More like combination - the money allocated and parked in FD is essential for my children's education right at this moment and as such cannot tolerate any risk. 

Click here to see my latest spending of my children's future inheritance, hahaha.
For Step Up, to determine the actual Effective Interest Rate, one must always read the terms and conditions - interest credited into CASA or compounded.

For the Maybank Step Up, if not mistaken, the interest earned from the first 6 month is added to the Principal for the next 6 months (by right when calculating interest, must use days but for easy sample, I'll use months):

1st 6 months - RM100,000 x 4.04% x 6months/12months = RM2020

2nd 6 months - RM102,020 x 4.3% x 6months/12months = RM2193.43

Total interest = RM4,213

So effective interest rate = 4.213%

Most banks will deceive you by advertising higher interest rate for the last step up and prior to that, interest earned are deposited into CASA (which earns miserable interest rates) instead of adding to principal to earn more interest for subsequent months - best example Public Bank.  Most people here (and the lazy people at the banks too) will calculate Effective Interest by taking average for quick calculation.