Most credit cards ask for one thing before they approve your application: evidence that you are earning at least $30,000 a year. Not proof that you have money, but proof that a regular salary lands in your account every month.
Those are two different things, and the gap catches out the people who arguably deserve a good card the most. Think of an early retiree living comfortably on dividends and passive income, with no monthly salary to show. Or a freelancer, a gig worker, a stay-home parent, a student. Plenty of cashflow but none of it fulfilling the criteria of a predictable, monthly paycheck.
I hold the Mari Credit Card as a backup, sitting in the wallet beside my UOB EVOL and Trust Card. Together, they form the suite of my 0% FX fee cards. I collect air miles primarily, so it might be obvious to you that the Mari Credit Card is not my main card. But you might be the target audience it is built for.
Already know it is for you? Apply now with referral code 6RCP85LA
For a bit of helpful overview, credit cards generally split into two camps: cashback and air miles.
- Cashback is the simpler camp to learn on, and it is where a first card should belong. The Mari Credit Card is a straight-forward cashback card.
- Miles is the more complicated camp, with flight destinations, miles expiry dates and MCC codes to track. If you are already deep into collecting miles, this is the wrong card and the wrong post for you. Go read my air miles guide instead. Everyone else, stick around.
| Mari Credit Card | Information |
|---|---|
| Annual fee | None |
| Foreign currency fee | 0% |
| Headline benefit | 1.5% cashback and 0% FX fee |
| Card network | Mastercard |
| Eligibility Option 1 | $30k annual income |
| Eligibility Option 2 | $15k annual income if above 55 |
| Eligibility Option 3 | No income (S$500 credit limit) |
My personal view, not financial advice. Some links may earn me a referral commission.
Investing involves risk, past performance doesn’t guarantee future results, and you should do your own research. While efforts are made to ensure the accuracy of content at the time of publication, I am not responsible for any errors, omissions, or outdated information.
- Who This Card Is For: No Income Needed
- No Annual Fee, No Frills
- 1.5% Cashback Overseas, No FX Fees
- 1.5% Cashback In Singapore, No Limit
- How It Compares: It Holds Its Own Against The UOB EVOL
- Payment Controls And Card Lock
- The Catch
- Who Can Apply: The No-Income $500 Route
- How To Apply
- How I Use It
- One compulsory rule: Pay In full, Every Month
- My Take: More Doors Are Opening
Spending smarter?
Complete Personal Finance Guide
Your master blueprint for building wealth
Complete Spend Guide
Credit cards, travel hacks, and everyday savings in Singapore
Who This Card Is For: No Income Needed
This is the checklist I would use to evaluate a starter credit card like this, and the Mari Credit Card clears all of it:
- No annual fee.
- No foreign currency fee.
- A flat cashback rate you never have to think about.
Notice what is missing from that list. A high cashback rate for specific categories. Air miles. Lounge access. Those belong to your second or third card, once you have a healthy credit card habit running on autopilot. A first card has a simpler job: teach you to use credit without hurting yourself, for free, on a card you can keep (hopefully) forever.
But the main reason I am writing this article is the door it opens for so many.
The income requirement for credit cards rejects everyone who funds their life in ways that banks do not recognise. While a secured credit card is one option that exists in the Singapore landscape, having an alternative is ideal for those who prefer not to lock up their cash in a fixed deposit.
The Mari Credit Card is one such exception. Even when you do not meet the $30,000 income requirement, you can still be assessed for the card, but capped at a modest $500 credit limit.
That $500 may sound small. For many of the readers I have in mind, it does most of the job. More on the limit later, because it deserves an honest look rather than a footnote.
No Annual Fee, No Frills
The Mari Credit Card charges no annual fee.
It sounds minor, but it is the reason this works as a card you keep. A free card is one you never cancel, never call in to waive, never think about. It just sits in the wallet or drawer, year after year, with nothing nagging you to justify it. Zero mental clutter.
