Gojek Rides Promotion!

Don’t miss this superb savings from Gojek “Rides for the hours in between” ride deals.

It does saves you a lot, especially with the current COVID-19 situation where you would preferably tends to avoid the crowd and getting a ride to your destinations.

5 Times of 50% off rides from 9am - 5pm! (max capped of $5 per ride).

The promo is only available while stocks last.

Just for sharing and check it out yourself, so that you don’t miss out such great deal when you take a private ride. Stay safe!

Image Source: Gojek

What is Return on Equity (ROE)?

ROE is an indicator of how effective management is at using equity financing to fund operations and grow the company.

ROE can also be used in analyzing the performance of the company as compared to its peers and the overall market. This financial metric is especially beneficial when comparing firms within the same industry as it tends to give accurate indications of companies which are operating with greater financial efficiency. 

A steady or increasing ROE signifies a company which knows how to reinvest its earnings while a declining ROE is symbolic of management that delivers poor shareholder returns from their earnings.  

ROE can be computed with a simple formula as below: 

For example, a company with an ROE of 20% indicates that the company earns 20 cents on every 1 dollar of equity. 

My Cheapest Way To Get A New iPhone 11 128 GB + Mobile Plan

I would like to share with you on how I make a comparison and finding for the cheapest way to get a new iPhone 11 device. Before you continue reading on the further details, do note that this information is purely a personal analysis based on my own personal choices which you can take it as a reference if you would like to get a new iPhone 11 together with a mobile plan as well.

The comparison made here is based on the selling price of the device at Apple Store’s Official site and StarHub Telecom Company.  The device I intend to buy is the new iPhone 11 128 GB with Green colour. Therefore I will further explain below on how I make the comparison with the information of purchasing the device from Apple Store’s Official website and purchasing from one of the Telco in Singapore (StarHub) by subscribing their mobile plan bundle with device or without device plan.

In order to make the comparison more practical, the comparison is based on the cheapest plan rate, which is the $25 monthly bill for ‘SIM Only Plan’ deal VS $50 monthly bill for ‘2-years plan’ deal.

With their current promotion of SIM Only plans and 2-years contract plans, there are:

• No activation fee charges.
• No registration fee charges. 
• No SIM card fee charges. 

Apple Store Official Website:

Purchase the device from Apple Store’s Official site with the price of $1,129 SGD. 

Option #1: 

Sign up with StarHub ‘SIM Only Plan’ for their $25 monthly bill deal.

Just to add on, previously there is a promotion of $120 rebate for a 12 months contract on ‘SIM Only Plan’ package, but it is only applicable for sign up within that promotion period.

The multiplier of 24 months is computed based on assumption that the same mobile plan and mobile device are use for duration of 2 years usage, although there is no contract bound for this SIM Only Plan deal.

Based on calculation breakdown as below:
$25 monthly bill for 24 months;

$25 [monthly phone bill] X 24 [assumption of 2 years usage] = $600;

$600 [mobile plan cost] + $1,219 [iPhone 11 128GB cost] = $1,819;

Total cost for usage of 2 years mobile plan and iPhone 11 128GB = $1,819

Option #2: 

Sign up with StarHub ‘2-years Plan for their $50 monthly bill deal. 

The calculation subjected to eligibility based on the additional promotion of 20% on monthly bill for StarHub CIS program and promotion of 30% on monthly bill for StarHub Hub Club members. To make the calculation simpler, we will take 20% discount as an average for illustration purpose. 

Based on calculation breakdown as below:

Assumption of 20% discount on $50 monthly bill = $40;

$40 [monthly phone bill] X 24 [2 years contract] = $960;

iPhone 11 128GB from the plan = $651;

$960 [mobile plan cost] + $651 [iPhone 11 128GB cost] = $1,611;

Total cost for usage of 2 years mobile plan and iPhone 11 128GB = $1,611 

With the above comparison, by going for Option #2, it helps to save an amount of $208 ($1,819 - $1,611), for a same purchase of iPhone 11 128GB with 2 years mobile plan usage. 

Isn’t it a great savings? That’s how I make my simple calculation and decision to opt for my mobile re-contract and new device. 

If you would like to know an accurate amount for your eligibility, do visit their branch customer service for confirmation. To note again that this sharing is based on my own personal experience and only for reference purpose. 

