Disclaimer: This is not a sponsored post. I earn no commission for writing this post or if you signup for an account.
UOB is running yet another round of promotions in an effort to steal some market share, and free cash is up for grabs.
This time, there are 2 separate promotions that are worth considering where you can earn up to a total of S$130 in cash.
The UOB Online Account Opening Promotion awards up to S$80 and the UOB Salary Credit Reward Campaign awards S$50
Without further ado, let’s get into the details of these promotions.
UOB Online Account Opening Promotion
This promotion awards a cash credit reward to customers for opening a new UOB deposit account and depositing funds in it.
It is applicable to both new and existing UOB customers, but depending on which type of customer you are, the cash reward you are eligible for will differ.
This promotion runs from 1 May 2022 – 31 July 2022 (ie the ‘Promotion Period’), so we’re in the final month of the promotion.
The accounts that are eligible for this promotion are:
- UOB Stash Account
- UOB Uniplus Account
- KrisFlyer UOB Account
- UOB One Account
Note that the UOB Lady’s Account is not eligible.
You can find the terms & conditions (T&Cs) of this promotion here.
New-to-UOB Customers
If you’re a new-to-UOB customer, you’ll be eligible to receive a cash credit of S$80.
To be a new-to-UOB customer, you must:
- not be an existing holder of a UOB account or product at the time of submitting your new account application, and
- not have held and/or closed any UOB account or product in the 12-month period prior to the commencement of the Promotion Period.
In other words, if you have not owned any UOB accounts/products since 1 May 2021, you will fall under this category.
New UOB Account Customers
If you’re a new UOB account customer, you’ll be eligible to receive a cash credit of S$60.
To be a new UOB account customer, you must:
- not be an existing holder of a UOB savings or current account at the time of submitting your new account application, and
- not have held and/or closed any UOB savings or current account in the 12-month period prior to the commencement of the Promotion Period.
In other words, if you have not owned any UOB accounts since 1 May 2021, but have owned or currently own any other type of UOB product, you will fall under this category.
For example, if you own a UOB credit card but not a UOB bank account, you will be considered as a new UOB account customer.
Existing Customers
If you’re an existing UOB account customer, you’ll be eligible to receive a cash credit of S$30.
To be an existing customer, you must:
- be an existing holder of a UOB savings or current account at the time of submitting your new account application, and
- not have held and/or closed the same UOB account as the new account being applied for in the 12-month period prior to the commencement of the Promotion Period.
In other words, if you currently own a UOB bank account and are planning to open a different type of account that you have not owned since 1 May 2021, you will fall under this category.
Regardless of which category of customer you fall under, the steps to take part in this promotion remain the same.
How To Take Part
To participate in this promotion, follow these steps:
- Apply as the primary account holder for any eligible UOB account online
- Deposit at least S$5,000 of fresh funds* into your account in the same month your account is opened via a permitted deposit channel
- Hold these funds until the end of the following month from the month your account is opened (ie if your account is opened in July, the funds must be held until 31 August)
*: If you’re an existing UOB customer, the deposit must result in an increase of at least S$5,000 when compared against the total balance of all your other UOB accounts as at 30 April 2022
Regarding point 2, the permitted deposit channels according to the terms & conditions are:
- FAST
- UOB Cash Deposit Machine
- UOB Quick Cheque Deposit Boxes
- Over-the-counter at any UOB branch
- any other channels permitted by the Bank
The most convenient one would be FAST via another bank account.
Regarding point 3, since the only month left for this promotion is in July, your funds must be held until 31 August to qualify for the reward.
Reward
If you are among the first 200 customers to fulfil all of the promotion criteria in a calendar month, you will be eligible to receive the corresponding cash reward.
Again, since the only month left for this promotion is in July, you only have 1 chance left to take part.
And while the fact that they limit the reward to only the first 200 customers per month may be a turn-off, the good thing is that it’s 200 per type of customer.
That is, 200 new-to-UOB customers, 200 new UOB account customers, and 200 existing customers, so it isn’t as competitive as it sounds.
However, to maximise the chances that you will be eligible for the reward, you’ll want to fulfil all the criteria ASAP once 1 July comes.
If you take part in this promotion and are eligible for the cash reward, you can expect to receive your reward by 31 October 2022 and you should receive an advance credit notice sent via mail.
Note that you will only be eligible to receive 1 cash reward for this promotion.
Eligible Accounts
There are 5 savings accounts that are eligible for this promotion:
- UOB Stash Account
- UOB Uniplus Saving Account
- UOB One
- KrisFlyer UOB Deposit Account
I won’t go into too much in detail about each account, but I’ll give you the key information that I think is important to know.
UOB Stash Account
The Stash account is meant for fuss-free saving and awards bonus interest depending on your account balance.
Base Interest Rate: 0.05% p.a.
