I blogged about previously - DBS Multiplier + SSBs + Joint Account = Higher Interest! They even introduced home loan as a new category and increase the cap to $100k. It felt like they were on the right track in transforming DBS into a one-stop solution/bank.

Unfortunately, there will be a revision to the DBS Multiplier terms w.e.f. 1 February 2020. There are 3 changes:
1. Renaming of Salary Credit category to Income category. This is a pretty harmless move.
2. Dividend Crediting from CDP will no longer qualify as Investment but will be under the above Income category. So this essentially removes 1 category from all of us.
3. Balance cap for Salary Credit/Income + 1 category will be reduced from $50k currently to $25k with effect from 1st February 2020. This is the ultimate nerf that will cause people to move/change their savings account.

Although their website hasn't been updated, I believe this is how it is going to look like. Oh well, this is sort of expected right? The only constant is change. Are we going to change our savings account before February 2020? Probably not, for a few reasons.

KPO and CZM are pretty poor. Look at the amount in my Multiplier account. We are still well below the new $25k. I know it is sad but regular readers will know we hardly keep much cash. They are either invested or spent on our house/vacation. lol.

DBS is smart and knows that the Multiplier is still one of the most attractive savings accounts if we compared it against other banks at the same range/tier ~$25k.

UOB One requires one to spend at least $500 and the interest is around 1.5% - 2.0% for the first $30k.

OCBC 360 awards interest at 1.5% with at least $500 credit card spend for the first $35k.

SCB Bonus$aver is the highest for 2.13% with more than $500 credit card spend and the best part is the cap is $100k! This is probably the best savings account with its high cap if you are cash rich and have no issue spending at least $500 per month on credit card.

For now, we will probably remain with DBS but I can foresee us changing to other savings account once we get richer... What will you do?

Do like any of the following for the latest update/post!
1. FB Page - KPO and CZM
2. Twitter - KPO and CZM
3. Click here to subscribe using email :)
4. Instagram - KPO_and_CZM (Did you see those delicious food photos to the right --> Unfortunately, you can't see it on mobile.)

Portfolio - February 2019

Everyone has their "poison" and mine happened to be electronic gadgets >.<" Went to the IT fair over the weekend and bought a NAS (Network Attached Storage). If you have no idea what is that, it is very normal. CZM does not understand why am I spending so much money on it too. lol.

Synology DS918+ with 8GB RAM

4 x 3 TB Seagate IronWolf NAS Hard Drives

Guess the total price? Shall reveal it at the end of the post. Haha. This is probably going to be one of the longest portfolio updates because there were lots of transactions so let's not get distracted.

Our portfolio increase by 0.91% to $379,814 - $848.52 of capital withdrawal and $4,281.49 of capital gain. The one in blue is the StashAway portfolio, green is SGX and the total is in black.

If you prefer to look at numbers, this is the raw data used to generate the above bar graph. These numbers are as of the last day of the month.

"Cash Flow" is the amount of money being injected/withdrawn from the portfolio (buying stocks = +ve cash flow while selling stocks and collecting dividends = -ve cash flow)

SOLD
- SingPost (7,000 units) @ $0.950
- TSH (1,000 units) @ $0.350
- Lion-Philip S-REIT ETF (9,000 units) @ $1.034
- Lion-Philip S-REIT ETF (3,000 units) @ $1.041

I have blogged about our reasons for selling the above except for TSH, you can read about them here:
- Unethical SingPost
- Lion-Phillip S-REIT ETF - High Cost and Low Yield

TSH was a legacy position which I had bought in April 2016 after reading this - TSH Corporation Ltd- Classic net-net micro-cap trading at steep discount to net cash, announces big dividends. Since then it has diversified its assets, did a capital distribution/huge dividends and became a shell company.

I was hoping it will just get delisted so I can save some commission but it never did until last month when it got reverse takeover, went through a share consolidation (1:20) and became a pub and bar business. Took a quick look at the new business and decided to sell it to get whatever remaining that is left and I am stuck with 50 units -.- Overall, it was still a pretty good investment with an annualized return of ~19%.

