Distrust: Trust Bank’s misleading new cashback card

Trust Bank, better known for its free rice giveaways, has launched its second-ever credit card: the Trust Cashback Card.

Unlike the inaugural Trust Link Card which awards LinkPoints, the Trust Cashback card awards…wait for it…cashback.

Even though cashback isn’t really my area of speciality, I figured I’d take a look, just in case there was more free rice to be harvested.

But the more I analysed it, the more I felt compelled to write something. That’s because the Trust Cashback Card’s claims of 15% cashback are extremely misleading, making me wonder what on earth they were thinking. 

And since it’s apparent that Trust’s love language is emoji — its T&Cs are saturated with them — I am going to try and communicate in a language they understand 😘.

💳 Overview: Trust Cashback Card

Trust Cashback Card
Card T&Cs
Income Req.	S$30,000 p.a.	Annual Fee	None
Regular Earn Rate	1% cashback	Bonus Earn Rate	Up to 15% cashback (not really)
FCY Fee	None	Emoji Level	🤯🤯🤯

The Trust Cashback Card has a minimum income requirement of S$30,000 per annum 💰, and no annual fee. You’ll receive a digital card in the app immediately upon approval, with a numberless physical card later sent to your mailing address. 

If you already have a Trust Link Card, your credit limit will be shared among both cards. 

Where perks are concerned, the Trust Cashback Card has three main selling points. I’d group these into the good, the bad and the (really) ugly.

👍 The good: 0% FCY fees, instant base cashback

Just like the Trust Link Card, the Trust Cashback Card has zero FCY transaction fees, not even the usual 1% fee charged by Visa. In other words, you’ll pay whatever the Visa rate happens to be for the day (usually a ~0.3% spread over interbank rates), with no further markup.

This makes it a good option for overseas spending, especially in scenarios where you can’t earn rewards such as charitable donations, education, government organisations and insurance premiums. In these situations, it’s simply a question of minimising the total transaction cost, and a card with zero FCY transaction fees will let you do that. 

I suppose the other good thing is that the base cashback (see next section) is credited as soon as the transaction posts, which is better than other banks which credit it at the end of the month, or offset the following month’s bill.

👎 The bad: 1% cashback

Contrary to what the banner above says, the Trust Cashback Card earns a very underwhelming 1% cashback on general spending. The 1.5% cashback rate is only available for new-to-Trust customers, and only on a promotional basis till 31 December 2024.

Given that the market is offering up to an uncapped 1.7% cashback (or 2% cashback with a S$200 monthly cap, which you wouldn’t trigger unless you spent more than S$10,000), the Trust Cashback Card ranks lowest in this segment. 

💳 General Spending Cashback Cards (without minimum spends)
	Annual Fee	Cashback
DCS Ultimate Platinum Card Apply	S$196.20 (FYF)	2% (capped at S$200 per month)
Mari Credit Card Apply	N/A	1.7%
UOB Absolute Cashback Apply	S$196.20 (FYF)	1.7%
BOC Visa Infinite Apply	S$381.50 (FYF)	1.6%
Citi Cash Back+ Card Apply	S$196.20 (FYF)	1.6%
OCBC Infinity Cashback Apply	S$196.20 (FYF)	1.6%
ICBC Chinese Zodiac Card Apply	S$150 (F3YF)	1.6%
Maybank FC Barcelona Card Apply	S$130.80 (F2YF)	1.6%
AMEX True Cashback Card Apply	S$174.40 (FYF)	1.5%
SC Simply Cash Card Apply	S$196.20 (FYF)	1.5%
Trust Cashback Card Apply	Free	1%^
FYF= First Year Free, F2YF= First 2 Years Free, F3YF= First 3 Years Free ^1.5% for new-to-Trust customers until 31 December 2024

So there’s absolutely no reason why you should be using the Trust Cashback Card for general spending (at least in SGD, maybe there’s a case for FCY), as you’d be missing out on incremental cashback easily earned with any other card on the market.

💩 The ugly: 15% bonus cashback

“Well,” says Trust. “1% cashback may be mediocre, but this is really gonna knock your socks off: 15% cashback!”

Um, no. Here’s where the Trust Cashback Card becomes straight out misleading 😠.

Trust advertises that cardholders can earn 5%, 10% or 15% bonus cashback on their preferred bonus category, subject to the following minimum monthly spends and quarterly caps.

Where bonus categories are concerned, Trust is taking a leaf out of the UOB Lady’s Card playbook by allowing cardholders to select their preferred bonus category from six options, changeable every quarter. 

Unlike base cashback, which is credited upon transaction posting, bonus cashback will be credited on the first day after your quarter ends.

Now, here’s my beef: 15% cashback would be amazing, but it’s not actually possible 😡. 

