#enjoycompare

[enjoycompare-blog]

Check out the *NEW* Standard chartered SingPost Spree credit cards, with 3% cashback and discounted postage for all your online purchases!

[enjoycompare-blog]

What will you compare today?

EnjoyCompare

[enjoycompare-blog]

Make an Informed Comparison and start saving today!

EnjoyCompare

[enjoycompare-blog]

5 Ways To Create Passive Income In Singapore

Are you thinking of saving your way to retirement, or perhaps relying on your CPF money to help fund your lifestyle in your golden years? Well, you might be in for a shock. With the minimum CPF retirement sum of just $161,000, you will only have about S$1,300 per month. Is that enough in today's world?

Even if you are not thinking of retirement yet, you might be keen in knowing how to gain financial independence as early as you can. Well, seems like you can do it with a little bit of planning, and learning how to create a passive income stream.

The basic idea of passive income is that it is money received with little or no effort required to maintain the flow of income, unlike active income where you need to work for. Since we all have limited time and resources, your income is capped. By building a passive income stream, you will be able to receive additional money on top of your active income.

Sounds too good to be true to receive money for not doing much? Not exactly, and listed below are just 5 ways you can start on your passive income journey.

Rental Income

Rental income is one reason why people invest in property. This is especially true in Singapore where land is scarce.  While property investments are definitely not for everyone due to the large amount of capital it requires, you can also rent out a spare room you have at home.

For those with deeper pockets and can afford an investment property, your rental yield can essentially help you finance your monthly mortgage. If you are lucky, your tenant will help you fund a large part of the purchase of your home!

REITs

For those who are already trading in the stocks market, why not spend a bit more time looking at REITs? REITS in Singapore is known for providing stable returns and dividend income; in fact, the REIT sector in Singapore has an average dividend yield of 6.7 percent. However, do note that total returns on your investment in REITs include the share price of the REIT as well, so if that particular REIT isn't doing too well, it can eat into your dividend returns.

Monthly Stocks investment Plan

If you are new to investing, you may not be very comfortable putting your money into a specific REIT, but what about a more diversified portfolio? In the last few years, there has been a new type of product offering where you will be able to invest consistently in a diversified Exchange-traded fund (ETF) like the Straits Times Index, and still earn dividends from it.

Monthly investment plans are a great way for investors to take advantage of dollar-cost averaging since you will put aside a fixed amount each month to buy shares. Say if you put aside $200 a month, you may be able to buy 66 lots of the STI ETF this month at $3, but if prices fall to $2.80 next month, you will be able to buy more lots. Over a long term period, your cost actually comes out lower.

Dollar-cost averaging is ideal for passive investors and removes the difficulty of stock-picking. Some of the greatest value investors (like Benjamin Graham and Warren Buffett) are proponents of this investment strategy, and have the results to show for it.

Peer-to-Peer Lending

Peer-to-peer(P2P) lending is a high risk investment where individuals get high returns for lending a fixed sum of money to companies who need the funds. An aggregate amount of fund is raised over an electronic platform and lent to businesses, which promise a certain percentage of interest payments at the end of the tenor.

It is high risk because these are typically startups or small companies who do not have access to bank loans, and are thus willing to pay a higher rate to investors for ready funds. Interest payments seem to be pretty lucrative, often in double digit rates but be prepared to lose your principal if the firm defaults.

Annuities

An annuity is a type of life insurance policy which is usually purchased for retirement needs. The greatest benefit provided by annuities is a stream of regular monthly income payable to you upon your retirement. This regular income is payable to you until death, which can be a great supplementary income to the amount you will receive from your CPF retirement sum.

For those with little investment knowledge, this is an extremely safe way to guarantee a passive income during retirement.

So there you go; who says you need to keep working to receive an income?

[enjoycompare-blog]

Start saving with the Best Travel Insurance in Singapore. Make an informed comparison on the best travel insurance and start saving today!

[enjoycompare-blog]

How You’d Likely Transfer Your Money In The Future

With the world becoming more and more globalised, there is an ever-increasing need for individuals and businesses to be transferring money overseas. But the traditional methods of using a bank for overseas money transfers continue to drain our pockets with the hefty bank fees.

But the industry saw some changes in recent years. A number of new providers have come online to fill the gap for cheaper overseas fund transfers. Some of these, including brands like TransferWise, WorldFirst Money Transfer and CurrenciesDirect are making waves in the industry and helping individuals like you and I save tens to hundreds of dollars each year off money transfer fees.

With the rise of Fintech, we can expect the industry to evolve even faster, reach more people and make overseas money transfer a cheaper endeavour. Let’s take a look at some rising trends and how money transfer might change in the near future.