For more information on StarHub Hub Club privileges, please refer to their website on StarHub Hub Club Privilege. 

For more information on StarHub Corporate Individual Scheme (CIS) benefits, please refer to their website on StarHub CIS.   

Feel free to drop me your comments if you have any other opinions to share. It would be great to learn from all my readers. 

Image Source: Apple (Singapore) 

*Notes: The price above is extracted based on pricing for date 17 Nov 2019. 

Image Source: StarHub (Singapore) 

*Notes: The price above is extracted based on pricing for date 17 Nov 2019. 

Image Source: StarHub (Singapore) 

*Notes: The price above is extracted based on pricing for date 17 Nov 2019. 

Image Source: StarHub (Singapore) 

*Notes: The price above is extracted based on pricing for date 17 Nov 2019. 

Low Risk Investment Tools For Term Deposit Is Consider Safe For Country Like Vietnam?

Term deposit is often categorised as a low risk investment tools, and even in some countries like Singapore and Malaysia are almost known as risk free investment. How about for country like Vietnam which provide an attractive yield of average 5-7% rate per annum for their Term Deposit? Is it still consider as a low risk investment tools?

Bank defaults are very rare, however, there is still a possibility. Hence, it is still not 100% guaranteed, and is categorised as low risk investment due to the low possibility. 

Vietnam local banks with high interest rate for Term Deposit:

1. Sacombank
2. Asia Commercial Bank (ACB)
3. Vietcombank

This article consists of series of events compiled and summarise solely for general information purposes only.

Sacombank

01/2018:

• Government approved scheme restructuring improves Sacombank health and achieve a decent results for 2017.
• Its non-performing loans (NPLs) ratio has been improved by reducing from 6.68% to 4.28%. 
• The bank is among the largest in terms of network with 566 transaction offices in 48 cities and provinces in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. 

[Sources from vietnamnews.vn]

  

Asia Commercial Bank (ACB)

02/2014:

• Two former officials prosecuted in ACB bank case. 

[Sources from bizhub.vn] 

05/2014:

• Four former officials of Asian Commercial Joint Stock Bank (ACB) were all arrested on Wednesday for their involvements in a serious financial case uncovered at the bank in 2012. 

[Sources from vir.com.vn] 

01/2018:

• Standard Chartered Bank has ended its 12-years partnership with Asia Commercial Bank (ACB), by offloading its entire holding of more than 154 million shares with the bank. 
• Based on the news, the foreign bank had explained its exit from the partnership due to under pressure to cut costs after suffering losses from emerging markets. 
• There seems to be a trend that foreign banks are withdrawing investment from local banks. 
• ACB demonstrated strong performance, with consolidated profit of more than 2 trillion VND by the end of September 2017, up 60% year-on-year. Its share price climbed 76% in 2017.

[Sources from ven.vn]

08/2018:

• The State Bank of Vietnam has approved Asia Commercial Bank (ACB) proposal to increase its charter capital from VND11.25 trillion (US$479 million) to VND12.88 trillion (US$548.34 million). 
• ACB reported a net profit of VND2.46 trillion in the first half of the year, 2.5 times higher than the same period last year. 
• However, the bank’s outstanding loans in the period rose by 11.7% to VND219.59 trillion. 
• At the end of June, the bank’s total assets had reached VND309.96 trillion, up by 9% against the previous year.

[Sources from english.vietnamnet.vn]

Term Deposit Rate:

• Below is the illustration example of ACB Bank’s fixed deposit rate as of 12/2018, with example of 100,000,000 VND (equivalent to SGD $5913), and interest payment at maturity. 

[Sources from acb.com.vn]

Vietcombank

• The Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Viet Nam (Vietcombank). 

08/2018: 

• Based on the news, Vietcombank will sell all of its remaining 1.48 million Orient Commercial Bank (OCB) shares at an auction on September 6.
• The bank is estimated to earn nearly VND27.9 billion (US$1.19 million) if the transaction succeeds. 
• In earlier transaction on April, Vietcombank had succeed to sell 6.67 million OCB shares to 128 investors, including one institution, with earning of VND171.96 billion.
• The purpose to offload holdings of OCB shares is due to central bank’s Circular 36 regulation which allows commercial banks to hold shares in a maximum of two other credit institutions, with the stake in each not exceeding 5% of the total equity of that institutions. 
• Apart from OCB, Vietcombank also holding shares with Eximbank and Military Bank. 

