High transaction fee...

[kctan]

Hi,

I am exploring the transaction fee of POEMS (Philips Security) and for every transaction (ETF), they take US$25... is this in the normal fee range in the market? May I know what are the other platform you guys are using?

[money]

Yah i think this is the normal fee, in fact there is a minimum fee for every transaction, i think $25 is already the minimum. If you trade stocks listed in UK, there is even a higher minimum fee.

I think most brokerage charge a fee that's more or less the same, so dont have to really worry about it. Personally, i think if you try to trade a minimum of SGD 10k, you end up paying the fee with a lower percentage.

I heard that if you open an account with standard chartered, they waive the brokerage fee or something, but you must maintain a minimum amount in their account. Do check it out at their website

[d.o.g.]

Hi,

I am exploring the transaction fee of POEMS (Philips Security) and for every transaction (ETF), they take US$25... is this in the normal fee range in the market? May I know what are the other platform you guys are using?

ETFs are traded like any other stock, so you'll pay the standard brokerage rates. Most brokers charge 0.275% with a minimum of $25. For non-SGD securities the charges will differ. Some brokers are now offering slightly lower charges, with caveats like prepayment or letting the broker hold your shares instead of via CDP.

Generally, to actually get the 0.x% rate the brokers quote, you'll have to transact in amounts of $10k or more. If you are able to transact in $25k or larger amounts you can usually negotiate a lower commission rate, sometimes as low as 0.12% if you are a big player. Of course, this is still a far cry from the US where you can trade $1m of shares and pay only US$10 in brokerage if you use a discount broker like Interactive Brokers, E-trade, Scottrade or Charles Schwab.

The brokerage business in Singapore is a cosy oligopoly. Open accounts at 4-5 brokers and it will be obvious that their online platforms are almost the same i.e. awful. POEMS is probably the least bad in terms of functionality.

[kctan]

Thank you for the advice! It is just that my trade amount will not be high.. so the $25 is a bit on the high side.

[dzwm87]

If you're not trading and your nominal amount is not huge, the commission rates won't really matter. Even shifting to SCB's min comm rate won't really provide much significant cost saving to offset the cons of a SCB trading account.