Your friends might tell you every annual fee can be waived with a phone call. Sometimes yes, sometimes the bank says no even after you have clocked decent spend on the card. Friction like that is what kills a good habit. The Mari Credit Card removes it entirely.
The feature I find useful is what happens when you leave the country.
1.5% Cashback Overseas, No FX Fees
The Mari Credit Card charges 0% in foreign currency fees on overseas spend. No fee, no cap, no minimum.
On top of that, you earn 1.5% cashback on your overseas spend in foreign currency, and the card applies what MariBank calls “best-in-class” exchange rates. So the same tap that would cost you a surcharge on most credit cards pays you a little back here.
For my early-retiree reader who spends months abroad (like when I lived in Thailand for a month), this is the whole ballgame. A card that costs nothing to hold, charges nothing to use overseas, and hands back 1.5% is exactly what you want when a card is going to be used at a lot of foreign merchants. If you are not subjected to the $500 credit limit, the overseas cashback is capped at S$1,500 of eligible foreign spend a month, which is plenty for daily meals, transport, and shopping on a trip.
You get a fee-free card that pays you overseas. So how does it treat you back home in Singapore?
1.5% Cashback In Singapore, No Limit
Locally, the Mari Credit Card pays a flat 1.5% cashback on all your card spend. No minimum spend, no cap, no categories to memorise. Your morning kopi, your groceries, your recurring bills, all of it earns the same 1.5%. With $1,000 a month spent on it, that is $15 back.
I want to sit on that flat rate for a second, because the simplicity is the key feature. So many cards dangle a big headline number that you can rarely hit, then bury it under a $800 minimum spend, a monthly cap, a list of qualifying categories, and a GIRO requirement.
You end up managing the card instead of using it. Screw that. My headspace is too precious to waste managing a credit card. The Mari Credit Card asks nothing of you. One rate, everywhere, always. For most people, that clarity is worth more than chasing an extra half a percent on a card that makes you jump through hoops for it.
Treat the cashback as a bonus, never a reason to spend. If your normal spending earns it, enjoy it. That is the right way to hold a card like this.
The card earns its keep. So how does it stack up against the card I usually name as the ideal first card?
How It Compares: It Holds Its Own Against The UOB EVOL
I have written that the UOB EVOL is the ideal first credit card. On the checklist I use to evaluate a first card, the Mari Credit Card matches it, item for item:
- No annual fee. Both are free to hold and keep forever.
- No foreign currency fee. Both at 0%. The Mari Credit Card goes one better with 1.5% cashback on overseas spend, whereas the UOB EVOL (1.0%) is inferior.
- Wide acceptance almost everywhere. Mastercard for the Mari Credit Card, Visa for the EVOL.
Where the UOB EVOL pulls ahead is its ATM network. It runs on the shared UOB-OCBC network, so if you also bank with UOB, the card plugs into a big cash network. That is a bank-account perk riding along, not something a first credit card needs.
A credit card is for spending, not drawing cash. And in Singapore, how often do you actually need physical cash these days? I reach for an ATM maybe a few times a year. For many people, this edge is close to nothing.
One point matters more than the checklist. The two cards are not really fighting over the same person. If you cannot show a $30,000 income, you cannot get the EVOL at all. For that reader, this is not a case of weighing two cards side by side. The Mari Credit Card is the one they can actually hold, so anything it gives them is already a bonus on top of finally being approved.
So the honest split is simple. If you clear the income bar and bank with UOB, the EVOL is a fine pick. If the income bar is your problem, the Mari Credit Card is not a compromise. It is a genuinely good card that also happens to let you in.
Payment Controls And Card Lock
For a credit card you might hand more of your spending to, the in-app controls are sufficient for my needs. You can toggle each type of spend on or off, independently, right in the MariBank app:
- Local spend and overseas spend, separately.
- Online spend and in-store spend, separately.
