Pay Off the HDB Loan or Top Up CPF After 50? (2.6% vs 4%, and the Answer Is Not Obvious)

The HDB concessionary loan rate is 2.6% and your Retirement Account earns 4%, so topping up looks obvious. It is not, because that is not the comparison you are actually making. Ordinary Account money is already earning 2.5%, so using it to clear the loan gains you one tenth of one per cent, while moving the same money to your RA gains you 1.5%. On $50,000 that is $50 a year against $750 a year. And from 55, the first $30,000 in your RA earns 6%, not 4%. This video walks through both routes, the cash version where it gets much closer, the extra interest tiers, the one thing a paid-off loan buys that no rate will, and the order to do it in. Your flat is one piece of a bigger retirement picture. The Singapore Retirement Blueprint helps you plan your CPF, your home, and your income together, step by step: https://moneywithwei.com/ #CPF #HDB #SingaporeRetirement #RetireInSingapore #MoneyWithWei General education only, not financial advice. Wei is not a MAS licensed adviser. The 2.6% HDB concessionary rate, the 2.5% Ordinary Account and 4% Special, MediSave and Retirement Account floor rates, the extra interest tiers and the $8,000 cash top-up relief cap are CPF's published figures. The $50,000 worked example and the one-tenth-of-one-per-cent and 1.5% net figures are Wei's own arithmetic from those rates. Confirm your own position with CPF and HDB.