Bonus Interest Rate: up to 1% p.a.
Eligibility: at least 16 years old
Early Closure Fee: S$30 (within 6 months of opening)
Minimum Daily Average Balance: S$500(waived for 6 months)
Fall-below Fee: S$2
UOB Uniplus Savings Account
The Uniplus account is your regular, old-school savings account that earns you 0.05% interest and does nothing else for you.
Base Interest Rate: 0.05% p.a.
Bonus Interest Rate: based on promotion availability
Eligibility: at least 16 years old
Early Closure Fee: S$30 (within 6 months of opening)
Minimum Daily Average Balance: S$500(waived for 6 months)
Fall-below Fee: S$2
UOB One
UOB One is UOB’s high-interest account, similar to the likes of DBS Multiplier.
Base Interest Rate: 0.05% p.a.
Bonus Interest Rate: up to 2.5% p.a.
Eligibility: at least 18 years old
Early Closure Fee: S$30 (within 6 months of opening)
Minimum Daily Average Balance: S$1000 (waived for 6 months)
Fall-below Fee: S$5
Note that even though the advertised interest rate is “up to 2.5% p.a.”, the effective interest rate is actually much lower.
From the table above, the 2.5% interest is only applicable on the 5th batch of S$15k account balance (ie S$60k ~ S$75k).
It is not applicable to the entire account balance.
This means that if your account balance is S$75k and you fulfil both the spending and salary crediting criteria, the effective interest rate you’ll earn is:
0.2*(0.50% + 0.55% + 0.65% + 0.80% + 2.50%) = 1.00% p.a.
Obviously, 1% is much lower than 2.5% and I find this extremely misleading on UOB’s part, though it’s not objectively wrong.
KrisFlyer UOB Deposit Account
The KrisFlyer UOB account is another unique account that earns miles on top of interest.
You get to earn 5 bonus miles/S$1 with eligible credit cards or 6 bonus miles/S$1 if you credit your salary of at least S$2k into this account, as long as you maintain a monthly account balance of S$1k.
This sounds amazing to anyone in the miles game, but there’s a big catch.
The bonus miles are capped at 5% of your monthly account balance.
This means if you have an account balance of S$10k, you’ll only be eligible for 500 bonus miles every month, which isn’t a whole lot.
Base Interest Rate: 0.05% p.a.
Bonus Interest Rate: N/A
Eligibility: at least 18 years old
Early Closure Fee: S$30 (within 6 months of opening)
Minimum Daily Average Balance: S$1000 (waived for 6 months)
Fall-below Fee: S$2
KrisFlyer UOB Debit Card Annual Fee: S$53.50, 1st year waived
Also, the KrisFlyer UOB debit card charges an annual fee – something you don’t usually see among debit cards.
While the card does come with some perks like ChangiWiFi discounts and exclusive Scoot privileges, I’m not sure it’s worth it.
You could try to get this fee waived, though I’m not sure if UOB will.
Which Account To Choose?
So, among the eligible accounts, which one should you choose?
Personally, I previously chose to open the UOB Stash account by the process of elimination, and that’s the one I’d recommend.
Since I don’t have an eligible UOB credit card yet, the KrisFlyer UOB account wouldn’t do much for me in terms of earning miles.
I already use DBS Multiplier and I think it’s better than the UOB One account.
Between UOB Stash and Uniplus, they’re pretty much the same except for the fact that Stash awards bonus interest based on your account balance.
While I don’t have any intention of maintaining a large balance in my account after this promotion, at least UOB Stash awards me for it if I ever choose to do so.
Things To Note
Before you go ahead and signup for this promotion, here are some things to take note of.
Online Account Opening
This promotion is only applicable for savings accounts that are opened online via UOB’s website, UOB’s internet banking portal, or the UOB TMRW mobile app.
If you open an account in person at a UOB branch, you won’t be eligible.
Transfer Method
When depositing your funds into the UOB account that you’ll open, the approved transfer methods according to the T&Cs are:
- FAST
- UOB Cash Deposit Machine
- UOB Quick Cheque Deposit Boxes
- Over-the-counter at any UOB branch
- any other channels permitted by the Bank
For the sake of avoidance of doubt, I’d recommend making your deposit via any of the first 4 methods.
The most convenient one would be FAST via another bank account.
Account Closure
Regardless of which savings account you open, there is an early closure fee of $30 that is chargeable if you close your account within 6 months of opening.
Obviously, incurring this fee will take a huge bite out of your reward for this promotion.
So you probably shouldn’t close your account during this period.
Furthermore, clause 4.2 in the T&Cs requires participants of this promotion to keep the new account opened for at least 9 months.
If you terminate your account within 9 months, UOB will be entitled to forfeit and/or reclaim your cash reward.
