[endlssorrow]

any1 taking? doing superfundmarkets etc

[Vincent_G]

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]

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

[limster]

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.....

[SpinFire]

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]

limster wrote:

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/st...n-3228362.html)

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

[Asphodeli]

arcojos wrote:

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/st...n-3228362.html)

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

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.

[limster]

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]

arcojos wrote:

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/st...n-3228362.html)

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

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]

limster wrote:

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

[InnovaIQ]

When will ifast IPO starts? I will definitely buy it.

[SpeedingBullet]

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

[anfielder]

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]

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]

Vincent_G wrote:

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.