iFAST

[Curiousparty]

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/10-reason...e-bowles-1

For sharing


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[Curiousparty]

https://www.glassdoor.sg/Reviews/Phillip...392095.htm

Phillip securities


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[Wildreamz]

Indeed, Glassdoor can be manipulated both ways. Positively by companies offering rewards to employees to write good review, and negatively by a group of disgruntled employee. It is part of the information collecting (scuttlebutt) process, reading each and every one of the recent reviews would be another (are they written in earnest or formulaically by a bot?), studying the review trends with management change is another, verifying the claims with other sources will be another.

[Curiousparty]

For listed firm like iFast, its accounts are scrutinised by so many people. B2B and B2C Clients, shareholders, investors, Traders, lenders etc.

There is therefore greater transparency and accountability unlike a private held Phillip Capital.

We don’t even know
- who owns it
- what are its shareholders funds
- how much debts
- has the firm been profitable and for how long
- how big is the firm
- how many clients they have?
- What other businesses is Phillip Capital involved in?
- What is the cost structure ?
- Are the overseas branches profit-making or bleeding etc Who are the Bankers?

So if you are running a boutique IFA and have AUM of several hundred millions, are you not concerned about insolvency risk of the platform company you park your assets? Even retail clients are concerned.

Can we view Phillip Capital platform with the same level of confidence and trust as iFast, which is a publicly traded company?

Post funded versus pre funded platform - how much is the risk level difference ? IFast only has pre-funded accounts, and some margin trading in HK ?

Think post funded is much more risky than margin trading ... imagine one account going belly up with millions unpaid and client is no way to be found ...….

[Curiousparty]

Broker's take: KGI initiates coverage on iFast with 'outperform' call

KGI Securities has initiated coverage on iFast Corporation with an "outperform" call and target price of S$1.21.
Shares of mainboard-listed iFast were trading S$0.01 or 1 per cent lower at S$1.03 as at 1.20pm on Friday.
In a research note on Friday, KGI analyst Kenny Tan said the wealth management fintech firm had been operating as one of the lowest cost discount brokerages in Singapore for a prolonged period of time and is likely the most prepared in the event of a price war.
Hence, these characteristics make iFast a suitable target for acquisition by late adopters of fintech, he added.
iFast had continued to expand amid the slight industry slowdown, with a market-leading position in unit trust products in Singapore. Meanwhile, business in Hong Kong and Malaysia is "growing at a steady clip".
Being in a consortium for one of the three digital wholesale banking licences in Singapore is also seen as a positive due to potential new business lines. This includes small and medium enterprise micro-lending, which can funnel in additional business opportunities, KGI noted.
"With a 20-year track record of developing its multi-asset platform, iFast would be ready to quickly scale up if it wins one of three digital wholesale banking licences in Singapore," Mr Tan said.
iFast's first-quarter results were also found to be encouraging, as the fall-off for assets under administration (AUA) was minimal. Market volatility had also brought up business-to-consumer sales by 40.4 per cent year on year. Moreover, iFast shared that AUA has returned to the S$10 billion figure.
KGI is anticipating AUA to grow for the rest of the year, barring another black swan event. Revenue mix is also expected to shift in favour of platform fees due to pressure on active asset management.
Singapore Press Holdings, which publishes The Business Times, holds an approximately 15 per cent stake in iFast through its subsidiary SPH Invest.


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[Curiousparty]

