Just when I had a go at criticizing the DBS Be Your Own Boss (BYOB) Promotion and Save As You Earn (SAYE) Account, my wife expresses interest in it. I can see the reason behind this. From this month onwards, my wife’s salary will be credited into a DBS savings account held in her name. She wanted to know if it’s possible for us to utilize that to our advantage. After all, salary crediting usually allows for higher interest to be earned, as you can see from the OCBC 360 and UOB One bank accounts. I’m pleased she has thought about this. Well done!
This is how we considered whether my wife should register for the DBS BYOB Promotion and SAYE Account. First, we looked at the DBS BYOB Promotion website landing page and the key conditions and benefits are highlighted on the webpage. However, we noted a few concerns about the mechanics and went to the Terms and Conditions for more information. This happens almost every time for us with DBS products and it’s my biggest problem with them.
DBS doesn’t offer easy to understand special banking accounts/products to the mass individual customer market. They like to come up with complex stuff, make you jump through additional hoops and hurdles, before giving you what you want. Don’t get me wrong. You can get good stuff at the end of the obstacle course. My main criticism is the fact that you have to put in extra and unnecessary work to get it. When they could have just given it to you in a more convenient manner.
Let’s analyse the Terms and Conditions as applied to my wife. You will be able to see why this is an annoying process even though she decided to register for the DBS BYOB Promotion and proceeded to open the SAYE Account in the end. By the time we figured out this is beneficial to us, my wife almost decided against registering for it because of the additional legwork involved.
Age Restriction
The DBS BYOB Promotion is open to customers aged from 18 to 30 years old at the point of registration. My wife is 29 years old and just made the cutoff.
Salary Crediting
My wife does not have a salary crediting arrangement with DBS between 1 September 2016 and 28 February 2017 since her salary crediting into a DBS savings account will only start this month.
Register Online
She registered online and provided her details using the link.
Open SAYE Account Online
My wife logged in to her internet banking to apply for the SAYE Account. Her DBS salary crediting account is selected as the debiting account for the maximum monthly savings amount of S$3,000 on 24th of every month into the SAYE Account. The maximum limit works for her because she can save S$3,000 every month from her salary and the timing works as well because that’s right after her salary is credited.
No Withdrawals
She should not need to withdraw from the SAYE Account as long as she continues to remain employed. If this is the case, we are basically setting aside cash she should have saved monthly anyway from her salary income in a different bank account. Besides, we have sufficient cash savings for our expenses and investments without withdrawing from the SAYE Account.
Existing POSB Principal Credit Card Member
My wife has a POSB Everyday Credit Card that is used as an EZ-Link card (i.e. EZ-Reload charges), for utilities bill payments and to make purchases of Watsons products and Golden Village movie tickets. No where near the required 5 retail transactions per calendar month. We could start charging some of our Singtel and Starhub bills to the POSB Everyday Credit Card but we are not sure whether they count. Alternatively, we could start charging some of our groceries and dining expenses to the POSB Everyday Credit Card but it’s such a waste of the better cash rebate we can get on other credit cards. We might explore the Cashback Bonus program but we only fulfill 2 of the 5 categories so far. Another gripe of ours but oh well, sacrifices need to be made.
Benefits
2% pa interest on the monthly savings in the SAYE Account credited into the same account. Another 2% pa bonus interest on the monthly savings in the SAYE Account credited into her Paylah account. S$88 cash gift because she registered by 30 September 2017. We have already maxed out the balances in the high interest (about 2% pa) OCBC 360 and UOB One bank accounts already. We are left with rotating our remaining cash funds between the relatively high (about 1% pa) CIMB FastSaver, Stan Chart ESaver (with promotion) and UOB Uniplus (with promotion) bank accounts. The combined possible 4% pa DBS BYOB Promotion and SAYE Account for the next 2 years should still beat our cash funds rotation approach.
Conclusion
We will be monitoring on a monthly basis how much interest gets credited into my wife’s PAYE and PayLah accounts where applicable after ensuring we meet our above interpretations of the conditions. We don’t like having to backcheck that we have been correctly following the requirements and will not be happy if we end up being wrong. Which is my main question to DBS. Why would you risk pissing off your customers with such complications over a long period of time? Imagine your customers tripping up unintentionally by making critical errors that should have been minor mistakes in the grand scheme of things and end up losing the interest earned. How much of a fuss/storm do you think they would kick up?
Sinkie says
Chill…. I normally save myself unwanted hypertension by not jumping thru too many hoops. Old man already, haha. I gave up on this BYOB after having to spend 60 sec scanning the T&C.
Bear in mind this doesn’t seem 4% p.a. It’s really 2% p.a. X 2, as only 2% compounds in the SAYE a/c, while the other 2% goes into Paylah — unless you’re able to immediately turn around & xfer the $$ from Paylah into SAYE??
Sorry, I’m not familiar with the mechanics or restrictions of SAYE & Paylah as I don’t use them. But even if it’s 2% X 2, it’s still good lah!
Regarding usage of POSB Everyday Credit Card — it’s a MasterCard? If so you can register the card for Transitlink Account-Based Ticketing (https://abt.transitlink.com.sg/)
Basically works like an EZ-link card, but fares are charged as credit card transactions instead. That means hell lots of transactions, and no need to mess around with top-ups. I’ve been using this since it started in Mar 2017.
After you register at the above website, you’ll need to activate the credit card at an EZ-link kiosk. The kiosk will also prompt to de-activate the EZ-link function as apparently cannot have both EZ-link & ABT on the same card.
Finance Smiths says
Yup, it took me a while to understand the T&Cs of this DBS BYOB Promotion and SAYE Account. Good point about using the POSB Everyday Credit Card as a MasterCard for Transitlink Account-Based Ticketing. Would be useful to have the fares charged as multiple credit card transactions. Thanks for letting me know about how to activate the credit card and deactivate the EZ-Link function at the kiosk.
Sinkie says
I actually wrote a longer comment but it disappeared after I clicked Post. Shld do a ctrl-A & ctrl-C beforehand from now on, haha.
Anyway, just want to add the below which may help with your POSB CC transactions.
If it’s a MasterCard, then you can register it for Transitlink Account-Based Ticketing (https://abt.transitlink.com.sg/)
It allows your MasterCard to be used like a EZ-link card, but the fares get charged as CC transactions instead of being deducted from a top-up value. You’ll get lots of transactions & does away with having to top-up for EZ-link.
I’ve been using it since MasterCard & Transitlink started this in Mar 2017.
Finance Smiths says
I retrieved your longer comment. Haha, not sure what happened to it but I have just replied to it!
Randomness says
FYI: I enrolled into the same but with different promo and spent lots of time checking the T&C. I’m sure I missed some T&C.
However, I would like to point out that my SAYE only pays minimal interest per month and the 2% (promo) is only paid on an annual basis. Not sure if your promo is diff but with the compounding interest set to annual, there is quite a diff =)
Finance Smiths says
To be honest, we don’t understand the T&Cs of the promo my wife signed up for as well. We reckon the compounding interest happens monthly only on the cash funds saved into the DBS SAYE Account. But we plan to check the interest received every month from Aug 2017 to see what’s actually happening.