A monthly payout feels like a salary that keeps coming after you stop working. It is one of the most common things my clients nearing retirement ask for.
There is a second reason to want monthly income. Your home loan is due every month too, and a fund that pays monthly can line its payouts up with your instalments.
That opens up a choice many property owners don’t consider. Instead of putting spare cash into the property, through a bigger down payment or by paying the loan down early, you could invest it and let the payouts cover part of the instalment. Say your loan costs 3% a year and a fund yields 6%. You keep the 3% difference, and your money stays in markets where it may grow faster than your property and can be sold any day the market is open.
The catch is that your instalment is fixed and the payout is not. One of the funds below cut its payout by 15% this year, and fund prices can fall just when the bank raises your rate. I would only do this with money you could use to pay the mortgage anyway, and never stretch your loan to fund it.
In 2024 I wrote that most ETFs do not pay monthly, so I went to unit trusts instead, first stock funds and then bond funds. This time I wanted to focus on ETFs, for their lower fees and faster settlement.
So I went through every ETF listed on SGX, the Hong Kong exchange and the London Stock Exchange, and kept only the ones that actually paid in at least 11 of the last 12 months. A fund had to have done it, not merely promise it. I skipped the US listed ones because they are often domiciled there and attract 30% dividend tax, which is not worth it for foreign investors.
SGX turned up one. It is the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF, a US fund cross-listed here. It does pay every month, but it yields about 1.4%, and as a US fund 30% of that goes to US withholding tax before it reaches you. Singapore’s income ETFs, such as the Lion-OCBC Securities APAC Financials Dividend Plus ETF and the new UOBAM Ping An FTSE ASEAN Dividend ETF, pay every quarter or every six months. Hong Kong and London have far more choice, so that is where all five of these come from.
I picked a mix. Three hold shares and two hold bonds. I rank them from the lowest yield to the highest.
| ETF | Ticker | Currency | Holds | Yield | 1-year total return | Yearly cost |
| Global X Asia USD Investment Grade Bond | SEHK: 3075 | HK$ (US$ counter 9075) | Asian US-dollar bonds | 4.8% | -0.4% | 0.35% |
| Vanguard USD Corporate Bond UCITS | LSE: VDCP | US$ | US corporate bonds | 5.2% | -1.2% | 0.08% |
| JPM US Equity Premium Income Active UCITS | LSE: JEPI | US$ | US shares plus options | 7.5% | +7.1% | 0.58% |
| Hang Seng High Dividend 30 Index | SEHK: 3466 | HK$ | Hong Kong shares | 8.6% | +1.9% | 0.85% |
| ChinaAMC Asia High Dividend | SEHK: 3145 | HK$ | Asia Pacific shares | 9.3% | +7.2% | 0.45% |
#5 Global X Asia USD Investment Grade Bond ETF (3075), Yield 4.8%
This fund holds US-dollar bonds issued by Asian governments, banks and companies outside Japan, all rated investment grade. It tracks a Bloomberg index of about 718 such bonds, which had a yield to maturity of 4.85% on 22 October. The fund itself holds about 40 of them, led by bonds from POSCO, Korea Development Bank, Hanwha Aerospace and the Chinese government.
What stands out is how steady the payout is. It paid HK$0.21 a unit every month from its first payout in December 2023 until August 2026. Since September it has paid HK$0.20.
The price has been less steady. It fell far enough over the past year to wipe out the payouts, leaving a total return of -0.4%. That is what happens to bonds when interest rates rise, and the US 10-year Treasury yield went from about 4.0% to 5.0% over the same twelve months. Old bonds paying less than new ones lose value until their yield catches up.
The bigger risk here is size. The fund holds only about HK$75 million, and on a typical day under HK$100,000 worth of units changes hands. So this is not a fund to buy or sell in large amounts.
#4 Vanguard USD Corporate Bond UCITS ETF (VDCP), Yield 5.2%
If 3075 is the steady option, VDCP is the cheap and broad one. It holds close to 8,900 investment-grade bonds issued by mainly US companies, and costs 0.08% a year, the lowest on this list by far. No single bond is more than 0.13% of the fund. Anheuser-Busch, Meta, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs are among the biggest issuers.
The payout moves around a little, between about US$0.16 and US$0.25 a month, but it has paid every month for the past two years.
The same rise in interest rates hit it harder, and its total return over the year was -1.2%. The other side of that is that every bond the fund buys today pays more than the ones it bought a year ago, so the income should hold up better than the price.
VDCP is domiciled in Ireland, like JEPI below. For Singapore investors that keeps it outside US estate tax, which can apply to US-listed funds.
#3 JPM US Equity Premium Income Active UCITS ETF (JEPI), Yield 7.5%
You may know JEPI as the giant US-listed fund. This is its Irish sister, listed in London since October 2024 and run along the same lines.
