4 Jul 2025
SOURCE: CPF Board
For the past 70 years, CPF statements have served as regular reminders for CPF members to view their CPF savings and account balances. From handwritten notes to the readily accessible digital statements that we know today, CPF statements, like the CPF Board, have come a long way since 1955.
In this special anniversary article that includes excerpts from the CPF Board’s commemorative book, “Save & Sound: 70 Years of CPF”, we look back at how the CPF statements have evolved over the past seven decades to become a familiar fixture for millions of Singaporeans.
The early days: pen, paper, and patience (1955-1963)
A Statement of Account of a CPF member in 1955.
In its early days, the CPF Board logged all the member account details through ledgers and bulky typewriter-looking bookkeeping machines at its first office at Victoria Memorial Hall.
Looking at the first CPF Statement of Account in 1955, no differentiation of accounts such as Ordinary, Special, MediSave, or Retirement existed unlike today in 2025. Instead, the Board credited everything to a general account where yearly interest was computed based on the balance as of 1 January.
Group photograph of CPF Board staff in 1960. (Image credit: David Ng Collection, courtesy of National Archives of Singapore)
The days leading up to issuing the Yearly Statement of Account saw CPF Board staff sift through endless stacks of salary slips, identification documents, and work passes. Staff had to calculate and check each CPF contribution to account for the contributions of both employees and employers.
“Everything had to be done manually,” recalled the late Mrs Doris Wong, who joined the CPF Board in 1958. “It was quite tedious, unlike today, where computers do most of the work.”
After staff checked the numbers and produced the statements required, another tedious round of manual checks took place. This time of members’ place of employment, home addresses, and personal particulars.
These details – from their names to their five-digit membership numbers and their employer’s reference numbers – were painstakingly handwritten. Their CPF contribution amounts were carefully printed using a typewriter.
The statements, which included a short message from the CPF Board’s accountant at the time, Mr C.E. Green, would be neatly folded, manually packed into envelopes, and mailed out to each member.
A certificate of membership of a CPF member in the early days. Each certificate was individually hand-signed by then-CPF Board Chairman, E.L. Peake.
Dawn of the computers (1960s)
The manual process of retrieving and lodging the Yearly Statement of Account continued until the first few supercomputers in Singapore were acquired by the CPF Board in 1963. This new piece of technology would not only reduce the tedious paperwork process, but also greatly reduce employee workload.
The late Mr Robert Iau, the CPF Board’s Director of Manpower and Head of Data Processing at the time, was responsible for bringing the IBM1401 mainframe computer to the CPF Board’s second home at 79 Anson Road.
The first order of business was to get the huge crates of heavy computer components into their office, which were too big to fit through its front doors.
The first supercomputer in the CPF Board had to be hoisted up via a crane.
Eventually, workers deployed a crane and created a makeshift entrance through a widened window on the third floor of the building.
Housing the supercomputer, which measured approximately four times the size of an office filing cabinet, presented another challenge, recalled Mr Iau. “It was a huge and extremely hot (system). Together with a huge card reader for our punch cards and a line printer, it took up quite a big room,” he added.
The room needed air-conditioning, and the CPF Board also eventually elevated the flooring level to accommodate the large amount of computer cables.
Thanks to the supercomputer, staff no longer needed to manually type member contributions using bookkeeping machines. Instead, the system stored them on punched cards. Each tiny card, peppered with tiny rectangular holes and measuring approximately 18cm by 8cm, could store up to 80 bytes of information, a phenomenal feat at the time.
Mr Poo See Chye, who was part of the pioneer batch of employees at the CPF Board, recalled using the IBM1401. “We prepared about 10,000 punch cards each day and the machine would read them,” said the former Senior Deputy Director of the Schemes System Department.
That was how members’ CPF account balances were updated. When the process was completed, the data was encoded onto spools of magnetic tape and subsequently reused.
The machine also made it easier for the CPF Board employees to “search for a particular member’s balance,” said Mr Poo, whose job became easier as he no longer had to record and calculate contributions manually.
