iFAST Corporation *Official* (SGX: AIY)

Vincent_G

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I hate Fundsupermart charges "Platform Fee", which they claimed to be market trend by then, but so many years already, nobody followed them. The only thing: it is to be used as marketing slogan "We do not charge Platform Fee".. Haha..
 

arcojos

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If I understand your argument correctly, you are complaining about platform fees? But that's exactly why you should become a shareholder!

:D
 

limster

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This seems to be a very competitive industry. How is iFast planning to distinguish itself from the competition and grow its market share? Of course, i don't know all of ifast biz, only its public facing biz in FSM and the integrated platform for financial advisors. If it also has a secretly successful private banking biz that would be interesting....

High net worth: For example, most banks are investing more in serving private banking customers, with nice private banking centres in MBFC. Since iFast is not a bank, how does it expect to attract the high-net worth individuals to move funds from their private banking platform into the ifast platform?

Retail investors: This appears to be a highly price sensitive segment. How successful has FSM been in convincing people to play 0.5% platform fees a year when competitors have no platform fee?

Having said that, if SPH becomes a cornerstone investor, there is a segment of investors that just go crazy when they hear the words "SPH" and IPO is sure to be many times oversubcribed.

So maybe the correct play is to buy SPH instead..... :D
 

SpinFire

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IMO, it's a small company, only $8m net profit in 2014. I'm surprised that they're listing on the mainboard. At 20x PE, market cap only $160m.
 

arcojos

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Retail investors: This appears to be a highly price sensitive segment. How successful has FSM been in convincing people to play 0.5% platform fees a year when competitors have no platform fee?

I think people kam-wan pay the platform fee because FSM offers much more selection of funds on their platform and they are truly independent, i.e. not own by any financial institutions.

POEMS is owned by Philips Securities
Dollar Dex is owned by Aviva
FinatiQ was owned by OCBC
(http://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/s...elly-up-bought-fundsupermart-knn-3228362.html)

the fact that they continue to do it speaks volume....:D
 

Asphodeli

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I think people kam-wan pay the platform fee because FSM offers much more selection of funds on their platform and they are truly independent, i.e. not own by any financial institutions.

POEMS is owned by Philips Securities
Dollar Dex is owned by Aviva
FinatiQ was owned by OCBC
(http://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/s...elly-up-bought-fundsupermart-knn-3228362.html)

the fact that they continue to do it speaks volume....:D

Agreed. Some banks and even insurance companies (for ILPs) do not have access to as wide a selection of funds as them.

Pity about finatiq, always liked fishballs. :s13:
 

limster

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I fail to see how having a wide selection of funds will result in revenue growth for ifast which is what the share price will depend on.

Any competing platform can easily match the selection of funds offered by FSM if they wanted to. This is not an 'investment moat'.

Excessive choices beyond a certain number is not helpful. Why not focus on carefully selecting and offering the top funds such as those ranked by CPF and morningstar (I think CPF rankings are done with advice from morningstar) instead of offering all types of funds including possible bottom performers?


Thanks to spinfire for pointing out that they are a very small cap company. In which case, one wonders why SPH doesn't simply acquire them wholesale. Will be interested to find out what SPH is planning to do.
 

Vincent_G

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I think people kam-wan pay the platform fee because FSM offers much more selection of funds on their platform and they are truly independent, i.e. not own by any financial institutions.

POEMS is owned by Philips Securities
Dollar Dex is owned by Aviva
FinatiQ was owned by OCBC
(http://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/s...elly-up-bought-fundsupermart-knn-3228362.html)

the fact that they continue to do it speaks volume....:D
Hmm.. How wide selection of fund will help common investors? Most funds that are meant for diversification are available on other platform without this platform fee. I will say most are ignorant and never pay attention to details..
 

Asphodeli

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I fail to see how having a wide selection of funds will result in revenue growth for ifast which is what the share price will depend on.

Any competing platform can easily match the selection of funds offered by FSM if they wanted to. This is not an 'investment moat'.

Excessive choices beyond a certain number is not helpful. Why not focus on carefully selecting and offering the top funds such as those ranked by CPF and morningstar (I think CPF rankings are done with advice from morningstar) instead of offering all types of funds including possible bottom performers?


Thanks to spinfire for pointing out that they are a very small cap company. In which case, one wonders why SPH doesn't simply acquire them wholesale. Will be interested to find out what SPH is planning to do.
Granted, there isn't much difference, but some people like independent or non-mainstream financial institutions, as I do. It's like the Comfort vs Transcab thing :)


Sent from GAGT Android App
 

SpeedingBullet

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no date yet.. but im loving their balance sheet: $11,000 in club membership in their assets :s13:
 

anfielder

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Wonder how they would fare if ETFs catch on in a big way? They wouldn't be able to continue charging platform fees and selling high cost funds.
 

stoneblackdragon

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FSM is okay in the short-run, if one is interested in getting unit trusts.
It has 0% sales charges for RSP or Bond Funds.

it has a platform fee of 0.5% for equity funds per year, so compared to a 1.5% sales charge funds. You can use it for 1-2 years, then switch your funds to POEMS or Dollardex for no platform fees hehe.

It has 0.2% p.a platform fees for Bond Funds so you can park there awhile and transfer to other platforms for free too.

Therefore, I wonder how they earn, maybe profit from people's inactivity and early temptation
 

arcojos

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Hmm.. How wide selection of fund will help common investors? Most funds that are meant for diversification are available on other platform without this platform fee. I will say most are ignorant and never pay attention to details..

It does make a difference.... Different fund houses will top the chart for different strategies (e.g. country, sector, etc.) at different times. You see, fund houses are only as good as the fund managers (employees), and these fund managers like to move around (who doesn't right?).

So over time having more selection will help you gain that few percentage points return...no two funds are the same.
 
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Asphodeli

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Which UT platform can track custom portfolio and takes FX conversion into account ah? FSM seems quite lacking... ;)
 

Ghostz

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I have a simple thinking:

With stock market getting easier to enter (i.e. More and easier to use online platforms, cheaper comm, smaller lot sizes, availability of ETFs, more personalized services by bankers and IFAs..) will it be in the near future that fund distributors go out of business?

I mean, if you gonna charge a 1-3% sales fee (which usually is higher than stock/etf comm), and also charge for platform/holding fees, and the funds also have mgt/trailer fees etc etc.. There will come a time when tjey will go out of business when people become smarter...

Many benefits of buying a fund in the past are now available on other means...
i.e. Last time buy fund can get exposure, now there are ETFs....

What do you guys think?
 

Bedokian

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I have a simple thinking:

With stock market getting easier to enter (i.e. More and easier to use online platforms, cheaper comm, smaller lot sizes, availability of ETFs, more personalized services by bankers and IFAs..) will it be in the near future that fund distributors go out of business?

I mean, if you gonna charge a 1-3% sales fee (which usually is higher than stock/etf comm), and also charge for platform/holding fees, and the funds also have mgt/trailer fees etc etc.. There will come a time when tjey will go out of business when people become smarter...

Many benefits of buying a fund in the past are now available on other means...
i.e. Last time buy fund can get exposure, now there are ETFs....

What do you guys think?

Not all people are financially savvy and even if they do, there are also some who would either be plain lazy or got better things to do.
 

arcojos

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With stock market getting easier to enter........

i.e. Last time buy fund can get exposure, now there are ETFs....

There are some stock markets we don't have access to and ETFS are trackers of index. You get market returns, not absolute returns.
 
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