How to Buy T-bills Singapore: The Step-by-Step Guide

Treasury Bills (T-bills) is a short-term Singapore government bonds with 6-month or 1-year maturity. T-bills have been one of Singapore’s most popular investment choices due to their short-term duration and relatively high-interest rates. So, how to buy T-bills Singapore?

How Does It Work?

Issuance Frequency	Every two weeks. See the issuance calendar.
Bid Format	Competitive or non-competitive bids (see below).
Investment Amount	Minimum $1,000, and in multiple of $1,000 No maximum, limited to the amount offered for each issuance.
Interest Payout	Paid upfront. You pay the bills at a discount and receive the full face value at maturity.
Buy with	Cash, SRS, CPF
Secondary Market Trading	Yes. You can buy/sell in the secondary market at your local bank branches. The principal is not guaranteed as it is subject to the prevailing market price.

 

Competitive vs. Non-competitive Bids

In non-competitive bids, you only specify the amount you want to invest, but not the minimum yield you will accept. You will receive whatever the resulting yield from the auction. 40% of the total allocation will be allocated to the non-competitive bids. If the total amount of non-competitive bids is less than that 40%, you will get the full amount you applied for. You will be allocated pro-rated if the total is more than 40%. Your yield will be the cut-off yield, the highest accepted yield of successful competitive bids.

In competitive bids, you specify the minimum yield that you will accept. Depending on how your bid compares to the other competitive bids, you may not get the amount you applied for if the cut-off yield is lower than yours. For those using CPF, a competitive bid is recommended because you want to ensure getting a higher yield than the prevailing CPF rates.

 

How to Buy T-bills Singapore

What you need

For cash application, you must have a local Singapore bank account from DBS/POSB, OCBC, UOB, and a CDP account with the direct crediting service (DCS) enabled. This DCS allows interest payout and your principal balance to be paid directly to your bank account. If you don’t have a CDP account yet, you can follow our step-by-step guide on how to open CDP account.

For SRS application, you need your SRS account with one of the operators (DBS/POSB, OCBC, UOB).

For CPF application, you need a CPF Investment Account with one of the three CPFIS agent banks (DBS/POSB, OCBC, UOB).

 

How to apply

If you are ready to buy T-bills, in summary, the steps are as follows:

• Look at the latest offering and application timeline from the MAS website issuance calendar.
• Submit your application via your local bank DBS, OCBC, or UOB.
• Wait until MAS announces the auction result (called the Auction date) to see if you get the desired allocation. If you get the allocation, congratulations!

Please follow this guide for detailed step-by-step instructions on how to buy T-bills Singapore via online banking. We will use DBS online banking, but the steps are similar for OCBC and UOB. In this guide, we will make a cash application. But the steps on how to buy T-bills Singapore using CPF and SRS should be similar.

1	Login to your DBS, OCBC, or UOB online banking account.
2	Select Invest and then choose Singapore Government Securities (SGS).
3	Under Apply for SGS, choose Treasury Bills (T-bills).
4	Double-check that you are applying for the correct T-bill (make sure the issue code is correct) and proceed by clicking the Apply button.
5	Select your Bid type (competitive or non-competitive) and the Amount you want to invest. If you use a competitive bid, you must enter the Bid yield, the minimum yield you wish to accept. Select the bank account you want to debit from. For cash applications, the amount and the application fee will be debited from this account. For CPF and SRS, the application fee will be debited from this account. If you choose cash, fill in your CDP account number. Click the Next button to continue to the review page.
6	On the review page, double-check your personal info and application details. If all are correct, click the Submit button to complete your application.
7	Congratulations, you are done! Now, you need to wait until the auction date to see whether or not you get the allocation.

 

After the Application

You can check whether or not you get the allocation by going directly to the MAS website after the auction date. Depending on whether you apply for a competitive or non-competitive bid, you can check the auction result there. The T-bills will be issued three business days after the auction result announcement.

If you get an allocation, you will get the interest payout immediately to your bank account. You will get the initial principal at maturity.

If you do not get an allocation (for example, due to your bid yield being higher than the cut-off yield), you will get your money back into your bank account.

 

See your T-bills in CDP Investors Portal

So you get your allocation; congratulations! Next, look at the issue date of your T-bills (usually three business days after the auction date). For cash application: after the issue date, you can go to the CDP investors portal to see your T-bills holding.

 

FAQs

Do we need to use the same bank account for applying and receiving our principal upon maturity?

No, you will receive any payout or principal into the bank account linked to your CDP account. You can change this bank account anytime.

Can we apply T-bills with cash without a CDP account?

No. You need the CDP account with direct crediting service enabled before applying for T-bills. For cash applications, CDP will be your custodian. You can change your bank account anytime from your CDP account, and your payout and principal will be deposited directly to the bank account linked to your CDP account.

Is it worth using CPF to buy T-bills?

Your CPF money already earns a default interest rate. By investing your CPF into T-bills, you are trading the interest rate from your CPF for the interest rate from T-bills. To ensure it is worth investing your CPF money into T-bill, the T-bill interest rate should be much higher than the prevailing CPF interest rate.

Also, take note of the date of your T-bill application and maturity. You will not get the CPF interest rate on the month of your T-bill application and the month when you receive the principal back when the T-bill matures. Depending on when you apply the T-bill, you can lose up to two months’ worth of CPF interest rate. We recommend only applying T-bill using CPF when the prevailing T-bill interest rate is much higher than the CPF rate. You also must use competitive bids when you apply to ensure you do not earn less due to the low auction result.