UOB has announced that the interest on the UOB One Account will drop from 4% to 3.3% p.a., starting 1 May 2025. This change comes right after OCBC 360 also lowered their rates to 3.3%—so it looks like the high-interest party is slowly coming to an end.
Right now, you can earn 4% p.a. on up to S$150,000 if you:
- Spend S$500/month on a UOB card
- Credit S$1,600/month in salary
But from 1st May 2025 onwards, the rates will be lower.
New UOB One Account Interest Rates
Account Balance | Current Rate (p.a.) | New Rate (from 1 May) (p.a.) |
First S$75,000 | 3.00% | 2.30% |
Next S$50,000 | 4.50% | 3.80% |
Next S$25,000 | 6.00% | 5.30% |
Above S$150,000 | 0.05% | No Change |
But to know what you’re actually earning overall, we look at the effective interest rate (EIR)—what you get on average when you fulfill spend + salary credit criteria:
Total Balance | Old EIR (p.a.) | New EIR (p.a.) |
First 75,000 | 3.00% | 2.30% |
S$100,000 | 3.38% | 2.68% |
S$125,000 | 3.60% | 2.90% |
S$150,000 | 4.00% | 3.30% |
So if you’ve been parking S$150K in UOB One, your interest drops from S$6,000 a year to S$4,950 a year—a difference of over S$1,000.
A Few Alternatives:
💡 OCBC 360 – 3.3% p.a. on First S$100K
OCBC gives you the same 3.3% p.a., but you must:
- Spend S$500/month on OCBC credit card
- Credit S$1,600/month salary (must be done by a company account)
- Increase your account balance by S$500/month
That last part is tricky—once you reach your savings goal, you’ll need to move your money out for a month and start over to keep earning bonus interest. A bit more work than UOB One.
💡 UOB Stash – 3.01% p.a. on First S$100K
No need to spend or credit salary. Just keep your balance the same or higher each month.
This is good for those who may have excess funds lying around and do not wish to go through the UOB One Spend + Salary Credit criteria. However, the risk is that the bank can revise their rates, just like they did with UOB One.
Even though BOC SmartSaver is offering the higher interest rate at the moment, I wouldn’t be surprised if they revised their rates down soon too. In addition, the manual process of getting a BOC Smart Saver account (yes, you have to go down to the bank physically for even a credit card application) and the amount of hooks that one has to jump through to get the “higher” interest rate, is not worthwhile, to me at least.
Other UOB Promotions That You Can Take Advantage Of:
1. UOB Cash is King Savings Promotion
With the UOB One or UOB Stash Account, you can also take advantage of the latest UOB Cash is King Savings promotion and earmark (which cannot be withdrawn for 5 months) some fresh funds to lock in extra interest of around 0.6-0.8%. However, in my view, while it can make the overall yield for UOB Account higher in some scenarios, there are other places where we can divert the funds to get even higher interest.
2. Get 6% Tax Rebate On Income Tax Via GIRO with UOB One Account
UOB has also released a new promotion running from 1 April 2025 until 31 March 2026 which can get you up to S$600 cash rebates when you pay your income tax via GIRO with UOB One Account.
The rebate cap depends on the monthly average balance (MAB) in your UOB One Account.
Month Average Balance | Tax Payment Rebate | Monthly Tax That Gets Rebate | Monthly Rebate Cap | Total Cap |
S$30k to <s$75k | 6% | S$166.67 | S$10 | S$120 |
S$75k to <s$150k | 6% | S$416.67 | S$25 | S$300 |
S$150k above | 6% | S$833.33 | S$50 | S$600 |
You’ll need to:
- Register for PayNow on UOB TMRW app
- Use Money Lock (lock any amount)
- Set up GIRO for tax payment via IRAS, using UOB One Account
UOB One Account + Income Tax Rebate – Is It Worth it?
If I were to combine the UOB One’s current effective interest rate with the tax rebate, the annualized ROI could go up to 3.70% p.a, assuming UOB One keeps their interest rate at current levels for the entire year and your tax amount is at the sweet spot levels.
Sweet spot tax amount is the amount at which you would max out the 6% tax rebate.
Month Average Balance | UOB One EIR (p.a.) | Total Interest Earned | Total Tax Rebate Earned Annually | Sweet Spot Tax Amount For 6% Rebate | UOB One + Tax Rebate Annualized ROI (p.a.) |
30,000 | 2.30% | 690 | 120 | 166.67 | 2.70% |
75,000 | 2.30% | 1,725 | 300 | 416.67 | 2.70% |
100,000 | 2.68% | 2,675 | 300 | 416.67 | 2.98% |
125,000 | 2.90% | 3,625 | 300 | 416.67 | 3.14% |
150,000 | 3.30% | 4,950 | 600 | 833.33 | 3.70% |
At first glance, not all rates are worthwhile. At S$30,000 to S$100,000, the proposition is not compelling enough for the effort when the Singapore Savings Bonds rates are not far off (latest results: 2.7-2.8% p.a). In addition, even at S$150,000, your monthly income tax amount would need to be at S$833.33 to fully maximise this promotion. This is because, if your monthly income tax amount were to be S$300, you’ll get a S$18 rebate per month (6% of S$300). That brings your annualised ROI to 3.312% p.a, which isn’t exactly very far from 3.3% without income tax rebate.
If your tax amount is more, you can:
- Increase month average balance to a suitable tier, or
- Split the tax payment—use CardUp/iPayMy to prepay the excess amount at least a week before, and Pay the remaining sweet spot amount via GIRO from your UOB One Account to maximise the promotion
This “combo strategy” could squeeze out the full benefit.
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Final Thoughts:
Interest rates on savings accounts are clearly on a downward trend. In early 2024, UOB was offering 5% on S$100K, then 4% on S$150K, and now we’re down to 3.3%.
That said, the UOB income tax rebate promo keeps the UOB One Account competitive at selected month average balance, especially if you’re able to optimise it.
