OCBC tries to bridge benefit gap among Singapore’s realty agents

Its latest product offers financial benefits across banking, insurance and trading. 

Yeena Liew has worked as a property agent in Singapore for eight years, but funding and promotion never got easy.

“Being a self-employed property agent, it can be difficult to manage business expenses such as advertising, especially with irregular income flows,” she said, noting that newcomers are particularly susceptible to burnout because of these problems.

Singapore’s residential property market is expected to remain stable this year despite the uncertain economic landscape, which should still be good for the city-state’s more than 35,000 property agents.

This is despite risks such as escalating geopolitical tensions, a weakening Chinese economy, and rising costs, according to PropertyGuru. JLL expects the demand for office space to gain strength in the coming quarters.

Liew is one of the more than 35,000 property agents across 1,090 agencies in Singapore, according to data from the Council of Estate Agencies (CEA). Classified as independent contractors, real estate agents often do not have the same access to benefits as a full-time employee, such as a regular salary and health benefits.

OCBC says it can bridge this gap through its newly launched OCBC PartnerCare. Services under the programme are valued at as much as S$5,000 yearly per agent.

An OCBC specialist can work with a realty agent to help them pick the right loans for their customers, Tok Geok Peng, head of Consumer Secured Lending at OCBC, told Asian Banking & Finance.

“Our mortgage specialists work closely with property agents to assist customers in need of a home loan,” she said.

OCBC PartnerCare has been availed of by more than 20,000 real estate agents in Singapore. The bank earlier partnered with the Singapore Estate Agents Association and several real estate agencies in the city to onboard their agents. 

Amongst the first agencies to adopt OCBC PartnerCare are PropNex Realty and ERA, the two biggest property firms, with 11,999 and 8,891 agents in their workforce, respectively.

Agents who avail themselves of OCBC PartnerCare can get a preferential home loan rate that is 0.07% lower than the standard OCBC home loan rate.

Agents also get a bonus interest on their OCBC 360 account, as well as home loan referral fees when they onboard property buyers to OCBC.

Realty agents who get OCBC home loan referral fees of at least S$1,800, which are credited to their OCBC 360 account, qualify for a salary bonus interest for that month. 

This amounts to an additional effective interest rate of 2.5% a year on the first S$100,000 of an agent’s OCBC 360 account, which is on top of the 0.05% base interest rate on their total account balance, Tok said.

Aside from the bonus interest, property agents also get access to dedicated client meeting areas at select OCBC branches and seminars on market outlook and macroeconomic trends, she added.

Agents can also attend physical and mental wellness events where they can talk to medical professionals.

OCBC PartnerCare also offers as much as a 45% discount on select Great Eastern General Insurance plans. Covered plans include the Great PA insurance, Explorer travel insurance, and Great Home insurance.

Tok said interest in the programme has been “steadily increasing.” 

“If the programme is well-received, we will consider expanding it to include more of our partners,” she added.