OCBC FRANK Card

This is an overdue post, for I promised a friend I’ll look into a review of this card but didn’t get round to checking and posting..until now.

My thoughts on this card.. I felt old! LOL!

FRANK by OCBC is obviously targeted at the youths market. I applaud OCBC for this. The whole FRANK concept as far as I can see is a pretty all-rounded financial stop for a youngster. Yes, there are probably still a few more improvements to be made here and there but overall, I feel OCBC started off with the right footing.

I won’t be mentioning all the stuff that FRANK offers but just a highlight on a few items that I feel is important or beneficial to the general financial well being of a person. I mean, yes, OCBC tries to provide extra or other products or services but it doesn’t mean we have to take them up. The bank is still a bank aimed to earn an extra consumer dollar. So end of the day, we have to learn what works best for us only.

First, FRANK cards. If you ask me, I’d choose a credit card over a debit card because I use credit wisely enough. Having said that, I wouldn’t recommend a credit card to someone who cannot handle credit well or for personal reasons, prefers debit over credit. Debit or credit, it really depends on personal habits and lifestyle. But I chose credit because of the benefits that is not offered to debit cards. If you are looking for a good debit card, FRANK debit card is not the one (unless you are looking at the other benefits that the FRANK savings account is offering as an overall package). There are other better debit cards in the market. Not many but there are still one or two worth taking a look.

FRANK debit or credit cards comes with many different card designs to choose from. Yes, it’s the first and only card (I believe) that allows you to choose from a range of designs instead of the usual boring one that bank designates. You can change your card design anytime you want. Cool? Definitely. The catch? It comes with a fee. Depending on the design you choose, it would cost between $10 to $20 usually each time. There are some designs that cost $50.

For a start, if you spend $100 within the first month of getting your card, your card design will be free. If not, you’ll see the card design charge appearing on your bill. This is something I will not go for for two reasons. One, I won’t pay a single dollar for a card design that is not even one that I can call my own personalization. A credit card is to allow me to maximise my benefits, the look of the card is secondary to me. But I understand young people cares a lot about having a cool looking card as well. Two, I don’t encourage spending unnecessarily. Of course, if you already planned to spend $100 on something, then time it to use within the first month of getting your FRANK credit card to enjoy a free card design.

To the main point of FRANK cards – the benefits. FRANK cards offers quite a good number of discounts for the use of its card. A notable example is 5% cash rebate for purchases made at Forever 21 in Singapore. The dining privileges are pretty poor in my opinion because quite a number of the dining privileges listed required a minimum spending of $80. I understand the prices of these restaurants offering the privileges may range on the higher side but for a young adult to spend $80? This is probably treading on thin ice by stretching the consumer dollar a little bit too much for comfort. Of course, one can still benefit from these dining privileges by going out in a group of at least 3-4. But for a couple to spend $80 on a restaurant bill? I wouldn’t encourage it. But another friend of mine would probably be thrilled with the 10% discount at SukiYa since she’s a fan of it.

*Promotions are currently valid till December 2012 and do note that cash rebates are capped at $50 per calendar month.

Another point with the dining privileges is that some offer return vouchers instead of upfront discounts. I personally do not like return vouchers because they come with an expiry and from past experiences, I don’t go back and patronise within the stipulated time frame usually or meet the required spend amount to utilise the vouchers. I’m also restricted by the card that I’m allowed to swipe, effectively minimising my choices in maximising my spending. On a separate note, I expect that points would still be awarded.

If you like Timbre, like I do, then you can enjoy 10% off your food bill using FRANK.

Or if you enjoy KTV-ing at Party World, enjoy 10% off till April 2013.

But again, privileges like these are pointless if you don’t frequent the place. For KTV-ing, there are many deals or cheaper alternatives to choose from as well. And for most promotions, they do not allow the use of multiple privileges or promotions together. In such spending cases, it’s always best to go for a card that offers rebates or points from the card spending.

I won’t go further into the details of the privileges for now but I may do so in other future posts.

And of course, FRANK being an OCBC card, also allows the holder to enjoy OCBC privileges on top of FRANK’s own.

For FRANK credit cards, for every $1 you spend, you’ll get 1 OCBC$. This is why I prefer credit cards over debit cards. You can redeem the OCBC$ for stuff that caught your fancy or simply convert them into cash rebates at a conversion of 1,250 OCBC$ for $5 (conversion effective from September 2012). This works out to be a 0.4% rebate, comparable to most credit cards out there. But you could probably get more 0.4% return if you spent your points on redeeming from the catalogue or simply use cards that offers 0.5% rebates for any purchases (there are quite a number of cards that offers this in the market). More straightforward and hassle free in my opinion, and possible no expiry.

