Baby Bonus CDA Account

Under the Baby Bonus scheme, the government matches the amount that you save in your child's Child Development Account (CDA), dollar for dollar.

The matching contribution from the government is capped at $6,000 for your second child, and $12,000 for your third child. The amount is also $12,000 for your fourth child.

The CDA is sometimes also called Children Development Account.

To open the CDA account, you need to go to a POSB branch.

You can use the savings to pay for education and medical-related expenses for any of your children. See this for details.

See also my calculations on how much your children can get. (The total is a whopping $68k!)

When your child enters primary school, a Post-Secondary Education Account (PSE) will be created for your child. Unused savings in the CDA Account can * be transferred to the PSE Account.

The main purpose of the PSE Account is to help you save up for your child's post-secondary education, i.e. for courses in ITEs, local polytechnics, JCs, and universities (including UniSIM).

Your contributions to the PSE Account will also be matched by the government, but subject to a combined CDA-PSE cap similar to the caps mentioned earlier: the government's total co-funding for your second child, whether to CDA or PSE, will be capped at $6,000 (and $12,000 each for third child and fourth child).

The PSE Account will also earn the same interest rates as the CPF Special Account, which is currently set at 4%. (Straits Times, October 24, 2007)

* Parents have recently received letters saying that they have an option to withdraw the CDA savings when the child enters primary school.

http://www.salary.sg/2007/baby-bonus-cda-account/

Hi Salary.sg

is this benefit applicable only to Singaporean? how about PR?

Thanks.

The child has to be a Singapore citizen.
See:
link

my babe is born on 14 dec 2007,when will the payment be?

The first cash gift is given within 3 weeks after MCYS receives your properly completed forms. The subsequent cash gifts are given when your child is approximately 6, 12 and 18 months of age.
See: link

Hi, I just open a CDA account for my child who is born last year.I heard from the OCBC bank staff that I can withdraw all the funds in the CDA account by cash before my child turns 7 yrs old. Is this truth or did they give me the wrong informaion?

@lilyang, I don't think you can withdraw in cash. Check out www.babybonus.gov.sg
It says "The funds cannot be withdrawn in cash." You can only use the money for child-related expenses like medical and schooling.

i also opened an CDA account with OCBC and heard that for child born before 31 Dec 2007, they can with all the funds when the child turn 7 yrs old

I can confirm that you can withdraw the money in cash when the child turns 7. MCYS has sent me a written letter stating that. The article above also says "Parents have recently received letters saying that they have an option to withdraw the CDA savings when the child enters primary school."
However, I can't seem to find the same info in the official baby bonus site, or the MCYS site. It will be good if more people confirm this.

I had checked with MCYS and they confirmed it can either be witdrawn for cash or transfer to PSED account.And i further confirmed the information o the link below.

http://www.babybonus.gov.sg/bbss/html/faq.html