Nerfed: UOB One Account Drastically Reduces Interest Rates from 1st May; What Now?
Again, not an April Fool’s prank – UOB is dramatically reducing the interest rates of its highly popular UOB One account from 1st May 2020.
| Account Balance | Current Interest (Blended Interest) | From 1st May |
| First $15,000 | 1.85% (1.85%) | 1.25% (1.25%) |
| Next $15,000 | 2.00% (1.925%) | 1.30% (1.275%) |
| Next $15,000 | 2.15% (2.00%) | 1.35% (1.30%) |
| Next $15,000 | 2.30% (2.075%) | 1.40% (1.325%) |
| Next $15,000 | 3.88% (2.436%) | 3.68% (1.796%) |
Interest rates assume $500 card spend and salary/GIRO arrangements are made.
UOB One gives interest in tiers, so I have included the blended interest rate in parenthesis. This means if you have $45,000 (first $15,000 + next $15,000 + next $15,000), your effective interest is 2.00% pa. It will reduce to a mere 1.30% from 1st May onwards.
The maximum effective interest you will get is on $75,000, and that is going to be 1.796% pa, down from the current 2.436% pa.
Remember how I used to give 9 ★ for this account? This is a really, really hard fall, and it already was severely impacted by the UOB One Card nerf. I don’t think there’s much of a reason to consider this account now, except if you have $75,000, can live with barely 1.8% pa interest, and don’t have a proper salary credit to qualify for other accounts.
Alternatives
DBS Multiplier is also going down slightly in interest rate from 1st May, but the reductions aren’t nearly as drastic (about 0.10 to 0.15% drop), and there’s no change if one can hit 2 categories on top of income.
OCBC 360 and Bank of China SmartSaver remain viable options, mostly because they have not been revised. but with so many banks already revising nerfing their accounts, it’s probably a matter of time before they follow suit. Update: OCBC just reduced its rates, but it is thankfully quite a slight decrease.
Singlife Account gives decent 2.5% pa returns, but is unfortunately only limited to the first $10,000.
Of course, with equity markets depressed and interest rates cut drastically, perhaps this is not the best time to hold cash.
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Luckily I didn’t jump to UOB One as I feel DBS Multiplier is still the simplest and easiest to achieve. Then, the interest rate for 1 category will be reduced. Bo pian but still better though, just lost around $2 per month.
I’m glad my mortgage is with DBS too. A lot more painless this way.