— simplify???? priority among cards: 1) cimb till 16 Apr 2) bocd 3) FnF dining 4) FnF @ NTUC

bocd .. wait for pacLight email in early Mar.

— event calendar

• March bocd: pacLight email $0… “target” amount for bocd about $100. I will manage it myself, without wife
• — mid Mar before flight:
• maybank statement will show two cards, same balance. Pay off statement balance which includes $32.40 “charged by someone else”. $32.4 to be refunded as a credit.
• proactive $xxxx i.e. bulk of FnF statement balance from DBS .. to avoid big-GIRO hazard, leaving $100+ for Giro. Simplify by paying After billPay, but not close to due date.
• — Mar payroll
• pay off scsc statement, not current, balance. Simplify by paying on payroll day or earlier
• call scb .. reduce credit limit to 10k after Mar 50k
• call Maybank (8a – 8p) … reduce credit limit to 10k after 24 Mar >> 50k
• — Apr
• billPay: SCSC, Rev, FnF

— Simplify: focus on (up to) 3 key points + some minor points

• accept some FB-fees or other minor /missteps/
• — minor simplifications
• Rule: make proactive payment whenever ccard outstanding exceeds some threshold like 1k. Accept that such pre-payment amount would not be “productive”. However if the amount is unusually large, then we may want to delay the ‘proactive’ beyond statement date. With timing+coordination, this could relieve xjl pressures like FBF, late fees, pre-mature withdrawals,,,

— Q: if I become overwhelmed (with work, or family, or investment issues…), I would feel burdened and distracted by the “juggle”. How would I cope?

• proactive on oversized ccard outstanding, or even lock up the ccard for a month

— biggest juggling stressors

1. bx annual payments, esp. FLI150
2. multiple cCards/PFL/PacLight: missing full payment .. exorbitant LIR over a short period of time
3. cimb card promo

 

I think we will see this report featured in mass media year over year.

— https://www.straitstimes.com/business/household-wealth-rose-in-singapore-defying-downtrend-elsewhere-ubs-credit-suisse-wealth-report is a 2023 article that will disappear soon.

The annual study started in 2010 and aims to compare across countries and across decades.

2022 median wealth (net asset IMO) per Singapore adult was estimated at USD 100k (USD 99,488). In other words, half the Singapore adults own less than USD 100k per adult in net asset.

Q: does this figure look like underestimate or overestimate?
%%A: due to the longitudinal and international comparison, I think this is unlikely to be under- or over-esimated. However, the exclusion criteria for “wealth” is unknown to me, though I know they include each adult’s securities and real assets.

Why “per adult”? I guess that personal wealth is always held under a name, of an adult. An underaged person can earn an income but can’t own wealth.

Under HistoricalTransactions, each transaction has a new balance figure 🙂

See also BOC.sg RMB facilities

Since late 2024, BOC charges $0 penalty for premature FixD withdrawal, any currency.

— to reduce card-loss hazard on dCard

Consumption limit (paywave) = $500 done
dCard xfer limit = $0

— RMB banknotes ..
Free deposit of all notes up to Rmb 10, better than icbc.sg (Rmb100).
Free withdrawal of big notes. Withdraw then convert on street.

BOC.sg has  FX rate for physical RMB (electronic same rate), comparable to Singapore money changer rates. This is a free-market rate not gov-controlled. I call it the Singapore street rate.
— UsdFixD:

To reduce manual operations, Prefer very few deposits of large quantum + longer tenor.

Placement can be done on mobile 9-5 Mon-Fri. Outside those hours, placement is disallowed.

— manual rollover of Rmb ^ USD
If OTC, then give instruction. Upon UsdFixD maturity, fund will stay in the FixD account. Afterwards, I can transfer it to my MCSA any time. Immediate.

If self-service, then choose no-rollover.

I can place a new FixD any time after maturity

Rule: some days after rollover, you can withdraw Rmb premature, and lose accrued interest only. Principal unaffected, despite the warning on GUI. However, for USD, premature (withdrawal) penalty eats into principal.

