Maybank Fixed Deposit - 1.1% for 12 months (possibly more???)

My emergency fund is in a fixed deposit.  The fund is for emergency purposes and I also intend to deploy 40-50% of it, if the stock market crushes again.

My fixed deposit matured recently.  Every year just before my FD matures, the bank relationship manager also comes out from hibernation.  May not be the same person, but someone calls you on your mobile, introduces himself/herself as your (new) bank relationship manager.  Then he/she will introduce other options (most of the times some structured products) that will give better returns than FD.

This year somebody introduced one high yield bond fund that he claimed is stable, high dividend yield, and has never gone down since inception.  However, after I asked him when was the inception date, it was end 2010.  How can this be a good track record for this bond fund as everything goes up since 2010?

After some looking around, I found out that Maybank offers the highest interest rates for FD in the market.  Minimum placement amount is S$25,000.

Tenure	12 months	18 months	24 months	36 months
Interest Rates (% p.a.)	1.10	1.30	1.45	1.60

One attractive feature for Maybank FD is that the FD interest payment will be paid full on the next day after depositing your FD.   The interest is paid into a Maybank passbook account and you need to open a passbook account if you do not already have one. 

Early redemption or withdrawal of your FD within 3 months, interest will be zero and the bank will return your principle minus interest up-front.

If you withdraw your FD after 3 months and before tenure ends, interest rate will be calculated at 0.1875% p.a. for the whole deposit period.  You will get principle minus interest up-front plus whatever interest at 0.1875% p.a.

This is a good place to park the emergency fund and I open a FD and passbook account with Maybank.

The next day I received my interest in full in the Maybank passbook account.  This account pays interest at 0.1875% p.a.

How did I spend this interest?  I took it and invested into Starhill Global Reit, which has dividend yield about 5%.

Let's see what is the outcome after 1 year......