BOUGHT
- DBS (400 units) @ $24.92
- City Development Limited (400 units) @ $9.47
- APAC Realty (8,000 units) @ $0.57

These are all not new purchases so really nothing much to blog about. The reason for buying them remains the same:
- DBS has changed its dividend policy and has pledged $1.20 per annual going forward. This translate to ~4.8% dividend yield on cost with potential for capital growth.
- CDL properties are stated at cost and should be trading > PB 1. To be honest, we are not very fated with CDL. Whenever we buy, the price will always fall significantly.
- We did a quick comparison between APAC Realty and its peer, Propnex and concluded that it was more undervalued and attractive dividend yield for now. Having said that, I think APAC Realty has its risks. In its IPO prospectus, it was stated that dividend will be paid for the first 2 years and remains unclear if the company will continue to distribute dividends.

In addition, ThumbTack Investor (TTI) has written a pretty scary/negative piece of article on APAC Realty that is definitely worth a read - Acquisition of ERA Centre is Cashflow Negative. The way he does his due diligence is very respectable. Regardless, all investment is a good investment at the right price.

Dividends
The total dividends collected this month is $1,531.24. The breakdown is as follows:

Company	Symbol	ExDate	Shares	Total
Far East Hospitality Trust	Q5T	20-Feb-19	10,156	$101.56
Ascott Residence Trust	A68U	7-Feb-19	7,600	$301.42
Starhill Global Real Estate Investment Trust	P40U	7-Feb-19	12,000	$135.60
Parkway Life Real Estate Investment Trust	C2PU	4-Feb-19	2,000	$65.60
Thai Beverage Public Co Ltd	Y92	4-Feb-19	11,000	$102.71
SPDR STI ETF Units	ES3	4-Feb-19	13,000	$728.00
Mapletree North Asia Commercial Trust	RW0U	1-Feb-19	5,000	$96.35

Total dividends collected for 2019: $2,467.84
Average dividends per month for 2019: $1,233.92

StashAway

KPO

CZM

Capital: $17,000.00
Current: $17,340.29

The NAS costs $1,282 in total @_@"

On a side note, one can invest in StashAway using SRS and I have already blogged about our plan - New Strategy: StashAway + Supplementary Retirement Scheme (SRS)

You might be interested in previous months update too:
- Portfolio Performance in 2018 - $354,145
- Portfolio - January 2019 - $376,381
- Portfolio - February 2019 - $379,814

Do like any of the following for the latest update/post!
1. FB Page - KPO and CZM
2. Twitter - KPO and CZM
3. Click here to subscribe using email :)
4. Instagram - KPO_and_CZM (Did you see those delicious food photos to the right --> Unfortunately, you can't see it on mobile.)

Portfolio - October 2018

The global markets have been in red for the past few weeks and our portfolio was not spared. At one point in time, our portfolio even went all time red/negative after investing since 2015. In such a scenario, it would have been better if we simply left the money in a bank account. At the very least, the capital will be intact and the interest collected over the years will definitely beat the below performance. lol.

We have a friend that lost his confidence and has stopped investing totally. Nothing right/wrong about it, just different risk profile/appetite.

The thing about investing is that it is not linear and there will be volatility. You cannot invest with the mentality that you will be making money all the way (at least not when you first started). However, given a long enough time (20 years?), the portfolio should be resilient enough such that it will become forever positive. I blogged about something similar here - Portfolio - March 2018.

The most important thing is not to let your investment affect your daily life - life goes on! So what have we been up to? We were busy planning for our USA honeymoon! Interested to read about fine dining in the air - Singapore Airlines Suites - Book the Cook. We also booked a Ford Mustang Convertible for our road trip :)

I have just purchased a new PS4 game - Dragon Quest XI | Echoes of an Elusive Age. I stopped playing Monster Hunter nearer to our wedding and now that I am back, no one plays it anymore. lol. Dragon Quest is like one of my childhood game too. Regardless, you get the point, we are not affected by the market volatility. Alright, back to our portfolio update :)

Our portfolio decrease by 1.75% to $348,378 - $16,293.36 of capital injection and $22,483.32 of capital loss. The one in blue is the StashAway portfolio, green is SGX and the total is in black.

If you prefer to look at numbers, this is the raw data used to generate the above bar graph. These numbers are as of the last day of the month.