Although the IBM1401 was eventually replaced by more powerful computers and systems, it laid the foundation for the CPF Board’s subsequent digitalisation journey.
The use of CPF for housing and healthcare (late 1960s-1970s)
Extra fields were added to the Yearly Statement of Account as the CPF system evolved.
The CPF system began expanding beyond retirement savings in the late 1960s. From 1968, members could use their CPF savings to pay for HDB flats, a significant milestone to the CPF system that allowed Singaporeans to leverage their CPF savings for homeownership, not just retirement.
Further changes to the Yearly Statement of Account occurred with the creation of the Special Account in 1977, enabling members to save specifically for old age. The existing balances were renamed to the Ordinary Account. Later, the MediSave Account was introduced in 1984 for hospitalisation expenses.
These changes increased the demand for information among CPF members, leading the Board to change the Yearly Statement of Account to a half-yearly statement in 1986. That same year, the CPF Personal Auto Link (PAL) service launched, offering instant, up-to-date account information over the phone.
Taking things online (90s)
The CPF PAL-Internet page allowed CPF members to view their Statement of Account online.
December 26, 1997, would always be a memorable day for Mr Ng Hock Keong, Deputy Chief Executive Officer (Infocomm Technology & Digital Services).
Not because it was a day after Christmas, but because it was the day the CPF Board launched electronic statements on its website, also known as CPF PAL-Internet. For the first time, members could view their Statement of Account online.
“We thought that one day after Christmas would be a good day (to launch),” he said with a laugh.
Expecting low traffic due to the festive season, Mr Ng was shocked by the number of visitors to the website on the day of launch. As many as 20,000 members visited the site, which overwhelmed the system and caused it to crash.
Mr Ng, who was then-Assistant Manager (Support Information Systems), worked quickly with his team to upgrade the bandwidth of the site to accommodate more users.
But demand was so strong that they had to upgrade it twice, he recalled.
Six years later, on March 1, 2003, the CPF Board implemented a personal authentication system for Singapore, now widely known as Singpass, as part of its login process. This digital transformation has dramatically increased accessibility and convenience for CPF members. From 5.4 million digital enquiries and transactions in 2003 when Singpass was first implemented, the number has soared to 115.8 million digital enquiries and transactions in 2024 where checking CPF transactions and contributions can be completed within seconds.
More than numbers and figures (2015)
Colourful charts and visual statements were introduced to the CPF statements for the first time in 2015.
In 2015, the CPF statement underwent a massive visual transformation with the introduction of a two-page personalised summary alongside the traditional transactional statement.
Instead of simply presenting numbers for members to deduce and make sense of, the new statements featured colourful graphics to illustrate members' total savings and interest earned in the past year. This visual approach helped members better understand how they had utilised their CPF savings for life's important needs, from housing to healthcare. Older members were also shown their monthly retirement payouts, helping them plan their retirement with greater confidence.
Personalising each CPF statement (2020s)
Taking things fully online, the new CPF statement allowed members to get a general overview of their CPF accounts at any time.
The CPF Board modernised its Yearly Statement of Account (YSOA) again in 2021, transforming it from a static PDF document into an interactive online experience. The new digital format features interactive charts that members can click on to view detailed breakdowns, and an intuitive layout that makes it simple for members to understand their CPF information.
Launched in the first few days of each year, the YSOA provides members with an overview of their CPF information, including account balances, and total inflows and outflows.
Customised messages are provided to each member on their YSOA.
The CPF Board continues to tailor personalised messages to members based on their participation in CPF schemes. Alongside data visualisation tools that track CPF balances, members can navigate seamlessly across various dashboards to access information and take desired actions. These enhanced features further empower members in their retirement planning journey.
With you through life’s moments
While the Statement of Account has changed over time, the core purpose and mission of the CPF Board in enabling Singaporeans to have a secure retirement, through lifelong income, healthcare financing and home financing, has remained the same through the years.
If you are interested in CPF’s history through the years, visit the CPF70 page to learn more about CPF’s progress through the years and to download a copy of the free CPF70 commemorative e-book.
Information in this article is accurate as at the date of publication.
