In an email to cardholders yesterday, the Trust Cashback Card announced upcoming changes to how cashback can be earned on the card, including a nerf that will hurt many.
✍️ Trust Cashback Card Review: Essential for Travel
Recap: Best features of the Trust Cashback Card
Before I touch on the changes, here’s all you need to know about the features of the Trust Cashback Card (until 28 Feb 2026), and why I see it as an essential card for travel, even if you’re in Miles:
👍 The good:
- No annual fee, ever
- No foreign transaction fee
- 1% unlimited cashback on non-preferred spending category
- Unlimited fee-free overseas ATM cash withdrawals
❌ The bad:
- Need to follow specific steps to get fee-free overseas ATM cash withdrawals
- Misleading “up to 15% cashback” benefit, ignore it by choosing the category that is most useless to you
The Trust Cashback Card is currently one of the best cards for:
- Online shopping (in foreign currency)
- Overseas spending (in foreign currency)
- Flights (in foreign currency)
- Hotels (in foreign currency)
- Buying Miles/Points
- Overseas ATM Withdrawals
(Apply with code: V1WB7T8A)
More information
Key details of the Trust Cashback Card
Ease of use :
Minimum annual income:• S’porean/PR: S$15,000 – S$30,000
• Foreigner: S$60,000Annual fee: No annual fee, ever
Get 0.5% cashback on foreign transactions
No minimum spending
Uncapped earn rates
No foreign transaction fees
⚠️ “15% cashback” claim for chosen category is impossible to achieve
⚠️ Low earn rate for local spending (spend with better cashback cards)
0.5% cashback on foreign currency transactions
Let’s start with the big one.
From 1 Mar 2026, Trust Cashback cardholders will earn uncapped 0.5% cashback on foreign currency transactions (online or overseas), down from 1%.
Better alternative
As a reminder, the Mari Credit Card is offering 1.5% cashback on your first S$1,500 in foreign currency spending per month until 31 Dec 2026. This card doesn’t come with any annual fee and FX fees as well!
This is now, quite comfortably, the best fuss-free cashback card for foreign currency spending, online or overseas.
(Apply with code: 6JAC91WK)
More information
Key details of the Mari Credit Card
Ease of use :
Minimum annual income: S$15,000 – S$30,000
Annual fee: No annual fee, ever
Get 1.5% cashback on foreign transactions, up to S$1,500 per calendar month (till 31 Dec 2026)
No minimum spending
No foreign transaction fees
⚠️ Low earn rates on local and Shopee spending (spend with better cashback cards instead)
• 1.5% cashback on local spending
• 1.5% coins on Shopee spending
🎁
Impact on the Miles Game
As the Trust Cashback Card is an effortless card that offers uncapped cashback on top of having zero FX fees, the opportunity cost of not using it for foreign currency transactions should be calculated on top of the usual 3.25% FX junk fee charged by Miles credit cards.
With the 0.5% drop, the total cost of using a Miles credit card instead of the Trust Cashback Card for foreign currency transactions will stand at around 3.75%* (3.25% FX fee + 0.5% cashback opportunity cost).
*Subject to additional foreign currency spread imposed by the credit card provider.
Here’s how much you’d be paying per mile:
| Earn Rate | Example Cards | Cost per Mile (3.75% opportunity cost) |
|---|---|---|
| 1.1 mpd | AMEX KrisFlyer | 3.41 cents |
| 1.2 mpd | AMEX KrisFlyer Ascend | 3.13 cents |
| 2 mpd | Citi Prestige StanChart Journey | 1.88 cents |
| 2.1 mpd | OCBC 90°N | 1.79 cents |
| 2.2 mpd | Citi PremierMiles DBS Altitude DBS Vantage | 1.70 cents |
| 2.4 mpd | HSBC TravelOne UOB PRVI Miles | 1.56 cents |
| 2.8 mpd | Maybank Horizon Maybank World | 1.34 cents |
| 3 mpd | UOB PRVI Miles | 1.25 cents |
| 3.2 mpd | Maybank World | 1.17 cents |
| 4 mpd | Citi Rewards UOB Pref. Plat. Maybank XL Rewards UOB Lady’s …and more | 0.94 cents |
1% cashback on local transactions
Cardholders can continue to earn uncapped 1% cashback on all transactions that are processed in Singapore. But…who cares? You should not be using this card to earn just 1% cashback on SGD transactions when many other general spending cards offer at least 1.5% cashback (uncapped).
Non-preferred categories will earn base cashback
Here’s a positive change. From 1 Mar 2026 as well, Trust Cashback cardholders will earn base cashback (1% local, 0.5% foreign currency) even on the preferred category, which isn’t currently possible.
Presently (before this change), credit card optimizers in Singapore should be familiar with how to best use the Trust Cashback Card for spending:
- Choose the bonus category that is most useless to you
- Use the card only for foreign currency spending to enjoy uncapped 1% cashback and zero FX fees
While the cashback amount will be halved from 1 Mar 2026, cardholders would be able to skip step 1.
Changes to bonus cashback on preferred category
P.S. If you’re only interested in the best features of the The Trust Cashback Card, you can skip this section.
This card will continue to offer “up to 15% cashback” on your preferred spending category, which, in reality only gives you an effective 2.6-4.9% cashback (at best), with tons of tracking work required on your part. There are better cashback cards out there that offer over 4.9% cashback with much less effort.
From 1 Mar 2026, the S$1,000 bonus tier will be removed. Here’s how cardholders can earn bonus cashback on this card in future:
| Monthly Spend (3 months in a quarter) | Cashback Cap (on bonus category) | Spending Cap (on bonus category) | True Cashback | True Total Cashback (+1% on other spending) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| S$500 (5% bonus) | S$30 per quarter (S$10/month) | S$200 per month | 2% | S$13 per month (2.6%) |
(10% bonus) | quarter (S$33/month) | per month | per month (4%) | |
| S$2,000 (15% bonus) | S$250 per quarter (S$83/month) | S$555 per month | 4.17% | S$98 per month (4.9%) |
Shopping category expanded
The ‘Shopping’ category will also be expanded to include more Merchant Category Codes (MCCs).
Related: How to Check Merchant Category Code (MCC) Before Paying
Here’s the table of MCC and category changes provided by Trust Bank:
Should you keep the Trust Cashback Card?
To most cardholders, there will only be 2 key changes to the Trust Cashback Card from 1 Mar 2026, 1 negative and 1 positive:
❌ Cashback on foreign currency changes dropping from 1% to 0.5%
👍 Preferred category will earn base cashback (no longer need to choose category that is most useless to you)
For the first S$1,500 worth of foreign currency spending monthly, the Mari Credit Card should be your go-to, to earn 1.5% cashback with zero FX fees. Beyond that, earning uncapped 0.5% cashback with zero FX fees is still (mildly) attractive as the majority of Singapore credit cards still charge over 3% in FX junk fees.
Related: Credit cards with no FX fees
Besides, Trust Cashback Card does not come with any annual fee and cardholders can still enjoy unlimited free overseas ATM cash withdrawals.
The nerf hurts, but keep this card.