SOLD
None

BOUGHT
- Lion-Philip S-REIT ETF (1,000 units) @ $0.967
- Accordia Golf Trust (5,000 units) @ $0.525
- OUE (1,000 units) @ $1.470
- ThaiBev (1,000 units) @ $0.635
- DBS (400 units) @ $24.38

We bought 1,000 units of Lion-Philip S-REIT ETF as part of our new strategy - New Singapore Budget, New REIT Strategy!

We sold OUE Commercial REITs last month and merely redeploy the amount back to the market by averaging down what we already owned. Hence, the relatively small/random amount in OUE and ThaiBev.

We decided to enter DBS because it has changed its dividend policy and has pledged $1.20 per annual going forward. At our entry price, that will mean our dividend yield on cost would be around 4.9%. Something we are pretty comfortable with for a blue chip with a very solid dividend record - increasing almost year on year. In addition, a rising rate environment is beneficial to the banks. We were contemplating between STI ETF and DBS and thought that DBS seems to be more attractive now.

Dividends
The total dividends collected this month is $1,034.20. The breakdown is as follows:

Company	Symbol	ExDate	Shares	Total
Parkway Life Real Estate Investment Trust	C2PU	31-Oct-18	2,000	$64.60
First Real Estate Investment Trust	AW9U	30-Oct-18	4,109	$152.85
GuocoLand Ltd	F17	30-Oct-18	3,000	$630.00
Soilbuild Business Space REIT	SV3U	23-Oct-18	15,000	$186.75

Total dividends collected for 2018: $12,031.58
Average dividends per month for 2018: $1,203.15

Woots! We have finally achieved one of our goals - $1000 per month of passive income!

StashAway

Capital: $13,000
Current: $13,003.61 (IRR: 0.1%)

You might be interested in previous months update too:
Portfolio - January 2018
Portfolio - February 2018
Portfolio - March 2018
Portfolio - April 2018 + What is Ezion W230416?
Portfolio - May 2018
Portfolio - June 2018
Portfolio - July 2018
Portfolio - August 2018
Portfolio - September 2018

Do like any of the following for the latest update/post!
1. FB Page - KPO and CZM
2. Twitter - KPO and CZM
3. Click here to subscribe using email :)
4. Instagram - KPO_and_CZM (Did you see those delicious food photos to the right -->)

DBS Multiplier + SSBs + Joint Account = Higher Interest!

Updated on 1st January 2020 - DBS will be making some revision to the Multiplier terms w.e.f. 1 February 2020. Refer to this blog post for more information - DBS Multiplier Account Changes For The Worst.

Some of the readers might know that we have changed our bank accounts from OCBC 360 to DBS Multiplier when it was revamped last year and I blogged about it here - Free $5 for DBS Multiplier Account Holder. The free $5 is still available (until 30th June 2018)!

In my opinion, the DBS Multiplier is by far the most generous bank/account when it comes to fulfilling/meeting the various defined categories (credit card spend, home loan, insurance and investments). Firstly, it awards you for having a higher salary and there is even a way to double it through the use of joint account! I shall elaborate further later. Next, it does not encourage spending, even a $1 credit card spend will mean that one can meet that category (proven - this is what CZM has been doing).

Last but not least, all/most of the investments category (e.g. OCBC 360 and SCB Bonus$aver) has been a scam which requires you to either purchase an eligible insurance product or invests in a unit trust with them - things which we will never do. Naturally, we dismissed the investments category for the Multiplier account when we first signed up for it. It turns out that the investments category can be met simply from dividend crediting from CDP. With this knowledge, I came up with a theoretical way (not proven yet, we will only know 7 months later. lol) to increase our interest!

Step 1
Open a joint account with your spouse/another half (If he/she does not exist, you can skip to the next step or find one quickly. Hahaha). You should have 2 Multiplier accounts + 1 joint account.

The reason for having a joint account is because the total salary credited to the joint account will be considered as a salary credit for the Multiplier account. This could potentially bump the couple up to the next category (e.g. ≥S$2,500 to <S$5,000 to ≥S$5,000 to <S$15,000) which gives more interest! Furthermore, with 2 Multiplier accounts, the cap for the bonus interest is essentially doubled to $100k. One thing to take note of is that the joint account should only be used as a "pass through" account. Keep the minimum balance (we are looking at POSB Everyday Savings Account with $500 minimum balance) needed and transfer the relevant amount/salary to the Multiplier account because the interest awarded is based on the balance in the Multiplier account only.

