OCBC to reduce salary credit bonus interest

The bank will also stop offering the credit card spend bonus interest.

OCBC Bank will reduce the salary credit bonus interest for customers on the OCBC 360 savings account from 1 July, according to an announcement.

Salary credit bonus interest will be halved to 0.6% from 1.2% for balances up to $35,000 whilst balances between $35,000 and $70,000 will earn 1.2% interest from the current 2.4%. The bank will also stop offering the credit card spend bonus interest on the 360 account starting 1 July.

The base interest is calculated at the end of each day, based on the daily balance and credited to the 360 account at the end of the month.

According to OCBC head of deposits Gregory Cher, this is attributed to the deteriorating micro interest rate environment.

Meanwhile, close to half of the bank's customers continue to grow their balances to qualify for the Save bonus interest of 0.2% for the first $35,000, and 0.4% for the next $35,000.

Cher noted that the 360 account base grew 10% YoY over the past three years. The number of customers under 25 who saved $500 or more a month grew three times YoY, whilst those who earned the wealth bonus interest grew two and a half times in the same period.

This latest announcement comes about a month after an earlier set of rate revisions for the 360 account took effect on 2 May, which lowers the minimum salary requirement to qualify for the 360 account's salary bonus interest to $1,800 from $2,000.