Citi Cash Back Credit Card (Old)

*This is outdated, the latest one can be referred here.

Citibank provides Citi Cash Back Credit Card with three main features highlighted:

1. Up to 5% cash back on everyday purchase
2. No minimum spend required
3. Automatic cash back into your account once you accumulate a minimum of RM 20 cash back

You can view the summary from iMoney.my about Cash Back Card and Cash Back Platinum.

Cash back details

Rebate	Category	Cap for Cash Back Normal	Cap for Cash Back Platinum
5%	Petrol	RM 15	RM 20
2%	Pharmaceutical	-	-
2%	Grocery	RM 30	RM 60
2%	Telco	-	-
0.2%	Other retail spend	-	-

Pharmaceutical includes spending in Guardian, Watson and Caring pharmacies.

Grocery includes spending on groceries at AEON Big, Tesco, COld Storage, Giant, Everise, Servay, Econsave and Mydin.

Telco include bill payments to Maxis and Digi, excluding JomPAY transactions.

Take note that certain transactions are not eligible for cash rebates, which includes:

1. refunded, disputed, unauthorized or fraudulent retail transactions

2. catering and out-call food and beverage services

3. child care services

4. special events/categories (including funeral and crematoria services, clothing rental, photographic or video-graphic studios and florists)

The full list of the excluded transaction can be viewed from T&C of the card.

Analysis

A rather simple rebate system with no minimum spending required! That is the part I like the most.

A 5% rebate on petrol is relatively good (although there are some cards with even higher rebate rate on petrol), There are also 2% rebate on spending in pharmaceutical, grocery and telco outlets.

Do take note you will once receive the cashback on the first day of the billing month after you achieve a minimum rebate amount of RM 20.

Conclusion

Generally quite a good cashback card. Theoretically, say you have a normal cashback card, if you spend exactly RM 300 on petrol and RM 250 on the other three categories (with 2% rebate), you can receive RM 20 cashback every month which is effectively 3.64% rebate. Or you can enjoy RM 30 rebate every two month (ie 5% monthly rebate) if you only spend on petrol (RM 300 monthly).

Standard Chartered JustOne Platinum MasterCard

Standard Chartered launches  the JustOne Platinum MasterCard  promoting up to 15% monthly cashback. According to their website, you can get more than RM1,000 cashback a year on all your daily spends and receive exclusive deals with the all-new JustOne Platinum MasterCard credit card.

Detail of rebate according to spending amount

Retail Spend per Month (RM)	Auto Bill Payments, Online Purchases & Petrol	Other Categories	Cashback Cap (RM)
Below 1,000	0.20%	0.20%	12
1,000 - 1,499.99	5%	0.20%	12
1,500 - 2,499.99	10%	0.20%	28
2,500 & above	15%	0.20%	85

On top of the rebate through monthly retail spend, you can enjoy an additional RM300 cashback when first applying the card via two actions:
1. Activating the card within 45 days from card approval date will receive RM150 cashback. 
2. Signing up and performing 5 or more auto bill transactions within first 90 days from card approval date will receive up to RM150 cashback.

Cashback for autobill transactions within first 90 days from card approval date

No of auto bill transactions	Cashback [RM]
1-2	50
3-4	100
5 and above	150

These auto bill transactions can be from utilities (Astro, Indah Water and TNB), Telco (Celcom, Dlgi, etc almost all telco companies) and Insurance (Great Eastern, Manulife, Prudential, etc almost all big insurance companies). The list of billers eligible can be viewed here.



In addition, there are some merchant offers:
1. Sakae Sushi : 1-for-1 hand roll and blue plate (valid until 30th June 2017, valid with dine in only with maximum free 2 plates each per transaction, per table. Not valid on public holidays.)
2. Golden Screen Cinemas : RM 7 per ticket for any movies via GSC website and mobile app (valid till 28th February 2017)
3. Uber : 20% cashback on fares globally for 12 months (valid 1st Oct 2016 to 30th Sept 2017, subject to minimum spend of RM750, eligible for cards issued in Malaysia only)



Analysis:

Do take note that the high rebate percentage is only for spending in 3 categories: auto bill payment, online purchases and petrol. At the first glance, it might seem like a very good deal with 15% cashback. However, be aware of this: the cashback calculation comes with minimum spend as well as cashback cap. With this, the rebate may not seem as high as 15% or even 10% if you calculate based on the total amount spent on the card. For example, a RM 1500 monthly spending is entitled for 10% rebate which should be RM 150. However, the cap is set at RM 28 and thus this is the maximum you can get. If we factor in the monthly cap and minimum spending, the effective rebate percentage based on the formula below and is shown in the graph:

As you can see from the graph, the maximum rebate you can get is effectively 3.4%. That is, if you spend exactly RM 2,500 every month using the card (with at least RM 566.67 spent in the three eligible categories), then you will receive a total annual rebate of RM 85 × 12 = RM 1020. This is the maximum amount of rebate you are eligible to get every year. To achieve this 3.4%, you need to spend RM 2,500 × 12 = RM 30,000 in a year.

RM 150 cashback from activating the card within 45 days should be quite an easy job. On the other hand, to obtain the other RM 150 cashback, you do need to use some efforts to change most of your auto bill payment under this card, say your phone post paid plan, electricity bill, broadband plan, Astro, insurance and Indah Water bill.

Offers for Sakae Sushi, GSC and Uber are not bad as long as you fulfill all the conditions.

Conclusion:

Personally do not really like the card. Mostly because I don't spend that much on auto bill and online purchases and there are a lot of great petrol rebate cards in the market. Nevertheless, it does offer relatively high rebate for spending on online purchases and auto bill payment, unlike most of the credit cards which only offer 0.2% in these categories. Hence if you do spend that much using credit card and most of the spending are in these three categories, this card does provide you about 1 to 3% rebate effectively.

First Post

Financial planning is essential for us to enjoy our life when we retired. This involves controlling and managing your income and also spending. Insurance is also important so that when an unexpected and undesirable event occur, it will have lesser impact to our life as well as financial plan.

Investment is the key to increase our passive income and achieve financial freedom. However, ones must always do homework before putting money into any investment products (unit trust, stock, real estate, etc). If you blindly follow any "expert's advises", then good luck. Never invest into what you don't understand or you won't even know why investment makes you poorer.

Please get yourself far from any scam/ money games that promise you high return with no risk. Remember: Risk is always proportional to return of an investment. Those "investment" with ridiculously high return are bubbles with no one monitoring and regulating its growth. It could burst anytime.

Happy investing and learning more about your money. Be someone who is good in both health and wealth! :)