Step 2
Build a bond ladder using 6 SSBs (Singapore Saving Bonds). Bonds pay a fixed coupon (similar to stocks paying dividends) at fixed interval and has a maturity date where one can get back the principal/invested value. A bond ladder is made up of multiple bonds that pay coupons at different intervals with different maturity dates. This is a more conservative strategy/form of passive income for retirement. This is just a quick introduction, do read up more on bonds elsewhere!

I believe everyone should be familiar or have at least heard of SSB. It is issued/backed by our government and unlike the normal/actual bond, it will not be affected by the rising interest rate environment. Bonds typically trade like stocks with buy and sell price and its price will fall when interest rate increases but you do not have to worry about that with SSB. The minimum investment per SSB is $500 and the transaction cost is only $2. To build a bond ladder, simply buy a $500 SSB for the next 6 months. Since the SSB pays coupon/interest every 6 months, you will receive dividend crediting every month for the next 10 years! lol. You will also need to go to the SGX CDP portal and ensure that the account specified in the Direct Crediting Service is the joint account.

Having said that, is it really worth the effort? The answer is it depends! I have build a simple calculator for you to compute the difference in interest. Simply modify the deposit you have, the monthly transaction (total salary credit + estimated credit card spend) and let the formula do the magic! To simplify the computation, I have made some naive assumptions:
- Invest the minimum ($500) to SSB
- The deposit is kept constant
- The T&Cs of the Multiplier account will remain the same (we have all seen/experience how the different banks change the interest rate awarded or the T&Cs)

Here you go - KPO Calculator for Multiplier + SSB

Let me know what are your thoughts :)

Do like any of the following for the latest update/post!
1. FB Page - KPO and CZM
2. Twitter - KPO and CZM
3. Click here to subscribe using email :)
4. Instagram - KPO_and_CZM (Did you see those delicious food photos to the right -->)

Free $5 for DBS Multiplier Account Holder

Facebook reminded me earlier that 75 people that liked our page have not heard from us in a while (about one week ago only!). Sorry for disappointing everyone as I have been busy playing Monster Hunter World! Hahahaha.

This is for all DBS Multiplier Account holders! CZM and I changed our bank account from OCBC 360 to DBS Multiplier Account last year December when DBS revamped the product. There are many reviews and comparisons done for all the different bank accounts (e.g. Seedly Cheat Sheet: Best Savings Accounts For Working Adults 2018?) so I will not go into that.

What we like about the Multiplier Account is that it is hassle-free and does not encourage/force spending (minimum spend of $X amount on credit card). One simply has to credit their salary to the account + credit card spend of any amount ($1 also can!) or any of the 3 other categories (home loan, insurance or investment).

Back to the free money! DBS has launched/created a closed group on Facebook called The Burrow. In order to get the free $5, you need to do the following 2 things:

1. Own a DBS Multiplier Account

2. Join The Burrow

Once you have done that, you will have to fill up a form by DBS - "Help us identify you as a DBS Multiplier account holder in The Burrow". Free money! The good news is that there is no limit on the number of $5 that will be given out and the qualifying period is from 1st Jan 2018 to 30th June 2018, lots of time for you to decide if you want to sign up for the account and then participate to get the free $5.

Terms and Conditions apply :) Back to Monster Hunter World!

Do like any of the following for the latest update/post!
1. FB Page - KPO and CZM
2. Twitter - KPO and CZM
3. Click here to subscribe using email :)

PayNow Promotion Part 2

When PayNow was first launched back in July, I analyzed and wrote an article about it - PayNow and its Promotions. I recommended one to registered with SCB for the $10 or with OCBC to win their lucky draw.

2 days ago, I received an SMS from SCB stating that the $10 has been credited to my bank account :) Who doesn't love free money? Thank you SCB! SCB paid out $200,000 for this promotion - $10 for the first 20,000 eligible customers. Whoever working in SCB, your bonus must be awesome. lol.

Any lucky readers that won any of the lucky draw?? CZM certainly did not win the OCBC lucky draw. Hahahaha.

