Earn up to 5.5% p.a. on RHB High Yield Savings Plus Account! Is RHB better than OCBC360?

Good news! Banks are fighting hard to get your deposits.

OCBC 360 was the best deposit account in November 2022.

From 1^st December onwards, RHB will be increasing the interest rates on their High Yield Savings Plus account and you can earn up to 5.50% p.a. on your fresh funds.

Is RHB better than OCBC 360?

Read on to find out more!

Introducing the RHB High Yield Savings Plus Account 

From 1^st December 2022, RHB is offering an additional boost of 3.5% p.a. on your fresh funds.

If you include the prevailing interest rates of up to 2.0% p.a., you can earn up to 5.50% p.a.

If you qualify for the RHB Premier Plus account, you can even earn up to 7.0% p.a. 

What’s the catch? It needs to be fresh funds. 

You should note that the bonus interest is only applicable to the fresh funds deposited for that particular month.

In other words, your ‘fresh’ S$100,000 deposited in December will be eligible for the bonus interest rate in December but not January and February.

You will earn the lower prevailing interest rate on these funds in January and February.

Also, this deal only lasts from 1^st December 2022 to 28 February 2023.

If you are interested, you should read my thoughts below slowly.. 😊 

Without further ado, let’s look at their offerings!

Is the RHB High Yield Savings Plus Account worth it?

As usual, let me break things down for you.

I will just cover the High Yield Savings Plus account.

If you have any questions on the Premier Plus account, you can ask the Beansprout community on the Telegram group.

Now let’s assume you opened an RHB account and deposited your funds into the account on 1 December. 

RHB treats all funds deposited in the account opening month to be eligible for the 3.5% bonus interest.

For a S$100,000 deposit, you will receive about S$433.15 of interest for the month of December. 

Yes, the interest you’ll receive is higher than what you’ll get for the OCBC 360 account.

However, the difference in interest you’ll receive is just $39.

I am not sure if this is worth your effort because there are further limitations mentioned in the Terms and Conditions. 

Terms and Conditions of the RHB High Yield Savings Plus Account

Our Beansprout community members are very creative.

Because of the limitations mentioned above, they suggested ways to earn a higher interest rate on the RHB High Yield Savings Plus Account.

One of the methods suggested was to create two separate accounts, one by you and another by your spouse/close associates.

Thereafter, you deposit a sum of money into one for December, then take it all out at the end of December and put it into the other account in January.

In this way you can the interest on fresh funds a few times.

Another way would be to use a joint account. 

I shall not specify the details because you can find them on the Telegram group 😊. 

Instead, I will point out some fine print in the terms and conditions here. 

Note that I am highlighting specific parts of the T&Cs for your attention and I am not suggesting any ideas on how to maximize your payout using the same amount of money.

RHB defined “Fresh funds” as funds that do not originate from any existing account with RHB within the campaign period.

So, you will not be able to earn the bonus interest by transferring between different RHB accounts.  

Instead, you will need to take an additional step of transferring the funds out to another bank and back into RHB.

If you are thinking of the above, you might want to read another clause. 

The bonus interest will only be credited into your account within 90 days from the end date of the relevant computation period e.g. end of December for interest paid on December AND

The account must be maintained and of good standing at all times and must not be in zero balance. 

This means that you will not get your interest so quickly and you still need to maintain a sum of money with RHB.

I do not know if there is a specific level – some say $0.01 while others say $1. 

My suggestion is to keep a decent amount in the account so you do not end up wasting your time!

Final verdict on the RHB High Yield Savings Plus Account vs OCBC360 Account 

Personally, I think the RHB High Yield Savings Plus Account might be a good option for people with a lot of spare cash lying around.

However, do note that this offer only lasts till February 2023 and you have to put in fresh funds each month to earn the bonus interest. 

If you are lazy, OCBC 360 account might still be the better deposit account because the interest payout is more consistent . 

You will earn 4.65% p.a. on your OCBC 360 account upon meeting certain conditions. 

For me, I will choose to be lazy. *winks*