So if you are not travelling, switch overseas spend off and it stays off until you flip it back. Worried about online fraud, kill online spend and keep the physical taps. You can also lock the whole card in a tap if it goes missing. The physical card is numberless too, so there is nothing printed on it for enhanced safety. It is the kind of control i.e. selling point of digital-bank challengers that should be accepted as the baseline.
There is one more toggle that matters more than it sounds, and it changes how you should think about that $500 limit.
The Catch
I would not trust a review that says a card is flawless. The Mari Credit Card has real limitations, and the $500 limit needs a proper explanation rather than a quick mention.
No ATM withdrawals. You cannot draw cash from the Mari Credit Card, here or overseas, in either of its spend modes. If you like a card that also gives you cash abroad, this one does not. My YouTrip and Trust cards cover that for me.
Digital-first. The card is virtual by default. You can order a physical one through the app if you want it, but the starting point is a card on your phone.
The 1% international processing fee (but it is not the trap it looks like). Some services bill you in Singapore dollars but process the payment overseas. Airbnb and Spotify are the classic examples. On those, the Mari Credit Card charges a 1% international processing fee. The honest part: because the card pays you 1.5% cashback, that fee is effectively eliminated by the cashback you earn on the same charge. On many other cards, that 1% is a straight loss. On the Mari Credit Card, the cashback quietly reimburses it. I would consider this good-to-know, not a real cost.
Some perks are on a promotion clock. The overseas cashback and the best-in-class exchange rates are currently promotional, set to run until 31 December 2026. The no annual fee and the zero foreign currency fee are not promos, they are the standing terms. Worth knowing which is which, in case the promotional bits change.
Not everything earns cashback. Like most cards, some categories sit outside the 1.5%. From MariBank’s cashback terms, the notable ones are utilities, insurance, hospital bills, education, government and tax payments, and top-ups to wallets and transit cards. Nothing unusual, but worth knowing so you are not surprised when a transaction earns zero cashback.
The $500 limit, and the trick that mostly solves it. This is the one people worry about, so let me be practical. $500 covers most day-to-day spending: meals, transport, shopping, subscriptions. Where it gets tight is a single big lump, like settling a hotel payment or buying a flight ticket.
This is the part reviews can miss. The Mari Credit Card lets you switch its spend mode between credit and debit in the app. In debit mode, the purchase draws on your own MariBank funds, so a big charge that would blow past the $500 credit limit goes through on your own money instead. Debit mode keeps the 0% foreign currency fee too. Put the big hotel or flight charge through in debit mode, then switch back to credit mode for everyday spending.
If you would rather not switch modes, the old-fashioned options still work: pay the card down mid-trip, even weekly, to free the limit back up, or put the big charge on another no-fee card you already hold. Do take note that generally, merchants such as hotels and car rental counters will not accept debit for a deposit hold, only a credit card. So the credit card still earns its spot in your wallet for exactly those situations.
To me, none of these break the use case. A starter card should be free, simple, and safe to use overseas, and the Mari Credit Card is all three. The limitations just keep you honest about what you are holding.
Who Can Apply: The No-Income $500 Route
Quick recap of the eligibility, since it is the reason this post exists.
- Singaporean or PR (aged 21 to 55) who does not meet the $30,000 income. You can still be assessed for the card at a $500 credit limit. This is the door for the retiree, freelancer, gig worker, stay-home parent, or student age 21 or above.
- Singaporean or PR (aged 21 to 55) earning at least $30,000 a year. Standard route.
- Above 55? The income bar drops to $15,000.
- Foreigners aged 21 and above on a Dependant’s Pass, Employment Pass, Long-Term Visit Pass, S Pass, Student’s Pass, and a few others, with at least 6 months of pass validity.
Make sure your Singapore residential address is updated on Singpass before you apply, since MariBank pulls your details through MyInfo.
How To Apply
Applying is done entirely in the MariBank app, and it is quick.
If you are not a MariBank customer yet, download the app and register with your Singapore mobile number. Then log in, tap Mari Credit Card on the home screen, and apply with Singpass. Singaporeans and PRs need no documents, since everything is pulled through MyInfo. You get a virtual card on approval, and you can order the physical card during the application or later.