Let’s look at these figures more closely. To earn 15% cashback, I would need to spend at least S$2,000 per month for three consecutive months, with a quarterly cap of S$250.

The first hint that something is wrong is the fact that 15% of S$6,000 (S$2,000 x 3 months) is $900 per quarter. Where did the S$650 difference go🤷?

Into Trust’s pocket, apparently. Out of the S$6,000 spend you need each quarter to trigger the 15% cashback, only the first S$1,667 is rewarded at 15%. The remaining S$4,333 earns just 1% cashback!

Remember, you can’t just spend till S$1,667 and call it a day. You must meet the S$6,000 minimum spend each quarter for the 15% cashback on the first S$1,667 to become a reality.

Once you factor in the 1% base cashback on the remaining S$4,333, your total cashback is S$293.33, which means the real world best-possible cashback outcome is 4.9% (S$293.33/S$6,000). That is still a good figure, but it is not 15%. 

It’s a similar story for the 10% and 5% tiers, as summarised in the table below.

Why am I so worked up about this? Because it’s dishonest. If we stretch this logic further, there is nothing stopping me from advertising an 80% cashback rate, and in the fine print saying “min. spend S$1,000 per month, capped at S$10, 1% afterwards”.

Then when people call me out, I say “I’m not lying! For the first S$12.50, you really do earn 80% cashback!”, conveniently omitting the fact that the remaining S$987.50 you need to spend is rewarded at just 1%.

Or let me put it in more familiar miles terms. Suppose I launched a new credit card and advertised a 100 mpd earn rate. But in the fine print, I say “min. spend S$1,000 per month, capped at 500 miles, 1 mpd afterwards”.

When people start complaining, I give my best kawaii eyes and say “For the first S$5 you really do earn 100 mpd!” You’d get the pitchforks out, and rightly so. In what universe is that the “transparency and simplicity” that Trust likes to harp about?

😿 Not just Trust

Unfortunately, this kind of advertising is not limited to Trust Bank, and points to a bigger problem in the industry. 

Back when the DBS yuu card first launched, I criticised its misleading claim of 15% rebates because it was not mathematically possible- some of the spending to unlock the 15% figure had to be on non-bonus spend, which would drag your overall average below the advertised threshold.

At least DBS cleaned up their act when they revamped the yuu Card in April 2023 with an actually-achievable 18% rebate. I can’t say the same about UOB, whose EVOL card similarly skirts the bounds of legality by advertising 10% cashback, when the mathematical best you can do is 6.4% (no room to explain here, but you need to spend at least S$300 at 0.3% to unlock 10% cashback on S$500 spend).

It’s disappointing that no watchdog has stepped in to challenge such misleading claims, because you can bet the average consumer is not doing these sums. DYODD, sure, but how about some truth in advertising?

To be clear: I don’t expect to earn an uncapped 15%. That would be ridiculous. However, if you advertise 15% cashback, I would expect that it’s actually attainable in practice. There is a world of difference between 15% and 4.9%. 

💡 Are there any use cases?

Lest people say I’m missing the forest for the trees, I’ll wrap up with a couple of use cases for the Trust Cashback Card. 

As mentioned earlier, zero FCY fees are great for situations where rewards can’t be earned. If you have an overseas tuition fee, donation or insurance premium to pay, you might as well keep the total cost as low as possible since it’s a common exclusion category (though refer to my guides for education, charitable donations and insurance– there are a very small number of cards that still earn rewards!).

I’m also intrigued that Trust explicitly mentioned Nets FlashPay top-ups as an example of a bonus merchant, under the Transport category. 

There’s a reason most banks exclude this category (hint: it rhymes with “lanufactured end”), and I would be very surprised if bonus cashback were actually awarded. After all, it appears to contradict their own T&Cs, which excludes rewards for “any top-ups or payment of funds to any accounts.” We’ll need to field test this, so stay tuned 🤫 . 

And finally, misleading marketing aside, a 4.9% cashback rate on your choice of bonus category is good, especially if it’s in foreign currency. I have no criticism about that, other than a caution to be diligent about meeting the minimum spend each month for three consecutive months. 

👋 Conclusion

Trust Cashback Card

The new Trust Cashback Card claims to offer cashback rates of up to 15%, but if we do the math, it’s really up to 4.9% only. Good luck spotting that amidst the media blitz and usual influencer gushing when this officially launches though. 

It speaks volumes that Trust feels the need to artificially inflate the quarterly cashback savings figure on its website with a nebulously-defined “savings on exclusive partner deals” (basically the coupons you find in the app, which could be used with any other Trust card anyway)- almost as if it realises the actual cashback figures aren’t nearly as incredible as they’d like people to believe.

Trust Bank? No, not really.