Comparing Credit Cards: UOB EVOL vs UOB One (2024)

One gives you 10% cashback on online, mobile contactless and overseas in-store spending. The other gives you (up to) 10% cashback on dining, online shopping, groceries, health and beauty, convenience stores, transport, utilities and more. Both sound like great deals. So between the UOB EVOL Card and the UOB One Card, which is a better fit for you?

Let’s pit UOB card against UOB card. Here’s an in-depth comparison of the UOB EVOL Card versus the UOB One Card, including their differences in how you earn cashback, the spend criteria you have to hit, and how to decide which is the better card for you.

 

Comparing UOB EVOL vs UOB One—MoneySmart Review (2024)

1. The vital stats
2. Earning cashback
3. Minimum spend criteria
4. How do you receive the cashback?
5. Which card is better?
6. My take

 

1. UOB EVOL vs UOB One: The vital stats

Next to high cashback earnings and dining privileges, things like annual fees and minimum monthly repayments are the most boring parts of a credit card. Let’s get these things out of the way.

	UOB EVOL Card	UOB One Card
Annual fee & waiver	$196.20 including GST (waived for 1 year)	$196.20 including GST (waived for 1 year)
Supplementary annual fee	1st Supplementary Card free, $98.10 for subsequent Supplementary Cards	1st Supplementary Card free, $98.10 for subsequent Supplementary Cards
Interest free period	21 days	21 days
Annual interest rate	27.80%	27.80%
Late payment fee	$100	$100
Minimum monthly repayment	3% or $50, whichever is higher	3% or $50, whichever is higher
Foreign currency transaction fee	3.25%	3.25%
Cash advance transaction fee	8%	8%
Overlimit fee	$40	$40
Minimum income	$30,000 (Singaporean/PR) / $40,000 (non-Singaporean)	$30,000 (Singaporean/PR) / $40,000 (non-Singaporean)
Card association	Visa	Visa
Wireless payment	Visa Contactless, Apple Pay, Samsung Pay	Visa Contactless, Apple Pay, Samsung Pay

The UOB EVOL Card and UOB One Card are identical in terms of things like their fees, income eligibility, and card association. So if you were picking between these 2 cards and any of these things were a deciding factor for you…now they’re not.

Let’s take a look at the more important areas of differences between the UOB EVOL and UOB One, starting with the juiciest bit—cashback.

Back to top

 

2. UOB EVOL vs UOB One: Earning cashback

Both the UOB EVOL Card and UOB One Card offer up to 10% cashback. Aside from the spend criteria to earn these cashback rates (which we’ll talk about in the next section), the chief difference between the 10% cashback offers is where you’ll earn the cashback from.

	UOB EVOL Card	UOB One Card
Cashback rate	10% cashback	Up to 10% cashback
Cashback categories	– Online Spend and Mobile Contactless Spend – Overseas in-store spend in foreign currency	Selected merchants, including: 7-Eleven, Cold Storage, CS Fresh, Giant, Guardian, Jasons, Grab, McDonald’s, Shopee, SimplyGo
Cashback cap for categories above (monthly)	$30 / $20 respectively	$100
Total cashback cap	$80 per month	$500 per quarter (works out to be ~$167/month)

UOB EVOL Card–Cashback categories

With the UOB EVOL Card, you earn cashback based on how you made the payment. These categories are all eligible for the 10% cashback:

• Things you buy online in Singapore
• Things you buy using mobile contactless methods like Apple Pay or Samsung Pay in Singapore
• Things you buy in-store overseas (in foreign currency)

By “things”, I mean they can be anything from groceries to souvenirs, or even services like a manicure. Only the usual exclusions like taxes, fines, utility bills, insurance premiums, hospital bills don’t count. (Read more in Clause 20 of the UOB EVOL Card’s T&Cs.)

Qualifying spend	Cashback	Cap per statement month
S$800 per statement month	10% cashback on Online Spend and Mobile Contactless Spend	$30
	10% cashback on Overseas in-store FX spend	$20
	0.3% cashback on all Other Spend	$30

Source: UOB EVOL Card Terms and Conditions

There are 2 things I want to point out here. Firstly, the first cashback category applies only to online purchases and mobile contactless spending. That means if you walk into a store and buy new shoes by tapping your physical card, your shoes won’t be eligible for the 10% cashback. They will instead earn you a paltry 0.3% cashback.

Secondly, notice that the $80 total monthly cashback cap is split 3 ways. Most alarmingly, the last $30 of the cap belongs to the “0.3% cashback on all Other Spend” category. This is terrible news for you! It means that while the first category earns you $30 from $300 worth of online spending, you’ll only earn a grand total of $0.09 from the same amount of spending in the last category.