Use of Mobile Money Transfer

One of the biggest issues with money transfer is that you would usually need your recipient to at least have a bank account where you can send the money to. But what about the “unbanked”? According to KPMG, only 27% of Southeast Asia’s population has a bank account.  And some of the biggest remittance markets are right here in Asia.

Although with the current online money transfer providers, senders and recipients can sometimes skip the bank by having an online account. But what about sending money using mobile? It’s already happening. This makes it easy and convenient to transfer money in countries lacking in money transfer infrastructure so that individuals do not need to travel long distances to remittance agents. Recipients can use the money in their mobile account to directly pay at local shops and businesses, reducing the need to carry any physical cash.

Other services that we are likely to see include transferring money via social media and chat apps, which also means you bypass central authorities like banks, thus reducing any transaction costs.

Bitcoin/Cryptocurrency Fund Transfer

In recent years, we might have heard a lot of the following buzzwords – “Bitcoin” and “cryptocurrency”. In short, these work like virtual money where you can transfer and make purchases with anonymity. Because they do not belong to a single country, it is a “universal” currency that does not come with any exchange rate.

BitCoin Transfer

Because of these features, they seem to fulfil an attractive criteria for overseas money transfer. You can currently buy bitcoin on several marketplaces called “bitcoin exchanges” and send bitcoins to each other digitally. While many saw huge potential for their use in the money transfer industry, some also called out its volatility and that it adds an additional layer of “exchange” when you convert currency A to bitcoin before converting it to currency B.

Faster & cheaper Bank Transfer

Bypassing the banks definitely makes money transfers cheaper. Very often, individuals find that banks levy multiple layers of fees on money transfers, including cable fees, exchange rate margins, and agent bank fees.

Best Money Transfer Brands

Currently, providers like Currencies Direct Money Transfer allows you to view live exchange rate and buy currencies before you transfer them at a later date. This single feature already allows you to achieve savings that you will not get from a bank. Others allow you to track your money easily and even offer same-day transfers.

With the increasing need for overseas money transfer, the industry is set to grow and consumers can definitely look forward to faster, cheaper and better services!

[enjoycompare-blog]

Need a Personal Loan, but don’t know where to get the best loan rates? Make an informed comparison with EnjoyCompare loans in Singapore 

[enjoycompare-blog]

How To Avoid Currency Conversion Fees On Paypal

Paypal might be one of the most common and popular methods for people to pay for their online purchases or transfer money. It is indeed a fast, convenient and simple method to use for online transactions.

If you are a freelancer or even business owner selling goods online, it is an efficient way to get paid since Paypal operates in many countries and is popular enough for many people to already have an account. However, as with many types of fast and convenient online transfers, there are also significant downsides to it, one of which is the hefty fees you pay for currency conversion.

“What? I thought that was free?”

Well, you thought wrong. So say you want to transfer a sum of money to a relative living in UK. Let’s break down the process of how Paypal charges you along the way.

Adding money to Paypal from your bank account – Free

Converting the SGD in your Paypal Account to Pounds before the transfer – 2.5% processing fee + 4% currency conversion fees

So let’s say you are transferring S$2,000 to UK, you will end up paying $130 worth of fees. If you use a bank or a specialist in money transfer, it might even be cheaper, depending on how much the agent bank charge. And you thought Paypal was better.

So what can you do if you need to transfer money overseas, or even worse, do it on a recurring basis to foot your bills overseas, pay for a mortgage or send money to your son studying overseas?

Well, the good news is that there are a number of money transfer services that you can use without paying the hefty fees charged by banks or Paypal. You might ask why these companies can offer a more competitive rate. There are a number of reasons:

Best Money Transfer Brands

Currency/Forex Specialists

Some Forex trading platforms provide money transfer services and are able to offer you exchange rates based on real-time trading rates which are much more competitive than the rates banks and Paypal charge. You can even lock in the rate by converting the currencies and making the transfers at a later time. If you are looking for such services, you might be keen to check out CurrenciesDirect.

Taking a smaller spread

The difference in the exchange rate charged by banks and the rate you see on Google is called the spread. This is the amount the bank charges when converting your currencies. Some money transfer providers make money using the spread as well, but they simply take a smaller margin compared to the banks, thus passing on the savings to customers like you. WorldFirst Money Transfer is one of them.

Making 2 local transfers instead of 1 international transfer

One company, Transferwise, showed on their website how they make international money transfer cheaper for their customers. Instead of transferring your SGD to Euro directly, they will transfer your SGD to their local account, and send out the Euro from their own Euro account. By doing this, they mitigate the high fees involved in international transfers since your money did not really move overseas.

Or if you want to compare a range of money transfer services that specialise in bank transfers, then check out the EnjoyCompare Money Transfer comparison engine.