Supplementary Retirement Savings (SRS) Account Rates

Supplementary Retirement Scheme (SRS) Savings Account Rates

Supplementary Retirement Scheme (SRS) is a voluntary scheme to encourage employees and self-employed to save for retirement, over and above their CPF savings.

The Supplementary Retirement Scheme SRS offers attractive tax benefits. Contributions to Supplementary Retirement Scheme SRS are eligible for tax relief. Investment returns (with the exception of Singapore dividends) will also be tax-free before withdrawal and only 50% of the withdrawals from SRS are taxable at retirement.

You can open an SRS account at any of the three SRS operators:

Development Bank of Singapore (DBS) Ltd
Overseas-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC) Ltd
United Overseas Bank (UOB) Ltd

Now that you know what is the Supplementary Retirement Scheme SRS, what is the best interest rates on the supplementary retirement scheme SRS savings account in Singapore?

According to the Ministry of Finance, with some limitations imposed, the banks who operate the SRS generally make their own commercial decisions on what products you can invest in.

For those who keep their cash as savings deposits in the SRS, interest rates offered by the banks on your supplementary retirement scheme SRS savings accounts are similar to savings account that depositors put money into at the branch counters.

In other words, SRS savings account interest rates are the SAME as cash savings account interest rates. At present, these interest rates are pretty low, at around 0.25%. You can also open fixed deposits accounts to earn a slightly higher rate.

The low rates correspond to the relative security of this asset class. If you intend your SRS to be your nest egg for retirement, do consider that you would not want to invest your entire sum of money in financial products (e.g. toxic structured products) that are at more risk of loss than you are willing to accept.

Update on NTUC Thrift Interest Rates

NTUC Thrift Savings Account

NTUC Thrift interest rates used to be 2% or more(see NTUC Thrift post).

Now the best that you may get is 1.5% p.a. interest rates on the NTUC Thrift savings account when you save with a monthly savings plan via GIRO. To receive this high rate,you have to put additional savings into the NTUC Thrift savings account.

If you prefer not to contribute additional savings, you can open the NTUC Thrift Flexi-save account.

However, the interest rate offered will be lower at 0.6% pa.

Other conditions apply to NTUC Thrift savings account:

• You must be a Thrift member
• Initial deposit required: min $20 and max $1,000.
• Monthly savings by GIRO only : min $20 and max $1,000

Thank you for reading Singapore Savings Account rates.