Unlimited Cashback at 10%? The Standard Chartered Smart Credit Card Explained (MoneySmart Review 2025)
Most unlimited cashback credit cards give you just 1.5% to 1.7% back on your spend. The Standard Chartered Smart Credit Card flips that on its head: it offers unlimited cashback at a much higher rate of 8% to 10%—provided you meet its monthly spend tiers.
That’s an unusual proposition in the cashback space. While SC did “nerf” the card back in Dec 2024 by adding spend requirements and an annual fee, the upside is that the maximum cashback rate also went up. So today, the Smart Card is less about effortless perks, and more about maximising high rewards if you can play by its rules.
In this review, we’ll walk you through how the revamped Standard Chartered Smart Credit Card works, and help you decide if it still deserves a place in your wallet.
Standard Chartered Smart Credit Card—Is it MoneySmart?
Overall: ★★★★☆ (3.7/5)Best for: Those who spend at least $800 a month, mostly on the card’s bonus category merchants such as McDonald’s, Starbucks, Spotify, Netflix, SimplyGo, and more.The catch: To unlock the maximum cashback rate of 10%, you have to spend a hefty $1,500 a month on the card. Also note that the bonus cashback applies to specific merchants (e.g. McDonald’s) and not categories (e.g. all fast food outlets).
Pros—What we like Cons—What we don’t like – Good cashback rates of 8% or 10% when you hit certain minimum monthly spends – Bonus cashback spending includes: SimplyGo (bus/MRT), popular digital subscriptions (e.g. Spotify, Netflix), and everyday dining merchants like (McDonald’s, Ya Kun Kaya Toast) – High minimum monthly spend ($1,500) to unlock the highest cashback rate of 10% – Bonus spending is merchant-specific, not category specific. For example, McDonald’s is a bonus merchant, but not all fast food joints are included. Standard Chartered Smart Credit Card at a glance Category Our rating The deets Earn rates: Cashback ★★★★☆ Bonus spending : – $800 or more monthly spend : 8% – $1,500 or more monthly spend : 10% Other spending: – Less than $1,500 monthly spend : 0.5% base rate – $1,500 or more monthly spend : 1% base rate Earn categories ★★★☆☆ Bonus cashback merchants for dining – McDonald’s, KFC, Burger King, Ya Kun Kaya Toast, Subway and Toast Box – NEW: Starbucks, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, Pizza Hut and Domino’s Pizza Bonus cashback merchants for streaming – Netflix, Spotify, YouTube and Disney+ – NEW: Amazon Prime, Viu, iQiyi and HBO GO Bonus cashback merchants for transport – Bus and MRT commute via SimplyGo – NEW: Electric Vehicle Charging Other spending earns base cashback rates. Annual fees and charges ★★★★☆ $91 (before GST) from 6 Dec 2025 onwards. First year fee is waived for new cardholders. Accessibility ★★★☆☆ – Singapore Citizens and Permanent Residents (PRs) : $30,000 annual income requirement – Foreigners : $90,000 annual income requirement – Eligible age : 21 to 65 years old Extras/periphery rewards ★ ★ ★ ★☆ – Visa Smart Delay: Complimentary access to over 1,600 lounges and airport experiences when your flight is delayed. – EasyPay: Split your purchases up into interest-free instalments with no or low processing fees. – Live The Good Life: Up to 25% off dining, lifestyle, and travel at over 3,000 outlets across Asia – Zalora: 15% off with minimum spend of $130 till 31 Dec 2025 – TADA: $3 with promo code SCB3PXQRF – Rentalcars.com: 10% off on car rental bookings till 31 Mar 2026 – Chengdu Bowl: Up to 15% off – Museum of Ice Cream Singapore: Bulk ticket discount of 15% off for ticket purchases of 4 and more. Sign-up bonus ★★★☆☆ – Welcome gift: $230 cash via PayNow or 2,990 SmartPoints – Spend criteria: $500 within 30 days from card approval date. Valid till 15 Sep 2024. T&Cs apply
See our credit card ranking rubric to find out how we rank credit cards.
Participating merchants for bonus spend
When will the cashback be credited?
Should I get the Standard Chartered Smart Credit Card?