It gets worse when we look at the minimum spend the UOB EVOL requires you to hit to enjoy 10% cashback. We’ll get into that in the section. For now, let’s turn our attention to cashback categories for the UOB One Card.

 

UOB One Card–Cashback categories

It’s a different story for the UOB One Card. While the payment method is the most important factor for the UOB EVOL Card, the UOB One Card is merchant-specific. You’ll only be able to hit the 10% cashback rate at these merchants:

• DFI Retail Group merchants such as 7-Eleven, Cold Storage, CS Fresh, Giant, Guardian, Jasons, Jasons Deli, Marketplace and CART
• Grab, excluding any Grab mobile wallet top-up transactions
• McDonald’s
• Shopee, excluding Shopee Pay wallet top-up transactions
• UOB Travel, but excluding online, flight only bookings and relevant taxes
• SimplyGo transactions

For Shell and Singapore Power transactions, the maximum cashback rate you can enjoy is 5% and 4.33% respectively.

What about merchants outside of the ones above? Aside from the usual exclusions like taxes and bills, you earn 3.33% cashback on other spending.

The cashback rates above assume you spend $2,000/month on the UOB One Card. If you spend less than that (but the minimum is $500/month), you’ll only earn up to 8.33%.

Monthly spend on UOB One Card	$500 or more, but less than $2,000	$2,000/month
DFI, Grab, McDonald’s Shopee, UOB Travel, SimplyGo	10%	8.33%
Shell	5%	3.33%
Singapore Power	4.33%	4.33%
All other spend	3.33%	3.33%

As you can see, the UOB One Card is a lot more finicky with its minimum spend criteria than the UOB EVOL Card. Let’s talk more about that now.

Back to top

 

3. UOB EVOL vs UOB One: Minimum spend criteria

The UOB EVOL Card comes with a minimum spend of $800 a month that you have to hit in order to qualify for its 10% cashback. It’s pretty simple. You spend $800, you enjoy 10% cashback.

Comparatively, the UOB One Card is a headache to understand. Unlike the UOB EVOL Card, there isn’t just 1 magic number you have to hit in order to unlock your bonus cashback for the UOB One Card. There are 3 magic numbers, and 2 or 3 different cashback scenarios (Tier 1 and Tier 2 can be lumped together in some sense, as you’ll see below).

• Tier 1: Spend $500/month for all months in a quarter
• Tier 2: Spend $1,000/month for all months in a quarter
• Tier 3: Spend $2,000/month for all months in a quarter

For all 3 tiers, you earn 3.33% Quarterly Cashback. This cashback is capped such that you only earn 3.33% on exactly $500, $1,000, or $2,000 each month. Meaning even if you spend $800/month for all the months in a quarter, you’ll still only receive $50 cashback for the quarter (3.33% of $500*3).

Now let me show you how you earn Additional Cashback with the UOB One Card based on your spending each month. This is how UOB calculates your 3.33%, 4.33%, 5%, or 10% cashback:

UOB One Card cashback rates with Tier 3 Minimum Spend
	Quarterly Cashback (capped at $200/quarter)	Additional Cashback* (applies only to selected merchants)	Total
DFI, Grab, McDonald’s Shopee, UOB Travel, SimplyGo	3.33%	6.67%	10%
Shell	3.33%	1.67%	5%
Singapore Power	3.33%	1%	4.33%
All other spend	3.33%	–	3.33%

If you spend $500/month or $1,000/month for every month in a quarter, you are in the Tier 1 or Tier 2 Minimum Spend category. Your Quarterly Cashback rate will remain the same at 3.33%, but your merchant-specific Additional Cashback rates will take a hit:

UOB One Card  cashback rates with Tier 1 or Tier 2 Minimum Spend
	Quarterly Cashback (capped at $50/$100 per quarter)	Additional Cashback (applies only to selected merchants)	Total
DFI, Grab, McDonald’s Shopee, UOB Travel, SimplyGo	3.33%	5%	8.33%
Shell	3.33%	–	3.33%
Singapore Power	3.33%	1%	4.33%
All other spend	3.33%	–	3.33%

At this point, you may be thinking that the UOB EVOL Card is a saint compared to the devil of confusion that is the UOB One Card. You may even be tempted to go for it because of its simpler mechanic. But let me warn you about something people often miss about the UOB EVOL Card: its cashback caps.

You see, the UOB EVOL Card requires you to spend $800 a month for 10% cashback, yet caps it 10% cashback categories at $50/month. Something doesn’t add up. The last $30 of the monthly cashback cap is held hostage by the 0.3% base cashback. At this rate, you’ll only unlock that $30 cashback if you spend a whopping $10,000!

This is why I consider the true maximum cashback rate of the UOB EVOL Card only  6.36% based on $800/month spending, and accounting for the fact that a quarter of that spending comprises overseas purchases that will incur a foreign transaction fee. I wrote more about this and why cashback caps are so tricky here: 8 Essential Tips for Comparing Credit Cards I Wish I Knew Earlier.