— SgdFixD: Can withdraw pre-maturity and receive 0.1% pa as a “condolence interest payout”. Confirmed: 20k over 8D earned me interest of $0.44 = 20k * 0.1% * (8/365)

— MCS EOD balance snapshot.. methodology confirmed by email. Concrete examples confirmed by phone. See email [1:06pm 5 May 2023]
— MCS [multi-currency savings] account is indeed nice2have. Enables fund transfer to other banks.

MCS promotion rules are harder than EGA, but better than other banks’ rules. Every free-money promotion has pros and cons.

• fall-below fee
• 0.1~0.4 ppa base interest .. see below. In addition, there is a bonus int (paid on the first 100k of ADB):
• .. 2.5 ppa based on payroll, since Jan 2023
• .. 0.9 ppa based on 3 bill-pay $30 each.
• card spend .. 0.5/0.8% if $500/1.5k. Note “card spend” includes dCards 🙂
• still more bonus items .. see https://www.bankofchina.com/sg/pbservice/pb1/202212/t20221230_22348761.html
• ^^^ realized DIR usually exceeds $353/30D ~ 4.2 ppa+

bill payment:

• Settlement is usually 1~3 business days after user action. If settlement falls in Jan, you score a Jan bill-pay 🙁
• Prefer BillPaymentTransactionInquiry, which shows payee
• Adding bill payee doesn’t need OTP or token 🙂
• Some payee accounts would not show incoming payments very promptly.  IRAS and MB are slow. SPService, HSBC, eccard  are prompt.
• — In general, prefer SPower, IRAS, SCB,,,, Hope to keep $0 in HSBC, eccard
• SCB ccard .. a suitable payee. BOC bill payment can wipe out entire current balance.
• SPower ..Good credibility and no “en-route” complication
• IRAS …. Good credibility and  no “en-route” complication _but_ bad sys2 workload if you need recon, monitoring.

$500/M card spend.. Prefer large spends or [w=warehouse accounts]

• Unposted dCard transaction details … available on SMS, not webank
• settlement date (not transaction date)
• AXS/SAM excluded 🙁
• PacificLight .. on 3 Apr 2024 I set up auto-pay. I hope this would simplify my effort to meet $500/M. If not, then I can always go back to Giro.
• [w] town council fees.. must go onsite, not AXS.
• [w] SgPow… visit HDB9 to pay any amount up to 3x the current balance. Need to print out the bill.
• [w] cmlink
• [w] ActiveSg wallet might accept it
• PacLight … no way to use dCard without AXS

Base int .. accrued daily, compounded monthly. Flat rate on entire EOD balance

• 0.4 ppa if ADB > 100k. For example, if on a given day, balance is 101k, daily accrual = $1.1 [101k * 0.4 ppa /365]

USD check:

• deposit is free;
• issuing to self, first cheque free each day

— refresh screen .. may need to (click the X on the top right) close the page and retry. This procedure is simpler than re-login.

— online fund transfer .. 实体 (not soft) token unconditionally required for sensitive operations:

• add payee
• increase transfer limit (impossible on mobile banking)
• large transfers

For smaller transfers, SMS OTP ( physical token not usable; hotline can’t override it ) is unconditionally required. If slow, then no choice must retry but not too frequent please.

 

PayNowQR (BOC/Hsbc tested) is the simplest funding method… no need to add payee

change password .. same as forgot-password.

funding and withdrawal bank account must be under my own name, same as Poems

Hazard! Each TimeD (aka ptf) needs manual toggle to disable rollover. After maturity, you need to manually transfer P+I to your bank account. Otherwise, the fund will be sitting there idle (no more accrual).

No fee… my EGA bank account received every cent as expected.

(After rollover, you lose liquidity.)

Hotline is 9-6. Live-person chat is 24H on weekdays, esp. on APP, thought I only got the chatbot. On website (without login) -> connect -> …
Advisor available for accounts above 50k

for fund transfer, I will use HSBC to help maintain my Premier status.

— withdraw .. after 3pm on maturity, for a few days at least. T+1 (7pm) to receive.

— https://growbeansprout.com/syfe-cash-plus-guaranteed-vs-tbills-fixed-deposits is a review by a 3rd party, not official TnC

— “Portfolios” page shows me all my (immutable) portfolios.

Can create new ptf from here.

🙂 ptf names are editable.