Standard Chartered Smart Credit Card promotion
Alternatives to the Standard Chartered Smart Credit Card
The Standard Chartered Smart Credit Card now works on a tiered cashback system. While the days of $0 minimum spend are gone, the trade-off is big: there’s no cap on cashback anymore. Previously, cashback was capped at 14,400 360° Reward Points a month (equivalent to just ~$818 spend).
The standout feature: unlimited cashback at 8% or 10%, depending on your spend tier.
Additionally, the SC Smart Credit Card now comes with more bonus merchants. Here’s the list:
SMART Dining: McDonald’s, KFC, Ya Kun Kaya Toast (plus Starbucks, Pizza Hut, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, Domino’s Pizza).
SMART Transport: MRT or bus rides via SimplyGo, EV charging.
SMART Streaming: Netflix, Spotify, Disney+ (plus Amazon Prime, Viu, iQIYI, HBO GO)
Card spend in statement month Bonus categories Other eligible spend
Less than $800 0.5% 0.5%
$800 or more 8% 0.5%
$1,500 or more 10% 1%
While you can earn up to 10% cashback on the Standard Chartered Smart Credit Card, you need to spend $1,500 a month to unlock this cashback rate.
If you spend only $800 a month on your credit card, you’ll get 8% cashback instead.
And if you spend less than $800 a month? This card will make no sense for you. You’ll only earn the base cashback rate of 0.5%, and are better off using any $0 minimum spend, unlimited cashback card—Standard Chartered’s own Simply Cash Credit Card is one option, offering 1.5% cashback on almost any spending.
The good news is that Standard Chartered has expanded their list of merchants at which you can earn bonus cashback. Here’s a summary:
Bonus categories Participating merchants
Dining McDonald’s, KFC, Burger King, Ya Kun Kaya Toast, Subway and Toast BoxNEW: Starbucks, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, Pizza Hut and Domino’s Pizza
Streaming Netflix, Spotify, YouTube and Disney+NEW: Amazon Prime, Viu, iQiyi and HBO GO
Transport Bus and MRT commute via SimplyGoNEW: Electric Vehicle Charging (till 31 Dec 2025)
Source: Standard Chartered
Unfortunately, getting your hands on your cashback adds administrative bother to your life, because the cashback isn’t simply credited to your next statement.
Instead, Standard Chartered gives you 360° Rewards Points, which you can use to redeem cash credits, miles, or e-vouchers from retail, dining, lifestyle, and travel brands.
If you have no desire for vouchers or miles and just want to exchange your points for the cashback you were promised, $10 cashback will cost you 3,200 rewards points.
Your first batch of Standard Chartered rewards points are only valid for 3 years from the day your Smart Credit Card account is opened. So you want to be very careful to exchange all your rewards points for cashback before they expire. Read more about rewards points expiry periods.
With the Standard Chartered Smart Credit Card, here’s how 360° Rewards Points are credited:
Bonus Categories: Points earned in bonus categories during your statement month will be credited 1 day after your statement cycle date. For example, if your statement cycle ends on the 19th, these points will be credited on the 20th.
Other Eligible Spend: Base points earned from other eligible spending will be credited on your statement cycle date. For example, if your statement cycle ends on the 19th, these points will also be credited on the 19th.
Standard Chartered Smart Credit Card
Annual fee & waiver $91 (before GST) from 6 Dec 2025 onwards. Waived for the first year.
Supplementary card fee Free
Interest free period Available
Annual interest rate 27.9%
Late payment fee $100
Minimum monthly repayment $50 OR 1% of principal / interest, fees & charges / overlimit amount / past due amount, whichever is higher
Foreign currency transaction fee 3.5%
Cash advance transaction fee 8%
Overlimit fee $40
Card association Visa
Get the Standard Chartered Smart Credit Card if you spend at least $800 a month and frequent its participating merchants. For your efforts, you’ll earn an unlimited 8% cashback at those merchants.
While you can shoot for the $1,500 monthly spend to unlock 10% cashback, don’t forget that the 10% cashback only applies to a few fast food eateries, coffee and toast places, digital subscriptions, and selected transport. If the bulk of your spending is not in these categories, you’ll be wasting an opportunity cost to earn cashback on your spending with other cards.
For example, let’s say you spend $1,500 in a month all on the participating merchants. Wonderful—you get $150 cashback that month based on the 10% cashback rate.
Now let’s say you spend $1,500 in a month, but only $500 of that is on the participating merchants. Now you only get $50 cashback, which brings your real cashback rate down to 3.33%.
