Tiger Brokers is a discount broker that has recently launched its services in Singapore. We shared in the previous article how Tiger Brokers enables you to start investing in stocks even when you have little capital.
I have been using Tiger Brokers and I like many of the things which they have provided me with. I would like to highlight some of the key differences which I did not experience with other brokers that I have used.
I could get an account approved in 6 mins instead of waiting for a week
Administrative processes are always a pain.
Just the thought of having to provide a lot of personal details to open a brokerage account is off putting and the process may discourage some people from doing it. I am quite sure this is why some investors rather stick to their existing accounts because switching accounts is a chore.
Even after you get past the admin part, you often have to wait for a week or more to get the account approved.
I was pleasantly surprised when my application for a Tiger Brokers account took only 6 mins with everything completed online!
Below is the screenshot of the two emails for application and approval, and the time difference is impressive.
I could credit / withdraw money within the same day instead of waiting till the next day
My experience was that most brokers take about 1 working day to reflect the amount in my brokerage account after the bank transfer has been completed.
Again, Tiger Brokers smashed the norms and expectation – the crediting was done within minutes!
Below is just a sample bank transfer which took 18 mins for the amount deposited to show up in my Tiger Brokers account.
I have also tested the withdrawal.
This is my usual habit to see if and how fast I can get my money back.
Below is a screenshot to show that funds were received the same day the withdrawal request was submitted to Tiger Brokers. Unfortunately, I don’t have the time stamp.
I didn’t need to pay custodian or platform fees
Most local brokers require you to pay custodian fees if you hold foreign stocks (which cannot be custodized in CDP). It costs about S$2 per stock per month if you do not incur enough commissions to have the custodian fees waived.
If you have 10 stocks, that would be S$20 per month which is enough for a Netflix subscription. Saxo on the other hand, charges 0.12% instead of a flat fee.
Some brokers like Interactive Brokers waive off the custodian fees for accounts with US$100,000 but this is still unfriendly for small accounts (below US$100,000) as a monthly fee of US$10 will be charged if you do not incur enough commissions.
Tiger does not charge any custodian or platform fees.
I didn’t need to pay for live prices
Some brokers charge for live trading prices for certain markets. If you use a local broker, live prices for SGX stocks are often free. It may not be the case for foreign markets – some charge for US and China live prices. You have to accept trading with delayed prices (more than 15 mins delay) if you do not wish to pay for the data.
The data subscription fee can range from S$10 to S$30 per month, which may not be worthwhile to a retail investor with just a few trades a year.
Besides charging a monthly fee, Interactive Brokers also offers a pay-per-use option whereby you pay for one snapshot of a live price. For example, you pay US$0.03 to see a live price once.
Tiger Brokers provides live prices for Singapore, China, US and Hong Kong markets for free. Only Hong Kong stocks have some caveats – prices are not streaming and you need to manually refresh for the latest price and this is limited to 20 stocks in your watchlist.
This is more than enough for me and I didn’t need to pay any data fees to see the live prices in foreign markets.
I am not constrained by having to pay minimum commissions on SGX-listed stocks
Many brokers charge a minimum commission of S$25+++ each time you buy or sell SGX-listed stocks. It is not sensible to buy a small amount because the cost would eat into your investment return. For illustration, assuming you bought 100 shares at $1 each. The total value of shares would be $100 and paying a commission of S$25 would mean that the stock price needed to go up to $1.25 in order for you to break even and earn back the commission.
An investor needs to invest at least S$2,500 to keep the commission to about 1% of the investment amount. This may not be welcoming to someone starting out who may not be endowed with a decent capital size.
Tiger Brokers took away this minimum commission for SGX-listed stocks (promotion valid till 31 Dec 2020) and investors with little capital can now start investing without having to wait as they build up their capital.
Even for seasoned investors, this is a good thing because transacting liquidity stocks has become cheaper and possible. As long as the prices are fair, you can buy or sell without waiting for sufficient bid and ask volume to surface.
I could follow company announcements on the brokerage app which almost no other brokers provide
Company announcements are one very important information sources whereby I get updated about the development of my stocks. Prior to Tiger Brokers, brokers do not provide this information, providing only news which does not interest me. I have to go to multiple websites in order to get the latest announcements from the various exchanges I invest in.
Tiger Brokers provide announcements from stocks listed on SGX, SEHK, SSE, SZSE, and US. That’s so handy and I can check all the announcements in one convenient place.
Tiger Brokers is a fuss free trading platform and offers investors what they truly value
There’s a saying ‘how you do one thing is how you do everything’. Tiger Brokers has bothered to take care of the little annoying things and make the investment process so much more pleasant for their users.
Advanced tools are optional since not many investors would use them. Getting the basics right is more important because every investor would experience account opening, funding and dealing with fees.
This is where Tiger Brokers truly shines, I felt that they pull off the basics very well while other brokers neglect the basics.
If you are interested to open an account, here’s our referral link or you can use our referral code: “DRWEALTH“.
Dr Wealth get referral fees when you sign up. You can refer your friends too and get rewarded in the future too!
See you inside.
This is a sponsored article by Tiger Brokers but the views belong to the author.