Best Savings Account in 2022 for young adults with no requirements

It has been an exciting month for many of us as Singapore’s banks have been raising their interest rate across the board. There are many that came with requirements such as spending on their credit card or crediting your salary. But what if you are just a student or a young adult that has little savings? Not everyone has a 100k to spare! This short article will cover no-frills savings accounts that have little requirement to meet to get a decent interest rate. I researched so that you don’t have to! This scenario will assume a young adult with equal or less than $10k to spare, either because he has little savings or he just yoloed into his investments.
Savings accounts with promotion rates
If you are willing to chase after high-interest rates or are a person who likes to optimize their finance, there are some good news for you. RHB Bank Berhad is offering up to a whopping 5.5% interest on their High Yield Savings Plus Account if you put in incremental fresh funds from 1 September 2022 to 30 November 2022 as part of their promotional offers. If you have less than 50k, the Effective Interest Rate (EIR) is only 4.2%. But that is still a high yield considering our pessimistic environment right now. It is SDIC insured up to $75k, so you rest your worries if you are depositing a high amount of money with them. If you have more than $200k, you can deposit in their Premier Plus Account for even more interest rates. Take note that the 3% bonus interest will only be credited after two months.
Additionally, Standard Chartered Esaver is also offering a promo for 1.5% for this month.
From what I have gathered from Hardwarezone forums and SG Tele groups, the best strategy for banks that offer incremental fresh funds promotions is to play musical chairs or cycles with them.
- Deposit at the start of September
- Withdraw all funds (leave $0.01 or whichever is the minimum balance) on 2nd October
- If they run the promo again in Nov-Dec, you may deposit it again on 1 Nov
- Repeat
By doing this, you can ensure that you get September’s interest and prepare for future bank promotions!
Savings accounts for long term
For hassle-free savings account where you can just deposit and forget. There are a few options. For a 1-1.5% interest rate, you may take a look at CIMB Fast saver, Trust bank or Singlife (Insurance Savings Plans). Do note their limit for the interest rates. The next category would be the big three banks (DBS, OCBC, UOB), but all of them require you to jump through hoops to get their high interest, so I would rather avoid them for now unless the above categories have been maxed out. However, we can take advantage of UOB bank promos to milk some cash from them of you are a new to bank customer.
For more info on savings account, check out Seedly’s website. For Fixed Deposit, check out Financial Horse.