— Syfe as compared to Hsbc 3.6 ppa

• 👎 liqudity .. The biggest danger. Unknown to me for many weeks. worse than any TimeD or MMF. can’t withdraw pre-maturity at all; can’t top up (You need to create brand new ptf ). On the flip side, interest is easier to compute.
• 🙂 no need to wait 2 months to receive the interest.
• 👎 unreliable site. I can’t even go into my account.
• .. 👎 no 24h helpline (M-F 9-6), no advisor to meet up
• 👎 reliable, safety, regulation .. Hsbc is a reputable bank, though 3M is relatively short exposure window
• 🙂 no hoops to jump through
• 👎 No savings account. The Flexi is a MM-mufu just like those in FSM and Poems.
• 🙂 slightly higher yield .. 120k over 3M, 3.8 over 3.4 means $120 additional interest
• 👎 unlike real TD, there’s no SDIC protection

Eastspring Investments UT – Singapore Select Bd Fd A

Q: what’s expRatio?
Q: does the fund show potential to recover despite the exp ratio?

Q: shall we redeem at 3% loss and earn deposit int of 3.5% pa?

I used to say “time is on my side”.  Now I think every year this fund is losing  against the benchmark (tBill or MMF).

• the Allianz funds (suppose 50k) I liquidated at a small loss …  has been acruing around 3% every year in recent years.

==== My bond mufu
— Fullerton .. Asian Bonds .. (expR=1.19) FSM tx history shows net $25k invested

• snapshot $14226 FSM -> Poems 8Feb2022 (qty=1516.05)
• snapshot cost=15k @202112 in my account P0014225
• +10k 22Jun2022 bought in P0291384

SGS allocation to “cash”  — reflected in CDP statements

SGS allocation to SRS account — not held at CDP, but held at custodian bank. DBS webank easily shows my live SRS assets including SGS.

==== cpfOA .. For CPF, 6M tBills make more sense (rather than SSB). Doesn’t affect the earmark. At a mid-month auction (or whatever) consider using cpfOA.

in-person application at the UOB. Come before 9.30am to avoid long queues.

With cash, the next best alternative is BOC FD, which is inferior to cpfOA.

🙁 $2/quarter for as long as your uob cpfia holds any tbill. If empty, then $0/quarter.

==== SSB
See also

• https://www.mas.gov.sg/bonds-and-bills/investing-in-singapore-savings-bonds/how-to-buy
• https://www.channelnewsasia.com/business/singapore-savings-bonds-invest-buy-cna-explains-2858316
• 🙁 $2 per application or redemption or application, to discourage small transactions
• After you apply a $3k purchase, SRS available balance drops by $3k (earmarked), but transaction history won’t show $3k until actual purchase

— any-time redemption .. https://www.mas.gov.sg/bonds-and-bills/investing-in-singapore-savings-bonds/how-to-redeem

• by 9pm on the 4th last business day of the month you can submit request to receive payout by 2nd business day of the following month
• 7am – 9pm Monday to Saturday, on webank or ATM
• quantum: in multiples of $500, up to allotted amount, but small redemptions are costly in $2 fee

==== 6M tBills

Q: on maturity date, when is the payment? Sometimes after 7pm

tBill auction rate is SnD-driven. Falling, but not really within weeks after end of Aug. It’s OK to take no action within Aug, and wait out the storm. If we do use comp bidding during Aug, then there’s an inevitable due diligence involved.

• 🙂 no fee for application or selling
• Liquidity is inferior to SSB .. must sell to DBS (not on SGX). Their quote is bad, but you can’t negotiate.

— Competitive bidding

If SSB is paying 2.98%, then I can put 2.98% as my competitive bid.

Scenario 1: other competitive bids are very high (demanding in terms of yield) so my bid ends up way below the cutoff. I would receive the cutoff yield which is higher than my bid.

Scenario 2: other competitive bids are very low (keen and accommodating) so my bid ends up way above the cutoff. I would receive full refund. After that, I am better off putting this amount into SSB.

Specify 3.69 not 3.70 for your comp bid. Case in point — the Aug-end auction. A huge portion of the comp bid concentrated at a singular yield level of 3.70. “Those who submitted competitive bids at the cut-off yield were allotted around 29 per cent of their applications.” I was wise to specify 3.69 and I managed to beat the crowd.