eToro offers Asia-Pac clients free trading in US stocks

It wants to remove the cost barrier to encourage young investors to start investing
Singapore
RESPONDING to a surge in investors' trading interest in US equities, investment platform eToro on Monday announced that it is extending its commission-free stocks offering to clients in the Asia-Pacific with immediate effect - the first such option here for investors in Singapore.
The platform also allows "copy trading" where traders can observe the trading activity of other people and imitate them accordingly - which is another first in Singapore.
The zero-commission offering for APAC clients applies to all stocks on its platform traded on the Nasdaq and New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).
eToro says it believes it is the first platform to offer commission-free stocks and fractional shares globally. Most brokerages and trading platforms in Singapore charge a small fee for trading in US stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
For instance, at iFast Corporation, the commission fees for trading in US stocks and ETFs on the FSMOne.com platform are 0.08 per cent, subject to a minimum of US$8.80. At DBS Vickers, the online commission rate for US trades is 0.18 per cent of the transacted value, with a minimum commission at S$25.
Jean Paul Wong, general manager of FSMOne.com Singapore, notes that demand from clients for US equities has been surging "by a few folds" in terms of the number of trades and the turnover amount in the first quarter.
"When markets went through a fast and furious correction and subsequent recovery in March, the difference in this year's downturn is that investors have been swift to enter the market and buy stocks and ETFs on the cheap."
In fact, the year-on-year increase in the quarter for FSMOne.com was the sharpest for US stocks and ETFs, followed by the Singapore stocks and ETFs. "Investors ploughed into stocks and ETFs from these two markets as they were among the markets that went through the largest swings and presented the most interesting opportunities to investors," he says.
The majority of the turnover and the sharpest increase in turnover were also from the US and Singapore exchanges, he adds.
In a similar vein, Lionel Lim, CEO of DBS Vickers Securities, says the US market ranks among the top three most actively traded markets by its clients as well, with investor demand for US equities still robust. The trend is partly due to the growing sophistication of clients from the retail and high net worth segments looking to venture into offshore markets to diversify their portfolios.
"With the current Covid-19 situation, the propensity for investors to trade online will be the new normalcy going forward. This has led to the emergence of a myriad of new trading platforms and online brokers.
"Given that Singapore continues to be an attractive destination for new players ... and with the needs of investors growing in both depth and breadth, there is ample room for different players offering a greater diversity of offerings to play in."
Yeo Leong Hui, head of digital business and central execution at OCBC Securities, adds that other attractions of the US market include liquidity, well-known brands, derivatives to increase trading velocity, and access to other stock markets in the world.
For the brokerage, the US market also makes up about half of its foreign trades. Its brokerage revenue in US shares has also grown by 75 per cent compared to a year ago, with Apple, Facebook and Tesla among the top traded stocks in the tech sector. Its clients have also been using inverse ETFs to short oil and natural gas.
While OCBC Securities did not disclose its commission fee, it says that it is "very competitive" and "substantially discounted" when clients trade large enough volumes.
"We do not compete by offering the lowest commission as we believe pricing should not be the sole, or main, factor for choosing your broker," it says. Other factors such as the ability to provide trading ideas, digital capabilities, and the availability of a night desk to facilitate active trading also matter.
Jasper Lee, managing director of Asia at eToro, explains that the plunge in US stock markets after a two-year bull run earlier this year became the opportune entry point for many value investors in Asia. Day traders also piled in to trade the volatility.
He says that the trend of commission-free stock trading is "very popular" in the US, and it is catching on in the UK and Europe.
"So I would expect a lot more competitors to emerge among brokers here in APAC as well," he says. This benefits young and new investors especially, who make up a big part of its clientèle, because high fees and deposit levels are barriers that intimidate them when they start to invest. "With eToro, investors can deposit as little as US$200 to start trading."
Stocks traded on the Nasdaq and NYSE exchanges are the most popular stocks on the eToro platform, making up 82 per cent of all stocks traded on eToro globally.
The Asia-Pacific is one of eToro's fast-growing markets. In the first four months of 2020, the platform has seen a more than 400 per cent increase in users from the region investing for the first time, compared to a year ago. The most active traders reside in Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines.
Globally, investment in stocks has tripled on the platform in the first quarter of this year, compared to the previous quarter. eToro now has more than 13 million registered users from over 100 countries.
That said, the zero-commission fee structure does not apply to short or leveraged trades.
In fact, how eToro sustains its business is by charging fees on trading in its other asset classes such as contracts for difference, forex, commodities and cryptocurrencies, where commission fees vary from 0.1 per cent to 1 per cent.
Mr Wong from iFast says: "If the new entrants can offer value on a few levels to clients and adapt to the local preferences of clients, it's a positive for investors. But as we have seen in recent times where some foreign players have ended their operations here, it is not so easy to just replicate a model that works overseas and paste it here, as investors in Singapore have a lot of tools, information and choices to help them choose the platform that can kick-start their investing journey at a competitive cost and in a seamless way."
Several brokerages, such as Phillip Securities, UOB Kay Hian and CGS-CIMB, declined to comment on their fees for trading in US stocks, or demand for the product.

.......

Note the remarks from ifast ...


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[Curiousparty]

PhillipCapital in talks to acquire RHB Securities Singapore


Company in the news
The Edge Singapore 3/06/2020, 2:32pm
SINGAPORE (June 3): Consolidation in the local brokerage industry might resume again.

PhillipCapital, one of the largest local brokerages around, is in talks to buy the Singapore operations of RHB Securities, which is a subsidiary of Malaysian bank RHB, sources said.

The acquirer, under executive chairman Lim Hua Min, is the largest non-bank backed securities firm here.

RHB Securities Singapore, a wholly-owned subsidiary of RHB Investment Bank Berhad, was known as DMG & Partners Securities.

Prior to this, the biggest move in this industry was when some 100 remisiers from DBS Vickers moved to UOB Kay Hian.

In 2018, China Galaxy CGS bought half the sake of CIMB Securities from CIMB Group to form CGS-CIMB.

****

not sure how much would a potential buyer for iFast pay? $1 billion?

[Curiousparty]

https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/compani...imulus-sgx

Preview into upcoming ifast q2 results


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[ZZF]

https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/compani...imulus-sgx

Preview into upcoming ifast q2 results


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I am curious no one even bothers about UOB Kay Hian. 

I find UOBKH too cheap to ignore - low PB, low PE, decent dividends and owner buying all the time.

[Wildreamz]

https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/compani...imulus-sgx

Preview into upcoming ifast q2 results


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I am curious no one even bothers about UOB Kay Hian. 

I find UOBKH too cheap to ignore - low PB, low PE, decent dividends and owner buying all the time.

Scanned through, both top and bottom line declining since 2017. Any insight whether it will reverse?