The Standard Chartered Bonus Saver (officially Bonus$aver) headlines at 5.85% p.a. in 2026, but that number is built for almost nobody. Reaching it means crediting a S$3,000 salary, spending S$1,000 on the card, parking S$30,000 in investments and paying a S$24,000 annual insurance premium, all in the same month. Strip away the parts most savers cannot or will not do and you are left with 1.85% p.a. from salary plus card spend. This guide breaks down every bonus tier, the exact minimum for each, the six-month clock that quietly ends your invest and insure bonus, and the real interest a normal saver takes home after the May 2026 rate cut.
Bonus Saver is a current account that stacks bonus interest on top of a tiny base rate. Every dollar in the account earns a prevailing rate of 0.05% p.a. On top of that, you earn four separate bonus tranches by hitting four conditions: crediting your salary, spending on the Bonus Saver credit or debit card, investing through Standard Chartered, and buying an eligible insurance policy. Each condition you meet adds its own bonus rate, and the rates simply add up.
The bonus only applies to the first S$100,000 of your average daily balance. Anything above that earns the 0.05% base rate, the same as a plain account. Unlike UOB One or OCBC 360, there is no tiered split inside that S$100,000, so the rate you qualify for applies evenly across the whole eligible balance. If you want to sanity-check what any rate is worth on your balance, run it through a compound interest calculator before you move money around.
The catch that trips most people up is that two of the four bonuses run on a six-month clock. The salary and card-spend bonuses are repeatable every month you qualify, but the invest and insure bonuses pay out for only six consecutive months after you meet the criteria, then stop. That structure is what makes the 5.85% headline a short-lived peak rather than a rate you can hold for a year.
Standard Chartered cut the Bonus Saver from a maximum of 7.05% p.a. to 5.85% p.a. effective 1 May 2026, the second downward revision in roughly a year. The figures below are the rates published by Standard Chartered as of June 2026. Banks repriced savings accounts repeatedly through 2025 and 2026, so confirm the live numbers on the official Bonus Saver page before you act.
Read this table as a menu. You add each bonus rate you qualify for to the 0.05% base. Hit salary plus card spend and you sit at 1.85% p.a. Add invest and you reach 3.35% p.a. Add insure on top and you touch the full 5.85% p.a., but only for the six months the invest and insure bonuses survive.
| Bonus category | Bonus rate | What you must do | How long it lasts |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prevailing base rate | 0.05% p.a. | Just hold the account | Always |
| Salary credit | 0.90% p.a. | Credit at least S$3,000 a month via GIRO, PayNow or FAST | Every qualifying month |
| Card spend | 0.90% p.a. | Spend at least S$1,000 a month on the Bonus Saver card | Every qualifying month |
| Invest | 1.50% p.a. | Hold S$30,000+ in eligible unit trusts or online equities | 6 consecutive months only |
| Insure | 2.50% p.a. | Pay an eligible policy with S$24,000+ annual premium | 6 consecutive months only |
| All four combined | 5.85% p.a. | Meet every condition above in the same month | 6 months, then drops to 1.85% |
Stacking the bonuses gives you four realistic landing spots. Salary plus card spend is 1.85% p.a. and is the only tier most people can sustain. Adding the invest bonus lifts you to 3.35% p.a. Adding insure instead of invest gives 4.35% p.a. Doing all four reaches 5.85% p.a. The jump from 1.85% to anything higher costs real money in investment lock-ups and insurance premiums, which is the part the headline rate never shows you.
The salary and card-spend bonuses are the cheap, repeatable wins. The invest and insure bonuses are where the maths gets honest. Each promises a high rate, but only on the first S$100,000 and only for six months, while demanding a commitment far larger than the interest it returns.
Picture a saver with S$50,000 in the account who credits a S$3,500 salary and spends S$1,200 on the card each month. They hit two bonuses, so they earn 1.85% p.a. on the full S$50,000, which is about S$925 a year. The base 0.05% rate alone would have paid roughly S$25, so the salary and card bonuses are doing real work.