From now till 15 Sep 2025, get $230 cash via PayNow or 2,990 SmartPoints—the latter is worth over 5,500 Asia Miles, a Samsung Galaxy A16 8GB+128GB (worth $288), or an AOC 24G4 IPS Gaming Monitor 23.8-Inch (worth $2,810). Take your pick on our Rewards Store.
To receive your welcome gift, simply apply and spend a minimum of $500 within 30 days from the date your Standard Chartered Smart Credit Card is approved.
Don’t forget to enrol in our Rollin’ Rewards campaign for free before you apply—you’ll stand a chance to win rewards such as a Nintendo Switch 2 (worth $719) and Sony PS5 Slim (worth $699).
View all our ongoing credit card promotions for more exciting gifts.
POSB Everyday Card—With a monthly spend of $800, enjoy 10% cash rebates on online food delivery at foodpanda and Deliveroo, 5% rebates on online shopping (Amazon.sg, Lazada, Qoo10, Shopee, RedMart and Taobao), and 3% on dining transactions.
UOB One Card—Enjoy 8.33% at selected merchants when you spend $600 a month on the UOB One Card. If you spend $2,000 a month, you’ll get 10% cashback. Just be wary that this card’s bonus cashback works on a quarterly basis—read more in our UOB One Card review.
HSBC Live+ Card—With a minimum monthly spend of $800, the HSBC Live+ Card offers up to 8% cashback on dining, shopping and entertainment for the first 2 calendar quarters if you sign up by 30 Sep 2025.
In case you’re wondering, here’s how we decide on our credit card rankings.
Is that credit card MoneySmart? Our MoneySmart credit card ranking rubric Category Our rating Overall The average rating for the credit card on the whole, calculated from the ratings for the individual categories below. Plus, we’ll give you a one-liner on who we think the credit card is best suited for. Earn rates: Air miles / Cashback / Rewards points Air miles ✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️ / Cashback / Rewards points . This category looks at the depth rather than breadth of earn rates.
5 stars means this card’s got the highest earn rates within that credit card type.
3-4 stars mean it’s average
1-2 stars reflect earn rates that are below average.
Earn categories This category looks at the breadth rather than depth of your earnings.
5 stars: Earn with ANY spend.
3-4 stars: Earn on a large number of categories (e.g. all dining, transport and retail, but not telco bills) OR earn on 1 very broad category (e.g. all contactless/mobile payments).
1-2 stars: Earn a decent rate only on selected categories, such as fast food only.
Annual fees and charges
5 stars: $0
4 stars: $1-200
3 stars: $201-500
2 stars: $501-$999
1 star: $1,000 and up
We dock a star if fee waiver is NOT allowed.
Accessibility Minimum income requirements :
5 stars: Less than $30,000 a year
4 stars: Around $30,000 a year for Singaporeans and $40,000-$45,000 for non-Singaporeans
3 stars: $30,000-$60,000 a year for Singaporeans, $40,000-$70,000 for non-Singaporeans
2 stars: $60,000-$120,000 a year for Singaporeans, $70,000-$120,000 for non-Singaporeans
1 star: $120,000 and up for either, or both
Exclusivity: We dock 1-2 stars if there is/are another category/categories that make the card exclusive and very specific to a certain clientele.
Extras/periphery rewards These include:
Travel benefits, such as airport lounge access
Lifestyle benefits, such as spa privileges
Dining benefits, such as complimentary AMEX Love Dining or Entertainer with HSBC subscriptions
We count the number of benefits and award between 0.5 to 2 stars for each, depending on how good the perk is.
Sign-up bonus
5 stars: The gift(s), cash, or miles are the highest we see out there compared to other credit cards of the same type (miles, cashback, etc). Also easy to attain these welcome bonuses.
3-4 stars: Average but not disappointing sign-up bonus compared to other credit cards. You aren’t losing out.
1-2 stars: You are probably losing out in terms of the welcome bonus you’re getting; there are other similar credit cards with sign-up bonuses that are better or easier to attain.
Check out our ultimate list of credit card reviews for the low-down on credit cards in Singapore.
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banban 16/09/2025
In total, 1,445 cartons and 16 packets of duty-unpaid cigarettes were seized. The duties and GST evaded amounted to about S$156,693.
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