Surprise surprise, turns out the promotions are still ongoing! OCBC is having a $1,000 lucky draw from 5th October 2017 to 3rd November 2017 where there will only be 30 winners. You can read the T&Cs here.

DBS is having a $500 lucky draw until 30th November 2017 and the lucky draw will be held on 15th December 2017. 80 lucky winners will be selected - T&Cs here. Do note that DBS lucky draw automatically includes customers who have registered as of 11th September 2017 so you will be competing with a much larger pool of people!

Citi PayNow Promotion 2 is giving $5 Grab promo code to first 10,000 eligible customers. Unfortunately, the promotion started from 14th September 2017 and will be ending tomorrow, 13th October 2017. On the bright side, who needs your $5 Grab promo code?! Grab has been giving out promo code in their battle against Uber and Comfort. T&Cs here.

It seems like Maybank is still running the same lucky draw since July and have added one night stay at Resorts World Sentosa. Apart from that, Maybank is advertising that they are the first bank that allows registration using SMS. That is so impressive! Would you register because of that? lol.

HSBC and SCB does not have any PayNow promotion, probably used up their budget. KPO will be registering with OCBC next! Sorry SCB, KPO will be going where the money is, loyalty doesn't pay. Hahahaha.

PayNow and its Promotions

You are reading it right, I am referring to PayNow and not DBS PayLah.

Remember the days when you make a fund transfer to your friend and it takes a few days before it appears in your friend's bank account? Then came FAST which stands for Fast And Secure Transfers where the fund transfer/money magically appears immediately in your friend's bank account. PayNow uses the same magic except it allows you to make fund transfer simply by using the other person mobile number or NRIC on your ibanking site/application. This removes the hassle of going through the tedious process of adding "New Payee", double checking and triple checking to ensure that the account number you entered is correct before taking out your OTP device to verify and confirm the addition of 1 new payee (You have yet to make the fund transfer. lol). I guess this is definitely a small step towards Singapore becoming a Smart Nation and going cashless. I am still pretty amazed at how we survived in Iceland without cash, just credit cards.

Anyway, you can refer to these articles for more information:
- New service PayNow to allow interbank transfers using mobile phone numbers

- From PayNow to unified system that pays everything

- PayNow FAQ

To get started, you need to register your mobile number with anyone of the participating banks. Note that you can only register with ONE of them.

Since you can only register with one of them, the banks will be competing for customers by offering sign up promotion!

Citi - None?! (Update on 12th July 2017: $10 Grab Credit*)

DBS - Register for PayNow and win a red iPhone* 7 Plus!

HSBC - Lazada $10 promo code*

Maybank - At least $5 off Grab ride + Lucky Draw for $2,888*

OCBC - Luck Draw for $50,000*

SCB - $10 Cash Bonus*

UOB - $5/10 Cash Credit*

Note that all the promotions have * - terms and conditions apply. Do take some time and glance through them. Below are just some of my personal opinions and a summary of what the banks have to offer:

Citi

I am amazed at how I could not find a single landing page on PayNow for Citi. Definitely not holding up to their slogan "Citi Never Sleeps", I think the whole marketing department must be sleeping!

Update: First 5,000 eligible customers + make a minimum of $10 transfer. By now should be gone as one of the readers pointed out where a promotional email was sent to existing customers.

DBS

30 winners will be chosen from the eligible customers. KPO not very lucky so will probably give this a miss.

HSBC

First 3,000 eligible customers. Almost no chance but better than nothing.

Maybank

1st Prize: $2,888

2nd Prize: $1,888

3rd Prize: $888

Daily winners of $20 from now till 31st December 2017. KPO not a Maybank customer

OCBC

1st Prize: $50,000

2nd Prize: $30,000

3rd Prize: $10,000

20 winners weekly for 6 weeks: $500. I shall get CZM to register for this. KPO not very lucky so will probably give this a miss.

SCB

First 20,000 eligible customers. KPO registered for this :)

UOB

First 5,000 eligible customers for the 1st $5. Subsequent $5 requires you to spend at least $20 using UOB MyKey.

PayNow went live at 8 am 10th July 2017. So I think you should stand a pretty good chance with SCB if you are a customer. Otherwise, go for the OCBC lucky draw and win BIG!