Back to top

 

4. UOB EVOL vs UOB One: How do you receive the cashback?

I always wish banks made it clearer to consumers how they will receive their rewards. Will the cashback be automatically used to offset my next bill? Will my cashback be accumulated in my account for me to redeem? Or will the cashback be doled out as rewards points that I also need to redeem?

For the UOB EVOL Card and UOB One Card, the cashback situation is the first one I mentioned: all cashback you earn will be used to offset the next month’s bill.

UOB buried this information deep in their terms and conditions. Here’s what they say:

UOB EVOL Card Cashback Programme T&Cs:

Clause 6: “The Cashback earned for the current statement month will be credited into your Card account in the following statement month in Singapore dollars and can only be used to offset against the billed amount for your Card account in your next statement month.”

UOB One Card T&Cs:

Clause 3.7: “The Quarterly Cashback and/or Base Cashback for a given a Quarter shall only be used to offset the Principal Cardmember’s Card Transactions incurred in the following Statement Month.”

Clause 4.4: “The Additional Cashback for each Quarter will be consolidated and shall only be used to offset the Principal Cardmember’s Transactions incurred in the first statement month after the qualifying quarter.”

The UOB One Card and UOB EVOL Card are identical in this respect, so this isn’t a deciding factor for you if you’re trying to choose between the 2.

Back to top

 

5. UOB EVOL vs UOB One: Which card is better?

As with any credit card, it really depends on your lifestyle and spending habits.

Do you travel often? If you travel often and are using your credit card to pay for things overseas, the UOB EVOL Card is a better option. A good quarter of its monthly cashback cap is reserved for overseas spending. If you don’t travel overseas, your monthly cap is effectively reduced to $60 instead of $80.

Then again, if you’re using your credit card to pay for stuff overseas, why? There are lots of multi-currency cards that offer fee-free options for your travel spending.

Where do you shop? Do you often shop at merchants like 7-Eleven, Cold Storage, Giant, Guardian, Grab, McDonald’s, or Shopee? Or do you use your card to pay for SimplyGo or your Singapore Power bills? Obviously if your answer is a resounding yes, the UOB One Card will make sense for you.

But if your answer is no, the UOB EVOL Card might be a better choice because it is not merchant-specific. 

Do the minimum spends and spend caps make sense for you? The UOB EVOL Card requires you to spend $800 a month, yet caps your local online/mobile contactless cashback earnings after your first $300 spend. I am not a fan of this. Find out why the true highest cashback rate for the UOB EVOL Card is only 6.36% here: 8 Essential Tips for Comparing Credit Cards I Wish I Knew Earlier.

The UOB One Card is (I can’t believe I’m saying this, given the headache this card gives me) more reasonable as far as minimum spends go. But remember that you need to hit a certain amount for all 3 months in a quarter, and the 3.33% quarterly cashback is capped at $500, $1,000, or $2,000 monthly spend. Spend any number in between those and your cashback will be rounded down. 

Back to top

 

6. UOB EVOL vs UOB One: My take

Winner: UOB One Card!

I’ll admit, I don’t love (okay, I despise) the complicated UOB One mechanic.

But once you get how it works, you’ll realise that it offers a good deal. Let’s look at just the lowest tier. The average Singaporean can easily hit the $500 minimum spend each month, and you’ll then get to enjoy up to 8.33% cashback on staples like Shopee, Grab, Giant, Cold Storage, and McDonald’s. Other spend can get you 3.33% cashback, up to a $50 cap per quarter and inclusive of your McDonald’s/Grab/Shopee spending.

My biggest issue with the UOB EVOL Card is the way its cashback caps are split. As mentioned, its true cashback rate is 6.36% instead of 10% because no one can/should spend $10,500 a month on a credit card just to earn $80 cashback.

But even if we go with the 6.36% scenario, we will have to factor in overseas spending. I can’t think of a reason why someone would charge overseas purchases to a cashback credit card like the UOB EVOL Card. You’re better off using a multi-currency card like YouTrip for a fee-free experience or a miles card if you’re in the miles game.

Yes, I know you earn 10% cashback. But that’s capped at $200 spend, which probably won’t be enough for a whole trip. If you’re going to end up whipping out your UOB PRVI Miles Card anyway, you might as well park all your spending there to accumulate more miles.

What if you don’t use your UOB EVOL Card for overseas spending? Your cashback cap is effectively $60, split half-half into the 10% and 0.3% category. With the minimum monthly spend, your overall cashback is now $31.50 on $800 spent. That’s a cashback rate of 3.94%, and you’re still better off with the UOB One Card.

Back to top

 

Found this article useful? Share it with your friends and family who could use the insights.