CPF

As Singaporeans celebrate National Day on 9 August, let’s take more than a moment to look back at our history with a sense of pride and gratitude for all that the founding generations have [...]

As the leading fee-only wealth advisory firm in Asia, Providend has consistently guided clients on incorporating CPF into their comprehensive wealth plans. In this week’s Money Wisdom episode, [...]

After almost a year of waiting, the CPF Special Account (SA) was finally closed on 19 January 2025 for approximately 1.4 million CPF members. Over the past month, as Singaporeans above 55 years [...]

As you may be aware, the CPF Special Account (SA) for members aged 55 and above will be closed starting in the second half of January 2025. This change was first announced during Budget 2024 in [...]

Providend is excited to share that we are working alongside Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA) to introduce three new low-cost CPFIS funds to Singaporean investors: The Global Core Equity III Fund [...]

February 16, 2024, marked the closure of the loophole to ‘shield the Special Account’ – the risk-free and high-yielding liquid CPF account. Two of my colleagues are moderators of the 1M65 [...]

It has been a month since the CPF changes were announced, and there are still ongoing discussions in the media, online, and in various finance chat groups. With all the noise surrounding this [...]

It has been a month since changes made to the CPF were announced and it has sparked many discussions on retirement planning which are still ongoing on mainstream media, digital media channels and [...]

The CPF changes announced during Budget 2024 have been receiving a range of opinions on the ground as Singaporeans who had “Special Account shielding” on their minds, question their [...]

For years, CPF members were able to “shield” the money in their CPF Special Account (SA) from being transferred to their Retirement Account (RA) by investing the money in excess of the first [...]

Are you making the most of your CPF account? In this episode, Isaac discusses the strategies for optimising your CPF accounts and integrating them into your personal wealth plan with Tan Chin Yu, [...]

In this episode, I will further elaborate on CPF LIFE – the national annuity plan which provides a way out of the longevity risk that retirees face with provision of income throughout their [...]

In this episode, I will highlight the key principle governing CPF and shares about the Minimum Sum Scheme, CPF LIFE as well as the hottest debate in 2014 concerning the interest rates we are [...]

 In the last part of this series, we share about the concept of SA shielding and illustrate the difference in your CPF OA and CPF SA balances before and after you optimise them. You can [...]

 In this video, we explain the rationale behind CPF Full Retirement Sum and whether CPF LIFE is adequate to fund our retirement. You can find the link to the other parts here: Understanding [...]

 CPF LIFE is probably the best life annuity scheme you can find in Singapore. Question is, how do we choose between the Standard, Basic and Escalating plan? In Part 5 of this series, we share [...]

 At age 40, if your income is $20k/month, with $150k in your OA and $100k in your SA, you can easily amass a total of $1.08m in both your OA and SA by age 55. That means you can withdraw [...]

 CPF is one of the best “investment” tools for your accumulation towards retirement as the returns are high (and guaranteed) relative to its risk. In fact, OA returns up to 3.5% p.a., SA and [...]

 How many accounts are there in our CPF? Three? Well technically, there are four. If you do not see the fourth account yet, that is because you are still young 🙂 In this video, we spell out the [...]

 As a start to our 7-part series on understanding CPF for retirement, we talk about the 5 key risks that retirees face and specifically, in terms of investing, the sequence of returns risk. You [...]

The end of the year is often a period where we slow down our pace of work and spend some quality time with the family, especially in this disruptive year of covid-19. As the year winds down, we [...]

Note: This article has been updated on 12 April 2024. Mention what you could optimize about your CPF and the conversation will naturally shift to tips and tricks you could do to optimize your [...]

Note: This post below has been updated on 20 May 2025. Unanswered Questions during the CPF Webinar (08 May 2025)   1. Is it unwise to do a housing refund? The reason why people might do [...]

Retirement today is more than just a matter of accumulating enough money. Increasing life expectancy has made retirement an extended stage of life. If you’ve started looking into planning for [...]

Following the National Day Rally announcements on the option (not a requirement!) to retire later and the increase in CPF contribution rates for older workers, Christopher Tan, CEO of Providend, [...]

When the Central Provident Fund (CPF) was introduced in 1955, it only had one intention and that is to help Singaporeans to save for retirement. Since its establishment, the fundamental of it has [...]

Does this describe you: You have worked for a number of years, your income is moving up and so is your income tax bill, and the last time you received your NOA (Notice of Assessment) from IRAS in [...]

Last week, I received multiple text messages from my friends with regard to CPF. And when I saw similar messages posted all over Facebook, I knew I had to clarify it. An excerpt of the first [...]

In its recent report, The Global Savings Gap, the International Longevity Centre UK (ILC-UK) compared the adequacy and sustainability of pension systems across 28 OECD countries, as well as [...]

All these years, I know for a fact that many of us do not really understand our CPF well. To many, it is just one of the many ways our government uses to “hoard” our assets. Over the past 2 [...]