Before you can invest your CPF savings through the CPF Investment Scheme (CPFIS), you will first need to first open a CPF Investment Account (CPFIA). This is an account that has to be opened with one of the three CPFIS agent banks – DBS, OCBC, UOB.
Unlike a typical savings account with one of the local banks, the funds in our CPF Investment Account (CPFIA) are governed in accordance with CPF regulations.
It’s important to note that the agent banks – DBS, OCBC, UOB, are just the custodian banks for your CPF Investment Account savings. We can only have one CPF Investment Account at any point in time.
Through this CPF Investment Account, we can invest in any CPF-eligible investments that we want, and not necessarily only with the agent bank itself. As such, it doesn’t really matter too much which agent bank as through the bank, we can always invest in any other CPF-eligible investments we want. Ideally, you should open a CPFIA with a bank that you already have internet banking access for convenience.
To invest our CPF balances, note the following requirements.
- at least 18 years old
- not an undischarged bankrupt
- have more than $20,000 in our OA
- have more than $40,000 in our SA
- complete Self-Awareness Questionnaire (SAQ) (from 1 October 2018)
Read Also: 7 Types Of Investments You Can Make Using Your CPF OA Monies Via The CPFIS-OA
In this article, we will walk you through the process of opening your CPFIA account. In the article, we opened the account with OCBC, but feel free to choose DBS or UOB, depending on which bank and platform you are most comfortable with.
On the Open an account tab, select CPFIS account.
Fill in the basic details required by the bank.
Do note that unless you have opened a CPFIA before or invested in the CPFIA, you must complete the CPF Self-Awareness Questionnaire (SAQ) before you are able to open your CPFIA.
Complete The CPF Self-Awareness Questionnaire (SAQ)
The SAQ is meant to help CPF members assess whether CPFIS is a suitable investment option for them. This will be a compulsory questionnaire that is required to be completed prior to the opening of the CPFIS account.
The results of the questionnaire, however, are not restrictive. Even if you fail the SAQ, you can still participate in CPFIS investing.
As its name suggests, the test is meant for CPF members to understand how well (or how badly) their investment knowledge is, and whether they should be investing their CPFIS monies, or leaving it untouched to earn the risk-free rate.
Submit The Form & Wait For Confirmation
Once details are filled in, submit the form and wait for the bank’s confirmation.
For me, I got the approval a few days after the form submission. According to the email received, the CPF Board has to approve the application to open the CPFIA.
Your CPFIA number is important as you would need the account number whenever you are making CPF-eligible investments.
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