You will be able to name each account on your CPF statement and say what money in it can be used for.
Four months into her job, Priya logged in to her CPF account for the first time. She expected one balance. Instead the dashboard showed three, each with its own name and its own figure, and none of them matched the total CPF she'd added up from her payslips. She closed the app and decided to look again when she had more time, which is roughly how most people treat their CPF.
This lesson explains what each account is for and how money gets into it, and after that the three balances are easy to read. Module 1 checked what left your pay. This module follows the money into your CPF and checks that it arrived.
If you're a working Singapore citizen or permanent resident under 55, your CPF is most likely split into three accounts.
The Ordinary Account is the flexible one. Its main use for most people is housing: the down payment and monthly instalments on a flat or a private property. It can also pay for some approved insurance and investments, and for local tertiary education.
The Special Account is for retirement. You can't use it for housing. It earns a higher interest rate than the Ordinary Account because the money is meant to stay put for decades.
The MediSave Account pays for healthcare: hospital bills, some outpatient treatments and premiums for approved medical insurance such as MediShield Life.
At 55 the structure changes and a Retirement Account is created. That's further along than this course goes. Lesson 5.1 of The Singapore personal finance system, Your CPF accounts at a glance, has the overview, and CPF Mastery: every account and the choices you control covers the detail. For reading your statement now, three accounts is what you need.
Every month, your contribution and your employer's arrive as one sum and are divided across the three accounts in proportions set by your age. Younger members have more going into the Ordinary Account. As you get older, more goes to the Special and MediSave Accounts, because retirement and healthcare are closer.
The CPF Board publishes the allocation rates by age band, and it adjusts them from time to time. Look up the table for your age on the CPF website rather than trying to remember a split. Then pick any contribution in your history and check that the three parts roughly follow it.
This is also why Priya's three balances didn't match her payslips. Her payslip total was right. It had simply been divided three ways, and she was comparing the total with one piece of it.
CPF sends a yearly statement, and you can see your balances any time on the CPF website or app once you log in with Singpass. The statement gives a snapshot: the balance in each account at a point in time, plus a summary of what went in and out over the year.
What it doesn't show well is the month-by-month detail. For that you need the transaction history, which lists every contribution, withdrawal and interest credit with its date. You'll read it properly in lesson 2.2, Read the transaction history month by month. When you want to check that something happened, use the history. When you want to know where you stand, the statement or dashboard is enough.
Your dashboard may also show other things, such as your nomination status and any housing or insurance schemes linked to your account. Lesson 2.3 covers the ones that take money out.
Each account earns interest, and the rates differ. The Ordinary Account earns less than the Special and MediSave Accounts. The government sets the rates, with minimum floors, and reviews them regularly. There's also extra interest on the first part of your combined balances, with rules about which account receives it.
It's tempting to memorise the numbers. Don't. Rates and the rules for extra interest are set by the government and do change, so a figure you learnt a few years ago may be wrong today. When you need a rate, read it on the CPF website that day.
How interest appears on your history is a separate question, and it catches people out. You'll see it in lesson 2.2.
Priya went back to the dashboard with this in mind. She noted her Ordinary Account balance first, since it was the largest, then the Special and MediSave balances. Then she opened the history to find the date of the most recent contribution. It was for her wages from the month before, credited in the current month, which is how it usually works.
With your Singpass ready, your own version takes about five minutes, and it gives you the starting numbers the rest of this module builds on.
Log in to your CPF account with Singpass and write down the balance of each account and the date of the latest contribution.
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