So if you don’t intend to keep the account that you opened for this promotion, you should only close it after 9 months.
Fall-below Fee
You might be thinking that the early account closure fee implies a 6-month lockup period of your funds.
Thankfully, this isn’t the case.
According to the promotion’s T&Cs, you only need to maintain the funds in your account until the date stipulated by your qualifying period.
For taking part in this promotion in July, this would be 31 August 2022.
So once that date has passed, you’re free to withdraw your funds.
While many bank accounts tend to impose a minimum daily account balance and a fall-below fee for failing to meet that criteria, you don’t have to worry about it in this case.
UOB is waiving the fall-below fee for all accounts that are opened online for 6 months, except the KrisFlyer UOB account.
In order to be eligible for the promotion, your account needs to be opened online, so you automatically qualify for this waiver.
This means you don’t need to worry about maintaining the daily average balance in your account to avoid the fee up to the 6-month mark.
So you can withdraw your entire S$5,000 and park it in a high-interest account to make your money work harder after qualifying for the promotion.
However, since the fall-below fee waiver is only valid for 6 months but you are required to keep your account open for 9 months, you’ll have to hit the account minimum balance to avoid the fall-below fee for the last 3 months.
UOB Salary Credit Reward Promotion
This promotion awards a cash credit reward to customers for crediting their salary into an eligible UOB account.
You do not need to open a new UOB account to credit your salary if you’re an existing UOB customer.
It is applicable to both new and existing UOB customers.
This promotion runs from 1 March 2022 – 31 December 2022 (the ‘Promotion Period’) and offers a cash reward of S$50.
Eligible UOB accounts include:
- UOB Passbook Savings Account
- UOB Uniplus Account
- UOB One Account
- UOB Stash Account
- KrisFlyer UOB Account
- UOB Lady’s Savings Account
You can find the terms & conditions (T&Cs) of this promotion here.
How To Take Part
To participate in this promotion, you must fulfil the following criteria:
- Not have credited your monthly salary via GIRO into any UOB account from 1 September 2021 – 28 February 2022,
- Submit the online campaign participation form during the Promotion Period, and
- Credit your monthly salary of at least S$1600 via GIRO into the account as indicated in the form in clause 2 with transaction description ‘GIRO-SALA’ within the next 2 calendar months from the date of submission of the form
You may consult the table below to see when your salary must be credited by and when you can expect to receive the S$50 cash reward depending on the month of submission of the online participation form.
| Participation Form Submission Month | Salary to be credited by | Cash Reward to be credited by |
| July 2022 | 30 September 2022 | 31 October 2022 |
| August 2022 | 31 October 2022 | 30 November 2022 |
| September 2022 | 30 November 2022 | 31 December 2022 |
| October 2022 | 31 December 2022 | 31 January 2023 |
| November 2022 | 31 January 2023 | 28 February 2023 |
| December 2022 | 28 February 2023 | 31 March 2023 |
Note that only salary transactions from a company, organization or business entity will be eligible for this promotion – transactions that originate from an individual will not be eligible.
Also, the account to which your salary is credited must be in good standing until you receive the S$50 cash reward. Otherwise, the reward will be forfeited without any compensation.
Changing the bank account to which your salary is credited is a rather simple process.
It usually involves updating your information in your company’s HR portal or something similar.
Remember that you have to register your interest to take part in the promotion at this link.
If you don’t, UOB won’t include you in the promotion and you won’t be eligible for the reward.
Which Account To Credit Your Salary?
For UOB, the only account that benefits from having your salary credited to it is UOB One, which is UOB’s high-interest savings account.
However, that alone isn’t enough to earn high interest on the UOB One account.
This is because the primary criterion for earning higher interest with the UOB One account is monthly spending of S$500 with an eligible UOB card.
Eligible cards include:
- UOB One Credit/Debit Card
- UOB Lady’s Credit/Debit Card
- UOB EVOL Credit Card
- UOB Mighty FX Debit Card
Salary crediting is a secondary criterion and will have no impact on your interest rate if you don’t first meet the card spending criterion.
If you’re already using one of the eligible cards above, then it might be worth crediting your salary to your UOB One account.
Otherwise, I’d say that the UOB One account isn’t worth it, and you’re better off using a basic account like UOB Stash.
Closing Thoughts
The UOB Mid-Year Savings Promotion is a pretty good promotion to get some easy cash.
It’s reasonably little effort to earn up to S$130, though there are some things you need to pay special attention to.
For the Online Account Opening Promotion, remember that only the first 200 customers for each category in a calendar month will be eligible for the reward, and accounts must remain open for 9 months.
So if you want to take part, be sure to do so ASAP on 1 July.
For the Salary Credit Reward Promotion, be sure to fill up the participation form and have your salary credited by the stipulated date.
Will you take part in this promotion? Let me know in the comments below!