If you frequently fly Singapore Airlines, or its low-cost carrier Scoot, then it’s worth thinking about what card you use to book flights.

Remember that the DBS Woman’s World Mastercard (post-nerf) now only gives you 4 miles per dollar (mpd) on $1,000 of online spend per calendar month.

Putting flights onto that card is likely to use up a big chunk of that monthly $1,000 allocation. Travel spend on the Citi Rewards card? Well, that doesn’t earn you anything as flight bookings are excluded from earning 4mpd.

One overlooked miles card for travel spend is the UOB KrisFlyer credit card, which earns 3mpd on all Singapore Airlines and Scoot flights. And that rate is uncapped, too.

Of course, the only downside is that you can only earn that rate on SIA Group bookings but (and it’s a big but) Singapore Airlines and Scoot make up around 49% of all scheduled flights at Changi as of September 2023, according to CNA.

That means, more likely than not, if you are travelling there’s a big chance you’re taking an SIA Group flight – whether that’s Singapore Airlines or Scoot.

Save that valuable online spend quota on the DBS Woman’s World Mastercard and getting 3mpd on flights (while not 4mpd) is still a decent rate for what could turn out to be sizeable spend – especially if you’re travelling with kids.

When investing, it’s important to think about what your portfolio is exposed to from a country, as well as sector, perspective. Think of it as running an audit on your net worth from 30,000 feet (i.e. bird’s eye view).

For example, most of us living in Singapore will have a lot of our “hard” assets – primarily property – in the Lion City and there’ll also be our CPF assets that are also denominated in Singapore Dollars.

Add to that anyone who has stepped into investing in stocks. More likely than not, you’ve started at home and are buying Singapore-listed stocks. That’s understandable and there are many great options on the Singapore market.

However, it’s also worth remembering that Singapore’s stock market makes up less than 1% of the total value of all stocks worldwide.

In other words, our portfolio needs to adopt a global approach to capture all the growth opportunities out there that allow us to build wealth.

Likewise, with technology. I’ve never understood investors who are investing into ETFs tracking both the S&P 500 Index (tech-heavy, US-centric) and Nasdaq-100 Index (super tech-heavy, US-centric) as there is just so much overlap between the two.

If you are buying a global stock ETF then you will – by default – have significant exposure to large tech companies like Microsoft, Nvidia, Apple, and Meta, as they’re the world’s largest companies, so it’s worth understanding what your portfolio really owns.

In that scenario, if you do own individual stocks as a small part of your portfolio, then it’s worth thinking about owning non-tech stocks or dividend-paying stocks.

At the end of the day, figure out a system that works for you but first understand what your overall underlying exposure is (to both countries and sectors) so you can make better-informed decisions.

Singapore’s largest bank, DBS Group Holdings (SGX: D05), saw its shares close at a new all-time high of S$50.74 on Friday after it reported solid second-quarter results.

The other two Singapore banks – OCBC and UOB have also reported – but DBS stood out for being the only bank of the three to be able to post a year-on-year rise in net profit.

Tim’s Take: The DBS train rolls on. It was another resilient quarter from Singapore’s biggest bank and was also testament to the quality of its business.

While net profit was only up 1% in Q2 2025 to $2.82 billion – versus the same period last year – at least it rose. That was down to proactive balance sheet hedging, a robust treasury customer sales and ongoing strength in wealth management.

Post-earnings, DBS became the first Singapore-listed company to surpass the US$100 billion market cap threshold as its share price is now up over 15% so far in 2025.

That compares favourably to the stock prices of UOB (down over 2%) and OCBC (up 1%) over the same period.

While the other two banks saw net profits fall in the mid-single-digit ranges, it was also the corresponding year-on-year fall in the ordinary dividend per share (DPS) from UOB and OCBC that hit sentiment.

Meanwhile, DBS increased its ordinary DPS by over 11% year-on-year in Q2 2025 to S$0.60. Having said that, are Singapore bank stocks still a “must buy” for investors?

The jury is out on that given how uncertain the growth outlook for the global economy is and with signs that interest rates are going to come down further in the second half of this year – which will hit banks’ net interest income.

Shares also not exactly “cheap” by any means and bank stocks are notoriously cyclical (i.e. they rise and fall with economic growth).

Yet, if Singapore banks can maintain their ordinary dividend payouts at current levels – they’re still yielding around 4.8% to 5% per annum (p.a.) – than that’s not bad in an environment where Singapore T-bills and Singapore Savings Bonds (SSBs) are yielding well under 2% p.a. for investors.