As an added bonus, you’ll get 100 bonus OCBC$ on your first Visa charge. And if you do spend $1,200 every month, you’ll get an additional 100 OCBC$.

Some other extra perks – When you pay your bills on time for the first 6 months of getting your card, you’ll get a $5 Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf voucher. I like this type of rewards because if I incur a bill, I have to pay anyway and now, I get an additional reward!

Next, FRANK savings account. The benefit of this savings account is that there is no initial deposit needed, unlike traditional savings account. This is good because I feel OCBC encourages people to open savings accounts and save up, which is important for a young person (below 26 years old as set by OCBC) to embark on their first financial independency journey. Sometimes, coughing up a minimum sum deters people from taking the first step to save. Of course, they also gets their customers, a win-win situation. While this may be nothing new but among the 3 local banks, I feel OCBC is more outright in catering to and making changes with their banking services.

The other benefit of this savings account is the higher than usual interest rates. For amounts, less than $10,000 in the bank account, the interest rate is 0.3% p.a. compared to the usual 0.1% p.a. But I suspect this rate has dropped since this published rate because the usual interest rates has further dropped down to 0.05% p.a. with effect from September 2012. But nonetheless, it should still give a higher than normal interest rate and the question then would be, by how much?

Other services provided by OCBC but I won’t be covering in details here includes, OCBC SmartChange, Savings Goals that aims to helps a person to save and achieve their goals slowly but surely. The other feature worth mentioning is crediting your pay into the savings account. Nothing new but possible useful features nonetheless. And OCBC have also included readings for investments, insurance, career and general lifestyle. And FRANK users get to access their accounts information through OCBC online banking platform too.

So all in all, I won’t rank the benefits that FRANK credit card can give very high as there are really more competitive credit card privileges out in the market that could give something better. I shared some of my views earlier in this post already. But again, with any credit card use, suitability and lifestyle fitting is always the key. For example, if you patronise Forever 21 very often, then it’d be handy to have this card around because of the 5% rebates it offers. But remember not to spend not more than $1,000 in a calendar month (assuming you only spend at Forever 21), because the maximum rebate you can get back is $50 in a calendar month. Do check out the other privileges not mentioned here to see if it’s a card that truly fits your lifestyle and deserves a place in your wallet.

For the points, getting 1 OCBC$ for $1 spend is pretty much the norm nowadays. Few years back, it used to be $5 spend for 1 point. But before you rejoice over this, the amount of points needed to redeem has also been scaled up to match this points award change. Most points redemption works out to be between 0.4% to 0.5% returns, depending on your choice redemption. If a redemption item that caught your eye offers less than 0.4% return, it’d make more sense to accumulate 1,250 OCBC$ and convert these into a $5 rebate because this would give you a 0.4% return. Previously, I mentioned that there are cards that offer easily offer 0.5% rebates on anything. This remains my preferred choice unless there is a benefit that FRANK offers that no other card can beat. That’s when I’ll use FRANK card.

As for FRANK debit card, it doesn’t give as much benefits compared to the credit cards because of the loss in points.

However, I do like the idea of the FRANK account for savings purposes because of its higher than normal interest rates. If you already have an OCBC normal savings account, it may be beneficial to study more about this account and consider making a transfer. Do note that you’ll need at least a $1,000 if you are above 26 years old. (Refer to the additional side notes below for more information later on in the post.) You can also welcome to switch from another bank to OCBC (if you don’t mind the hassle) but I listed switching from OCBC to OCBC in my example because I feel that the amount of work is lesser to gain the same benefits.

Some other side notes: 
The annual fee for FRANK credit cards is free for the first year and $32.10 every year after that. It states that a minimum annual spend of $6,000 is required for fee waiver. The annual fee is considered on the low side, probably because the target group is young and affordability is a consideration. However, it’s not worth it to pay for credit card subscription nowadays with so many other cards out there. Also, the income requirement of $30,000 per year is required.

For debit cards, the annual fee is $20 or a minimum spend of $1,800 in a year for waiver.

For savings account, there is no monthly fall below fee if you are below 26 years old. However, for those above 26 years old, the $2 service charge of $2 applies for accounts with less than $1,000.

Check out this link, to explore more about FRANK by OCBC on your own.