The Best Fixed Deposits of December 2019

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This is the month of Christmas and also the last month of the year 2019. On top of the fixed deposits promotion that I have found last month in November, there is a new one such as the CIMB Why Wait Fixed Deposit-I promotion.

For those who has a lump sum of cash and can afford to lock down the money for 12 months or more, I certainly do recommend placing the money into fixed deposits as compared to the Singapore Savings Bonds. The reason is that for a short term period of 12 months, the interest rate for January 2020 Singapore Savings Bonds has fell tremendously to 1.52% (Read more: January 2020 Singapore Savings Bonds is 1.76%)

Below are fixed deposits from CIMB, Hong Leong Finance and MayBank. I have removed the fixed deposit promotion from Standard Chartered Bank because it fell to a non-attractive rate of 1.55% p.a. For those who are interested, OCBC is also offering a interest rate of 1.55% p.a. for a fixed deposit of 12 months on SGD as well.

CIMB Fast Fixed Deposit Christmas Promotion

Interest rate: 1.80%, Minimum Placement: S$10,000, Promotion Valid Until: 31st December 2019

The total interest that you will receive if you place S$20,000 for 12 months is S$360.

CIMB Why Wait Fixed Deposit-i Christmas Promotion

Interest rate: 1.80%, Minimum Placement: S$10,000, Promotion Valid Until: 31st December 2019

This is another fixed deposit promotion offered by CIMB. For this Why Wait Fixed Deposit-it, you get the profit upfront rather than upon maturity.

The total interest that you will receive if you place S$20,000 for 12 months is S$360.

Hong Leong Finance Fixed Deposit

Interest Rate: 1.70%, Minimum Placement: S$20,000, Promotion Valid Until: Not stated

Hong Leong Finance seems to have reduced the interest rate for their fixed deposit. For a placement of S$20,000, last month was 1.73% but now they have reduced it to 1.70%. Nevertheless, it is still attractive.

The total interest that you will receive if you place S$20,000 for 12 months is S$340.

MayBank Singapore Dollar Time Deposit

Interest Rate: 1.80%, Minimum Placement: S$20,000, Promotion Valid Until: Not stated

Maybank has also reduced their fixed deposit interest rate from 1.88% to 1.80%. The total interest that you will receive if you place S$20,000 for 12 months is S$360.00. However, there are some catch should you choose to place your fixed deposit with MayBank

  • You need to have a MayBank Current or Savings account.
  • For every S$1,000 deposited into the CASA Account, S$10,000 can be placed into the Singapore Dollar Time Deposit, subject to a minimum of S$20,000 in Time Deposit and the corresponding minimum deposit of S$2,000 in the CASA Account.

January 2020 Singapore Savings Bonds is 1.76%

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The effective interest rate for January 2020 Singapore Savings Bonds (GX20010T) is 1.76% if you held it for 10 years. This is an improvement as compared to 1.71% for December 2019 issue of the Singapore Savings Bonds. The minimum amount you can purchase for Singapore Savings Bonds is S$500. If you decide to hold and sell it for 1 year, the effective interest rate is 1.52% which is worst than what fixed deposits can offer.

If you have 10K or more and can afford to lock down the money for 1 year or more, you can consider fixed deposits as compared to Singapore Savings Bonds for that higher interest rate.

If you have monies sitting in your Supplementary Retirement Scheme account, why not consider placing SRS monies with Singapore Savings Bonds for a higher interest? (Read more: Purchase Singapore Savings Bonds with SRS in 2019)

DBS Multiplier Account + Singapore Savings Bonds

If you hold a DBS Multiplier Account, you can perhaps try the hack I previously wrote about to achieve a higher interest rate payout. (Read more: Earn More Interest With DBS Multiplier Account + Singapore Savings Bonds).

Tracking Singapore Savings Bonds via Stocks Café

My favorite website, Stocks Café has introduced a new feature to allow adding of Singapore Savings Bonds into your portfolio. If you didn’t know, I signed up as a Friend of Stocks Café as my most favorite feature of Stocks Café is the automated tracking of dividends payout.

I have renewed my subscription with Stocks Café and this is the second year that I continue to use Stocks Café to track my dividends.

Tracking Singapore Savings Bonds via My Savings Bonds Portal

MAS has launched My Savings Bonds Portal where you can track your Singapore Savings Bonds purchases separately from your stock purchases. I have done up a simple guide here. (Read more: Guide to My Savings Bonds Portal)

Frasers Logistics and Industrial Trust and Frasers Commercial Trust Announce Proposed Merger

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Investors have already felt something fishy last Friday when both Frasers Commercial Trust and Frasers Logistics and Industrial Trust requested for a trading halt. Today, Frasers Logistics and Industrial Trust and Frasers Commercial Trust announced a proposed merger by way of trust scheme.

In conjuction with the merger, Frasers Logistics and Industrial Trust also proposed the acquisition of 50% interest in Farnborough Business Park from a wholly-owned subsidiary of Frasers Property Limited. The remaining 50% is currently held by Frasers Commercial Trust (Read more: My Personal Analysis Of Frasers Commercial Trust) After the merger, Frasers Logistics and Industrial Trust will hold 100% of Farnborough Business Park.

With the merger, the total assets will be worth approximately S$5.7 billion and the enlarged REIT will be one of the top 10 S-REIT by market capitalisation with index representation.

Frasers Commercial Trust unitholders will receive

  • S$0.151 in cash for each unit; and 
  • 1.233 new Frasers Logistics and Industrial Trust units at an issue price of S$1.240 per unit.

I shall not dive into other rationale that the manager gave for the proposed merger. As a dividend investor, I am only keen in the dividend yield after the merger. The merger is expected to be DPU accretive on a pro forma basis for both Frasers Logistics and Industrial Trust unitholders and Frasers Commercial Trust unitholders by 2.2% and 4.2% respectively.

After the news of the merger broke out, share price of Frasers Commercial Trust has also gone up by 2.40%.