[Sources from vietnamnews.vn] 

09/2018:

• Vietcombank has offered to sell 45.6 million shares it is holding in Eximbank (Viet Nam Export-Import Joint Stock Commercial Bank). 
• The deals purpose is to help Vietcombank to comply with regulatory Circular 36, which allows commercial banks to hold shares below 5% in other financial institutions. 
• Vietcombank holds more than 101 million shares of Eximbank, equal to an 8.24% stake. In the event, if the deals succeed, Vietcombank will cut its ownership in Eximbank to below 5%, and receiving an amount of VND661 billion ($29.4 million) from the deal. 

[Sources from vietnamnews.vn] 

Expenses Tracking - March 2018

By tracking my monthly expenses, I started to notice the similarity of the expense trend based on my history record. The high expenses is usually due to either travelling or bulk purchase item, which hardly affected by other reasons. I had a short vacation trip with my loved ones at the island nearby, which is the Bintan Island. We bought a travel package to a luxury resorts, ‘The Canopi Bintan Resorts’.  It was quite a relaxing short getaway, but the expenses for the travel at such a near island are quite pricey. Anyway, if you have not been there, I think it is still worth an experience for the pricey package. 

Our travel expenses to the Bintan Island costs about $600++ for a 2 days 1 night stay, which include the accommodation, transports, food, some activities at the resorts and a normal massage package. The cost is actually quite pricey and with the same amount for 2 persons, we could actually opt to travel to Bali, which most of my friends and family members’ advice the same as well. 

But because I had been to Bali before, so we would like to experience the luxury stay at the nearby island. The canopy theme of the resorts itself was quite interesting and with the beautiful man-made beach scenery, it caught our attention to give it a try. 

Expenses for 2018

Image extracted from Seedly mobile apps.  

Image extracted from Seedly mobile apps.
Notes: Image has been edited from the original screenshot.

Expenses Tracking - February 2018

The expenses on February return to be in a controlled level, as I’m busy spending the time at home with family celebrating Chinese New Year, doing house chores for pre-CNY preparation. Most of the time we cook our own food at home as it is hardly to get to eat at outside during the week of CNY, even if you could find the restaurant, it is either too crowded or too expensive as it is CNY festival. Hence, we decided to spend the quality time making our own dishes and having reunion meal together.  

An average monthly expense of not exceeding $1,000 seems quite positive and healthy for my financial plan.  

Expenses for 2018 

Image extracted from Seedly mobile apps. 

Image extracted from Seedly mobile apps.
Notes: Image has been edited from the original screenshot.

Expenses Tracking - January 2018

January as the new year and new beginnings so the expenses got slightly increase. The majority of the expenses goes to the food as there are a few occasions and gathering going on. As it is near to the Chinese New Year, as common practice by the local Chinese, there will be rounds of pre-CNY gathering with colleagues, friends and families. 

Also I had spent a short vacation as the beginning of the New Year with loved ones, so there are slight expenses goes on Travel. 

Expenses for 2017

Image extracted from Seedly mobile apps.

Image extracted from Seedly mobile apps.

Notes: Image has been edited from the original screenshot.

Cash Rebate from OCBC Titanium Rewards

I had participated on OCBC Titanium Rewards promotion on Apple Pay activation campaign. It was a simple campaign where OCBC give out $20 rebate rewards only by tagging your OCBC Titanium Rewards Credit Card with your Apple Pay mobile device and performs a single transaction with any amount! 

I had received cash rebate of $20 as promised by OCBC just within a month after I activated my Apple Pay with the OCBC Titanium Rewards card and with single transaction transacted. 

Thanks to OCBC for running such rewarding campaign and looking forward for any other campaigns in the future. 

 Image extracted from my OCBC SMS notification. 

Image extracted from my OCBC transaction history.

Image extracted from my OCBC SMS notification. 

Summary Expenses for 2017

As learning throughout the journey from achieving my first 1 Million SGD, with the guidance and advices from various well-known financial advisers and bloggers, one of the basic of achieving your financial goals is to track your expenses. By tracking your expenses, it could indirectly help you to further your planning on your savings and keep track on your direction to gain more income as well. 

I had summarized my spending for 2017 with the monthly expenses recorded every month via Seedly mobile apps. Thank you to the free apps provided by Seedly.sg  which is a useful tool for achieving my financial goals. 