Now suppose the same saver chases the 5.85% headline. They would need S$30,000 sitting in unit trusts plus a S$24,000 insurance premium, and even then the 5.85% rate on S$50,000 (about S$2,925 a year) only runs for six months before the invest and insure bonuses expire and you fall back to 1.85%. The extra interest over those six months rarely justifies the lock-ups and premiums, which is why most honest reviews land on 1.85% as the rate that matters.
If your balance climbs above S$100,000, the excess earns only 0.05%, so a T-bill or a fixed deposit usually beats leaving idle cash above the cap. Deposits are protected up to S$100,000 per bank under the SDIC scheme, which neatly matches the bonus cap.
There is no monthly account service charge, but you pay a S$5 fall-below fee in any month your average daily balance drops under S$3,000. The debit card carries no annual fee; the credit card is S$218 a year with the first year free, so factor that in if you only opened it to hit the card-spend bonus.
You must be at least 18 to open the account (17 for the debit card), and the credit card is for ages 21 to 65. Salary must arrive as a regular inward credit through GIRO, PayNow or FAST to count, so a manual one-off transfer will not trigger the salary bonus.
On the entry tier of salary plus card spend, Bonus Saver's 1.85% p.a. is competitive but not the leader. OCBC 360 edged ahead at around 1.95% on its basic criteria as of mid-2026, while UOB One pays less at the bottom of its tier structure but rewards larger balances differently. Where Bonus Saver pulls ahead is the insure bonus: 2.50% p.a. is the single richest bonus tranche among the big four, which is why its peak rate looks so high.
The honest comparison depends on what you can sustain, not the peak. A saver who will genuinely keep S$24,000 of insurance premiums and S$30,000 invested can squeeze more from Bonus Saver for six months. A normal salaried saver who just wants a clean repeatable rate may do as well or better with OCBC 360 or the DBS Multiplier account. Before switching, line up the live numbers against our roundup of the best savings accounts in Singapore and consider a no-hoops account like the one in our CIMB FastSaver review.
| Account | Max advertised rate | Bonus cap | Entry tier (salary + spend) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard Chartered Bonus Saver | Up to 5.85% p.a. | First S$100,000 | 1.85% p.a. |
| OCBC 360 | Repriced 2026, check live | First S$100,000 | Around 1.95% p.a. |
| UOB One | Repriced Dec 2025, check live | First S$150,000 | Tiered, check live |
| DBS Multiplier | Up to 4.10% p.a. | First S$100,000 | From 1.80% p.a. |
For a salaried saver who can credit S$3,000 and spend S$1,000 on the card, the answer is a qualified yes: 1.85% p.a. on up to S$100,000 with no service charge is a solid, low-effort rate. Treat the 5.85% headline as marketing. The invest and insure bonuses make sense only if you were already going to invest S$30,000 or pay a S$24,000 premium for your own reasons, and even then the bonus lasts six months.
The decision is really about your cash flow and goals, not the poster rate. If your money will sit idle above the cap, route the excess to a T-bill or fixed deposit. If you want the bonus rate without insurance and investment hoops, an entry-tier account or a flat-rate alternative may be the cleaner choice.
The maximum is 5.85% p.a. on the first S$100,000, effective from the 1 May 2026 revision that cut the previous 7.05% peak. Reaching it requires meeting all four bonus categories at once, and the invest and insure portions only pay for six consecutive months before the rate drops to 1.85% p.a.
Most savers earn 1.85% p.a., the rate for crediting a S$3,000 salary and spending S$1,000 a month on the card. The higher 3.35%, 4.35% and 5.85% tiers need S$30,000 invested or a S$24,000 insurance premium, commitments that rarely pay off for the interest alone and that expire after six months.
You must credit at least S$3,000 a month as a regular inward transfer through GIRO, PayNow or FAST to earn the 0.90% p.a. salary bonus. A one-off manual transfer does not count, so the credit needs to be a recurring inflow such as your monthly pay.
Yes. There is a S$5 fee in any month your average daily balance falls below S$3,000. There is no separate monthly service charge, and the debit card has no annual fee, though the optional credit card costs S$218 a year after a free first year.
This is general financial information for Singapore, not personal financial advice. Figures change — verify current rates against the official sources above before acting. See our full disclaimer.