Apply For The Mari Credit Card
If you decide the Mari Credit Card is for you, using my referral code 6RCP85LA when you apply gets you a sign-up reward and supports the blog at no extra cost to you. The current reward and its terms sit in the block at the bottom of this post.
How I Use It
To be upfront, I collect air miles, not cashback. I run my own tools to squeeze value from a small number of miles cards, so the Mari Credit Card has never been my main card at home.
It lives in my backup rotation, alongside the UOB EVOL and my Trust card. Those three, plus YouTrip, make up my 0% foreign currency lineup for spending overseas. When my miles cards get fussy, like when I am not sure a purchase will code the right merchant category for bonus miles, or I just want a card I do not have to think about, the Mari Credit Card is the easy answer. My wife and I both keep one for the fuss-free days and the overseas trips.
One compulsory rule: Pay In full, Every Month
The golden rule is simple. A credit card is a tool, not extra money.
- Charge what you were going to spend anyway, then pay the full statement amount by the due date.
- Do that, and the card costs you nothing, plus it builds you a clean credit record with Credit Bureau Singapore, which matters later in your life when dealing with financial institutions.
- Pay only the minimum and the Mari Credit Card charges you 27.99% a year on the rest. This should never happen, and no cashback rate can save you from that.
Starting this habit early is the real win. Get it right and the card barely matters. Get it wrong and you’re better off not owning a credit card, because you’re going to spiral into a life of vicious debt.
My Take: More Doors Are Opening
The real point of this post is bigger than one card. If you cannot clear the income bar for a credit card in Singapore, you have more options than you used to.
The obvious one has always been a secured credit card, where you place a fixed deposit with the bank as collateral and they issue you a card against it. It works, but it asks you to lock up your own money first, which not everyone wants to do.
What is changing is that the mass-market, no-collateral option is finally showing up. GXS got there first with its FlexiCard, a $500-limit card that skips the income requirement. I looked at it and thought its $54.50 annual fee was at odds with the very demographic it is trying to appeal to, with waivers subject to the bank’s review. On a $500-limit card, an annual fee you have to hope gets waived is the exact friction to avoid. Never take a fee waiver for granted.
The Mari Credit Card opened the same door without that catch. No annual fee, ever, so there is no waiver to chase and nothing to second-guess each year. That is why, of the two, it is the one I would point you to. Two digital banks within a short span deciding the person without a $30,000 payslip still deserves a proper card. I see that as the start of a trend, not the end of one.
So if the income requirement has locked you out until now, the Mari Credit Card is the simplest way in today: no annual fee, no foreign currency fee, 1.5% back, and a $500 limit you can work around. Pay it in full every month and treat the cashback as a bonus.
One honest caveat. The bones of the card, no annual fee and no foreign currency fee, are permanent. Part of the card’s current appeal, the overseas cashback and the good exchange rates, runs on a promotion until the end of 2026. They might be extended, which is the best case scenario, so keep an eye on the promotional aspects.
New User Bonus: S$30 Welcome Cashback To Start
If you are new to the Mari Credit Card, there is a welcome bonus waiting on top of the everyday cashback. New cardholders get S$30 cashback for spending at least S$300 within the first 30 days of approval. This is a fairly easy target for normal spending. Need some help? You can always purchase gift cards (e.g. NTUC FairPrice) for future use.
MariBank Referral
How To Use → Enter referral code 6RCP85LA during sign up
You Get → Up to S$15 cash
To Unlock → Input referral code when applying
Validity → 31 October 2026
If this article helped you, consider using my referral — it supports my blog at no extra cost to you.
Kevin started Turtle Investor after hitting rock bottom at negative $25,755 net worth. Today, his monthly alternative income pays for all his daily expenses. He shares what actually works (and what doesn’t) for Singaporeans building wealth. Learn more about Kevin here.
Leave a Reply