Pretty Great: Get 3.29% Cashback on Your Mortgage Payments
I previously wrote about CardUp for income tax payment (or any other payment such as insurance), and they recently introduced mortgage payments. If you’re a homeowner, this is pretty awesome news.
Monthly recurring payments are the best kind of payments to do with CardUp, particularly if they are sizeable. This includes things like insurance or rent which CardUp has always supported. Now, homeowners can also join in the fun with mortgage payments. Having a certain sum to pay every month allows you to make very good use of UOB One which can give up to 5% cashback depending on your spend amount:
| Monthly Spend Amount | UOB One Cashback Rate |
| $500 | 3.33% |
| $1,000 | 3.33% |
| $2,000 | 5% |
Note that you have to maintain your spend for 3 months based on the quarter of your UOB One’s cycle. Also, you have to make at least 5 transactions per month. Easily done with a few 1-cent transactions to your utilities and telco bills I imagine.
CardUp’s fees can be as low as 1.8% for recurring payments, and simple mathematics tell us that we can earn pretty significant cashback on these payments.
What you require
UOB One
👍🏼
New to bank
Welcome Gift:Get $300 cash credit if you are the first 100 new-to-UOB Credit Cardmember and make a min. spend of S$1,000 for 2 consecutive 30 day periods from Card Approval date. Valid till 31 Jan 2023. T&Cs apply.
Get 3.33% base cashback if you spend $500, $1,000, or $2,000 a month for three consecutive months. Up to 6.67% additional cashback for Grab, Shopee, and Diary Farm merchants.
Optimal payment amounts and yield
To optimise your earnings, you may wish to make a payment that would meet UOB One’s spend tier exactly after fee. For example, instead of $500, you can just set the payment amount as $491.16 which would be $500 after CardUp’s 1.8% fee. This ensures you pay less fees and optimise your net yield.
| Optimal Payment Amount | CardUp’s Fee^ (1.8%) | UOB One Cashback Rate | Net Yield |
| $491.16 | $8.84 | 3.33% | 1.59% |
| $982.32 | $17.68 | 3.33% | 1.59% |
| $1,964.64 | $35.36 | 5% | 3.29% |
^CardUp’s fee is 1.8% for recurring payments when you use the promo code RECURRING18. If you’re new to CardUp, make sure you use my link to get a generous discount off the fee of your first payment.
CardUp allows you to pay any amount as long as it does not exceed your monthly mortgage amount stated in the mortgage document. If you have a $2,400 mortgage for instance, you can opt to make payments of $1,964.64 to get a nice round $2,000 spend on your UOB ONE card after CardUp’s fee, and make the balance payment separately.
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How to do it
- If you don’t have one yet, sign up for a CardUp account
- Set up a payment, and input the amount, card number, and set the payment frequency
- For your first payment, use promo code SETHISFY (for subsequent payments RECURRING18 for subsequent payments)
- Submit supporting documents (e.g. mortgage document etc.)
You can pay directly to the bank if they specify a bank account to pay to. Might be a good idea to cancel any existing payment arrangement so that you avoid double payment.
Alternatively, you can also set up payments to your own account where a GIRO arrangement is made with your lending bank. In this scenario, CardUp will charge your card, and disburse funds to your account. Your mortgage is then paid the same way it has been.
More use cases
If you’re short of the next tier, say your mortgage is $1,800 or so, you can always throw in other recurring payments such as an insurance policy or two, or maintenance fees if you live in an estate where that’s required. Most insurers and estate management firms let you pay any amount and keep a balance with them, so it’s great for calibrating your monthly payment to hit exactly the amount required for UOB One’s optimal yield.
If your mortgage is pretty substantial, say $4,000 a month, getting a family member or your partner to get a second UOB One to split the payment would also reap substantial savings.
While mortgage happens to be a substantial recurring transaction, everything in this article also applies to other recurring spend you may have like income tax, insurance, or rent.
Conclusion
Getting cashback from non-retail transactions is always a nice thing. It is especially a no-brainer thing to do when you just need to set this up once to reap the benefits on an ongoing basis.
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