OCBC Great Eastern Credit Cards

photo source: http://www.ocbccards.com.my/

OCBC has just recently been named the world’s strongest bank by Bloomberg. What an achievement, beating the likes of Switzerland’s Svenska Handelsbanken AB and the National Bank of Canada, as well as top Europe, Canada and USA banks. This shows that Asian countries can compete with the top dogs too!!

OCBC doesn’t have a whole fleet of credit cards to choose from, as compared to some other banks, but one of the cards that caught my attention is the collaboration with Great Eastern (GE). The 2 available GE range, Platinum and Titanium, offers different rebate % off your insurance premiums. As the collaboration suggest, the insurance premium must come from GE, but if you own insurance policies from Oversea Assurance Corporation (OAC), it will also be eligible for the rebate, being that OAC is a member of the OCBC Group.

For the direct rebate off your insurance premiums, Platinum cardholders are eligible for a 3% rebate, while Titanium cardholders are eligible for a 2% rebate. Is there a limit you ask? Definitely!! For Platinum, the max insurance premium eligible for the rebate in a year is RM15k, which gives back a hefty RM450. For Titanium, a much lower max of RM6k is eligible, which amounts to RM120 per year only. However, these amounts are more than sufficient to cover the Government Service Tax, with still some change for your other uses. Only thing to remember to be eligible for the exclusive rebate is to sign up for GE Easi-Pay service, otherwise, you will just earn the retail rebate as described below.

Both card types also offer a Retail Spend Rebate of all your other transactions with the card. For total transactions up till RM20k (note that this is monthly, not yearly), rebate % is the same, where 0.75% will be rebated for spending up till RM10k, while amounts beyond this and up till RM20k will enjoy a rebate of 1.5%. Spending above this amounts gives back 3% for Platinum card and 2% for Titanium. Although the offer looks good, probably big spenders are the ones that can achieve the high amount required.

Apart from this, the card also offers 1.5% rebate from Medical and Education transactions. Again, Platinum offers a higher amount, where the cap is RM3k per year, while Titanium caps this at RM2.4k.

At the moment, this card is offered to GE existing policy holders, but you can also apply if you like. Only thing is that the benefits are not so good if you’re not getting the rebate for the insurance premium. My agent is offering me this, but I don’t plan to get it, as I only have a few policies under GE. Probably that’s his method of getting me to own more J I may consider though, since there is no other company that offers rebates on insurance premiums.

For the minimum income requirement, not sure if it will be a considering factor for the card application, since my agent did mention that I can just provide my IC without any proof of income. However, if you need to know, Platinum requires a minimum of RM100,000 per annum income, while Titanium requires a minimum of RM36,000 per annum income.

However, one weak point is the minimum annual retail spending needed to enjoy a waiver of the annual fee (RM138 for Platinum, RM68 for Titanium). Platinum cardholders need to spend at least RM24k and Titanium cardholders need to spend RM18k annually. Shouldn’t be too difficult to spend RM1.5k – 2k per month, but this does compare poorly against other banks offering automatic waiver for much less or even the free-for-life cards. By the description itself, retain spending doesn’t include the premium paid, but any OCBC card agent can probably help to answer better.

My verdict: if your insurance premium from GE/OAC comes to RM3k a year, the rebate off this alone will cover your GST, while the other rebate perks will get some $$ back for you. If your insurance premium is somewhere around the max allowed, it still looks like a good deal, even if you don’t get a waiver off the annual fee, but only for the Platinum card (paying off RM138 and RM50 from the RM450 rebate still leaves something, but paying RM68 and RM50 from the RM120 rebate leaves almost nothing for Titanium)