I only started to use Seedly mobile apps to track my monthly expenses started from September 2017. Therefore, I only able to capture my expenses records for 2017 from September till December, which is about 4 months. Although this might not provide a very accurate expenses records, but at least the average spending per month could be some guide of the rough estimation of monthly expenses. This could help me to plan my expense budget for 2018. 

Total Spending                              : $6,443.27 
Estimated Spending (per year)  : $19,329.81 
Average Spending (per month) : $1,610.82 

I had also projected my monthly expenses into a chart formatting for a view of the spending trend. The trend seems to increase from September onward with incremental month by month. This is also due to holidays and festive seasons on year end. It is the time where we used to plan to grab cheap sales that we had long controlled our tempting to purchase the items we want before the sales. The unavoidable season where shopping for discounts and promotions for our clothes and presents. 

Aside to that the holiday seasons on year end also affect to the incremental of monthly spending, especially on December. A portion of the spending was spent on my holiday vacations. I will probably share out the story of my vacations once I settled down my stuff and compiled all the photos together. 

Image extracted from Seedly mobile apps. 

Expenses Tracking - December 2017

The expenses for December remain high as there are more sales during the year end, especially Christmas and New Year sales. 

This is something that hardly avoid when there are sales everywhere, and time to buy presents for Christmas. 

Quite a portion of the expenses on December also spent on Travelling as it is always a good time to have long getaway holidays during Christmas and New Year week. 

Expenses for 2017

Image extracted from Seedly mobile apps. 

Image extracted from Seedly mobile apps.
Notes: Image has been edited from the original screenshot.

Expenses Tracking - November 2017

The expenses for November increased slight higher due to some bulk purchase for the coming year end. 

Expenses for 2017

 Image extracted from Seedly mobile apps.  

Image extracted from Seedly mobile apps.

Cash Rewards from FINTY

This is the 3^rd rewards I get from FINTY, a financial comparison website!

I received $20 from FINTY as promised on its promotional website, where rewards are also applicable for existing Standard Chartered cardholders. 

This time round FINTY is more efficient in delivering their rewards, as I got it within a few weeks after my card approval. However, I had yet to receive any cash rewards from Standard Chartered, which is also $20 for existing cardholders, as written on its card promotional website. 

Thank you FINTY! 

I was browsing around and stumble upon the promotions with the benefits stated for Standard Chartered Spree Card. From its advertisement, it stated that you can receive up to $60 cashback monthly, with no minimum spend. 

The design of the card is quite unique and attractive as well. It gives a sense of breeze feeling. This card has collaboration between Standard Chartered Bank and Singpost. 

For more information on exclusive card privileges, please refer to Standard Chartered Spree Credit Card page.  

Image Source: finty.com

Image Source: My Banking Transaction History 

Cash Rewards from FINTY & Standard Chartered Bank

This is the 2^nd rewards I get from FINTY, a credit card comparison website!

It was another great experience with FINTY website, as they gave me a sense of feeling that the company is reliable and also process the rewards redemption as promised on their promotional page. 

I received $30 cash rewards from FINTY upon approval of my Standard Chartered Unlimited Cashback Credit Card. If you aware the cash rewards I get is lower than the rewards shown promotional screen capture below. The reason is because during the time I apply, the rewards is lower, and now they had increased to $50, which is higher. That's definitely a better deal for those who had yet to apply. 

Thanks to FINTY again! 

Nevertheless Standard Chartered is very efficient as well. I received their $138 cash rewards just within a few days after I activate my Standard Chartered Unlimited Cashback Credit Card. 

That’s the best experience I ever had with the rewards from credit card without any minimum spending required. Unlike other competitor banks, where it always comes with the terms and conditions which required a minimum spending of at least a few hundred bucks in order to receive the card application rewards. 

Thanks to Standard Chartered for such great customer experience! 

Do notes, the $138 cash rewards for card application is only applicable for new to bank customer, and you must not have any existing or previously cancelled credit cards in the last 12 months. Aside to that, I noticed there is a statement stating in the clause that the Eligible Card has to be activated within 30 days from the card approval date, and the card has to be remaining active for more than 6 months. 

For more details please refer to the Terms and Conditions of Standard Chartered rewards redemption eligibility. 

Image Source: finty.com

Image Source: My Banking Transaction History 

Image Source: My Banking Transaction History