Finance 102: Getting high interest in a low interest environment

Making our money work by putting in a bank has become more meaningful recently. There are 2 schemes which i use to generate some income:

1) OCBC 360 Account - Base interest is 0.05%. Nothing special. What's special is when you credit your monthly salary, and/or pay 4 bills within the month and/or spend $400 on a OCBC credit card in that month. For each action, you will get 1% interest per annum, paid every month. That will give you a total of 3.05% per annum if you complete all action. However the additional interest in capped at the first $50,000 deposited. 

Assuming you have $50,000 in the account, that will give you $127 per month or $1525 a year! To put it into perspective of a parent with an infant, that will probably be enough for diapers(i only spend $49.80 in April) and milk powder for the month. On top of that, if you have OCBC Frank Card, you can continue to enjoy 6% off online/netsflashpay spending (pls refer to my previous article Finance 101 ). For more information, you can refer to OCBC website.

2) Standard Chartered BonusSaver - You get 1.88%, on the first $25,000, when you spend $500 on your BonusSaver Credit Card. This will give you $39 a month or $470 a year in interest. Not as exciting, but not shabby at all, in this low interest rate environment. For more information, you can refer to Bonussaver website .

So, if you have $75,000 and spend at least $900/mth using credit cards, you get to enjoy $166/mth of risk-free interest income.