It holds about 250 large US companies, with Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple and Alphabet at the top, chosen to be less volatile than the S&P 500. The ten biggest make up only about 22% of the fund. On top of that, it sells call options on the S&P 500. In plain terms, it sells someone else the gains above a set level in return for a fee paid now. That fee is most of the income.
The trade-off showed up clearly this year. The S&P 500 returned 14.3% including dividends over the past twelve months. JEPI returned 7.1%. When the market rallies hard, the fund has already sold part of the rally.
The payout also changes every month, between US$0.08 and US$0.28 a unit since it started paying. Plan your spending on the yearly total, not on any one month.
#2 Hang Seng High Dividend 30 Index ETF (3466), Yield 8.6%
It is by far the biggest of the three Hong Kong funds here. It passed HK$10 billion within a year of listing in April 2025.
It holds the 30 Hong Kong-listed stocks and REITs with the highest dividend yields among the large and mid-sized companies. Each must have paid a cash dividend for at least three straight years, and the most volatile and worst-performing names are screened out. Holdings are weighted by yield and capped at 10% each, so no single stock dominates. The biggest are VTech, SITC, Onewo, Yue Yuen and COSCO Shipping.
Now the part you should know. The payout rose from HK$0.09 a month to HK$0.13 by December 2025. In July 2026 it was cut to HK$0.11, a drop of 15%. The 8.6% yield still counts the higher payouts from before July. At HK$0.11 a month and the 28 October price of HK$18.29, it works out to about 7.2%.
The share price has also come off. It peaked at HK$22.40 in February 2026 and was HK$18.29 on 28 October, about 18% lower. Over the past year the total return was still 1.9%, even after the cut. Since listing it looks much better, but it started trading on 7 April 2025, the day Hong Kong shares crashed on US tariffs, so that starting price flatters it.
I can’t tell from the fund’s notices why the payout was cut. Two things stand out. The index swaps its stocks once a year in June, and the cut came the month after. And three of its ten biggest holdings are shipping companies, COSCO Shipping, OOIL and SITC, whose profits swing with freight rates. A fund built from high-yield cyclical stocks will see its payout move with their profits. Expect that, rather than a fixed amount.
It costs 0.85% a year, the most on this list.
#1 ChinaAMC Asia High Dividend ETF (3145), Yield 9.3%
The highest yield on this list comes with the shortest record as a monthly payer.
The fund has existed since 2014, but on 31 October 2025 it switched to a new index and began paying monthly. Before that it paid twice a year. Since November it has paid HK$0.09 and then HK$0.10 a month.
The new index picks the 40 highest-yielding companies across Asia Pacific, with limits on how much can come from any one market or sector. That gives you a very different fund from 3466. Its biggest holdings today are three Indonesian state banks, Bank Rakyat Indonesia, Bank Negara Indonesia and Bank Mandiri, followed by COSCO Shipping Energy, Taiwan’s WT Microelectronics and Laopu Gold. Further down are two names Singapore and Malaysia readers will know, Mapletree Industrial Trust and CIMB. Of 3466’s ten biggest holdings, only China State Construction International also appears in 3145.
The total return over the past year was 7.2%, and it costs 0.45% a year.
Things To Know Before You Do Anything
These five do different jobs, so I wouldn’t buy all of them. Four things will narrow it down.
First, bonds or stocks. That depends on how much risk you are comfortable with and what you already own. 3075 and VDCP hold bonds, so their payouts are steadier, though their prices still fell this year as interest rates rose. JEPI, 3466 and 3145 hold shares, so they pay more and swing more. If your portfolio is already heavy in shares, the bond funds may fit better, and the other way round.
Second, where the money is. JEPI and VDCP are centred on the US, while 3075, 3466 and 3145 are focused on Asia. Look at where the rest of your portfolio sits, and don’t let one of these tilt it further in a direction you didn’t intend.
Third, the blended yield. The highest yield isn’t always the best pick. What matters more is how your whole portfolio yields and behaves once you add something to it. A simple pairing of one bond fund and one share fund, say VDCP and 3145 in equal amounts, would yield about 7% and still pay every month. Look at the portfolio as a whole.
Fourth, currency. All five pay in foreign currency. In fact all five follow the US dollar, since the Hong Kong dollar is pegged to it. If the US dollar weakens against the Singapore dollar, your payouts are worth less once converted, and what you actually receive falls below the yield shown. Over the past year the US dollar slipped about 1%, from S$1.294 to S$1.280.
How often a fund pays you does not change how much it earns. A fund that pays monthly and shrinks is only returning your money in instalments. Look at total return first, and treat the monthly payout as a convenience on top.
If you’d like advice, you can reach me here.
