One Year On: How Has Vanilla Money Fared?

It’s been more than a year since “Vanilla Money” started and it’s a timely occasion to take a look at its returns now that it has crossed its 1st year of existence.

What is Vanilla Money?

Vanilla Money isn’t really a product, but it was an experiment I embarked on after I decided to stop using Chocolate Finance last year. I was very fond of Chocolate Finance as a product back in 2024, even giving it my pick for Best Investment App that year.

Things changed in early 2025, so I had to find a replacement for my funds that I had placed in Chocolate Finance. As an asset management firm licensed in Singapore, Chocolate Finance has to be transparent with their holdings, so I essentially invested a small amount of money – just S$1,000 – in the same funds in similar allocations since 10th April 2025 to test what would happen.

This is the current portfolio:

Fund	Current allocation
Fullerton Short Term Interest Rate Fund	40.51%
UOBAM United SGD Fund	34.99%
LionGlobal Short Duration Bond Fund	10.04%
Amova Short Term Bond Fund	9.52%
Dimensional Global Short-Term Investment Grade Fixed Income Fund SGD-Hedged	4.94%
Total	100%

Chocolate Finance has readjusted its portfolio since April 2026, but more on that later.

First-year returns

Looking at the first-year performance of my Vanilla Money funds, I received an annualised return of 2.89% p.a. from 10th April 2025 to 10th April 2026. I have tabled its performance to compare its returns against Chocolate Finance’s different rates over the past year:

	10th April to May 2025	1st June to 31st August 2025	1st September to 30th November 2025	1st December 2025 to 10th April 2026	Average Return
“Vanilla Money”	6.41% p.a.	6.54% p.a.	1.46% p.a.	0.21% p.a.	2.89% p.a.
Chocolate Finance*	3.3% p.a.	3% p.a.	2.5% p.a.	2% p.a.	2.56% p.a.

Vanilla Money’s higher returns over the year should not be surprising, given that Chocolate Finance needs to make money by taking the difference between the fund returns and what it offers its customers.

The bond funds, however, have been pretty much flat since 1st December 2025, while Chocolate Finance has quite admirably maintained its current rates:

	1st December 2025 to 10th April 2026	11th April to 24th July 2026
“Vanilla Money”	0.21% p.a.	0.23% p.a.
Chocolate Finance*	2% p.a.	2% p.a.

It’s unclear to me whether the continued 1.8% and 2% p.a. rates are funded through reserves built up when the bond funds were doing well, marketing dollars, or a combination of both, but I believe it is unlikely to be due to the portfolio changes that Chocolate Finance effected in April 2026.

The underlying funds are still largely short-duration, investment-grade fixed income funds as far as I can tell, so its recent performance should be pretty similar to Vanilla Money’s portfolio. My wild guess is that a rate drop for Chocolate Finance is imminent in light of the poorer performance of short-term bonds in recent months.

The winner is…

So what should I have placed my funds in if I were looking for a cash-management replacement back in March 2025? The answer turns out to be Singapore Savings Bond (SSB), specifically the April 2025 tranche which was up for subscription that month. At 2.73% p.a., it seemed so lacklustre back then, but I mentioned that it was a pretty good alternative in my video, especially with its ability to maintain and even increase its rates over its 10-year tenure while still offering almost full liquidity.

In fact, it took fewer than 5 months for it to emerge as the clear winner from 1st September 2025 onwards:

	10th April to May 2025	1st June to 31st August 2025	1st September to 30th November 2025	1st December 2025 to 10th April 2026	11th April to 24th July 2026
“Vanilla Money”	6.41% p.a. 🥇	6.54% p. 🥇	1.46% p.a.	0.21% p.a.	0.23% p.a.
Chocolate Finance*	3.3% p.a.	3% p.a.	2.5% p.a.	2% p.a.	2% p.a.
Singapore Savings Bond April 2025	2.73% p.a.	2.73% p.a.	2.73% p.a. 🥇	2.73% p.a. 🥇	2.73% p.a. 🥇

What a difference a year makes – this particular SSB would be severely oversubscribed if it were to be released any time this year.

Myself, I eventually reallocated the funds into the market for my long-term investment portfolio, fortuitously during the Liberation Day “sale”.

Moving ahead

Moving forward, what would be good for cash management? I feel like the story is pretty much the same as last year even though rates have gone down.

Emergency savings which require liquidity but would otherwise stay idle could benefit from SSBs… which is something I already did when rates were above 3% p.a. (and wow, look at how optimistic I was about UOB One’s interest rates back then). Yes, the current first-year rates of around 1.5% p.a. are not exciting, but again SSB is one of the only tools that can give you guaranteed returns for up to 10 years while still maintaining liquidity.

For short-term funds, high-yield savings accounts or fuss-free accounts can be considered, or even Chocolate Finance if you can accept that it is an investment product that is not SDIC-insured and does not offer instant withdrawals (though it seems to be much quicker now than before).

Any excess cash should ideally be put towards long-term investing. Chasing a couple of percentage points of returns is prudent if you are looking at cash that you might need in the short term, but can be counter-productive if the funds are meant for your long-term goals like retirement. I’ll be doing a piece on how to handle such funds soon, so remember to stay subscribed and leave notifications turned on.

Seth Wee was a licensed financial adviser representative from 2009 to 2025, with over 16 years of experience in Singapore’s financial advisory industry.

He started Sethisfy.com in 2019 to share practical insights on credit cards, banking products, and miles strategies, helping readers identify financial products that deliver the best value. Seth has been featured in CNA, Channel 8, Today, and a host of other publications. In 2025, he was also part of a panel at CPF’s Ready For Life festival.

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