Stock Brokerage Platforms Comparison
Amidst the growing presence of fintech, not only have we seen an influx of new online trading platforms, but the incumbent brokerage platforms have also been constantly revamping and improving themselves to keep pace and stay ahead of the race.
With the number of trading platforms available today and possibly many more to come as we speak, it piqued my curiosity to find out if there are any features in any of the platforms that set them apart from one another.
To make the article more digestible, I’ve narrowed down a couple of platforms namely UOB KayHian’s UTrade, CIMB Securities’ Prosperus, and the new kid on the block that we recently touched on, the smart trading platform uSMART.
First Impression
With regards to the first impression, I am afraid that I will have to admit that I wouldn’t have known about uSMART had NAOF not written an article about it previously and I trust that to be the same for most of us.
Amongst the 3, UOB KayHian sticks out the most to me because well, it’s UOB. Unless you have been living under a rock, you would know that UOB is one of the 3 largest banks in Singapore.
Prosperus didn’t ring any bells until I squinted long and hard at the logo and realized that it’s a platform by CIMB securities.
Based on familiarity altogether, if I were forced to choose among the 3 without any prior experience or knowledge, I would naturally pick UTrade by UOB Kayhian because of UOB’s presence and stability in Singapore.
However, one thing that I learned from our previous article on uSMART is that all of these platforms are heavily regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore so if there is a good level of assurance in all 3 brokers so then what is most important would be for us to make some comparisons on all 3 of them and find out what suits us best. Let’s go!
Getting Started
To give a more personable review, I will always do my best to try out the respective platforms as much as possible because sometimes reading off of their literature doesn’t allow me to have the actual user experience. Also, if I’m trying to meet somebody on a matchmaking app, I most definitely am not going to write anything negative about myself so I would suppose the same for these platforms’ websites.
Getting straight to it, the integration of Singpass’ Myinfo into all of the platforms makes setting up accounts on the 3 platforms relatively easy. However, it was a little bit more challenging and time-consuming for UOB Kayhian’s UTrade.
The opening of the account and being able to log into the app was pretty much immediate for uSMART and Prosperus but I wasn’t able to say the same for UTrade.
Not only had I had to answer quite an extensive set of questions to get to the final page and sign off and submit it, but I also had to wait for an additional ‘up to 10 business days for them to revert. FYI, reverting doesn’t necessarily mean that the account will be opened by then. It just means that they will reply within the next 10 business days and for all I know, my signature could be invalid and I would have to sign again and wait for another couple of days.
On the other hand, I was able to immediately log in and check out the interface of both Prosperus and uSMART after I did the simple sign up which took all of 5 minutes. Having a seamless sign-up process is a huge plus because it allows users like ourselves to log in and “inspect the goods” and be awed by the platform. A tedious sign-up process becomes a deterrence.
Conclusion: Incumbent brokerage platforms such as UTrade tend to have a longer waiting time when it comes to account opening vs. online brokerage platforms where onboarding is extremely quick. For users who want to get started immediately, online brokerage platforms such as uSMART provide a quick and hassle-free sign-up process, with an equally efficient funding process that takes less than 5 minutes for your account to be funded (more of that later)
Platform comparison
There are quite a few things to compare in this section but unfortunately as of this time my UTrade account is still processing, I can only compare it to the other 2 platforms based on what information I can get my hands on off of the internet.
News
Having access to news and knowledge when it comes to investing is very important as it helps us make as informed a decision as possible.
In the case of Prosperus’ app, it has a very clean and neat interface where you will be able to watch videos like market insights from their Chief Investment Strategist on the main page. They also do have a dedicated section within the app that is called Investment Insights which has a whole series of articles categorized into Education and Inspiration, providing knowledge and investment ideas respectively.
The education segment will have articles like Chart of the Week which gives a concise and relatively easy-to-understand summary of the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policies for example.
uSMART’s news section is more of a consolidation of market-relevant pieces from local and foreign news sources as opposed to the in-house research team’s written articles on Prosperus.
The uSMART platform also has a “Learning” segment where one can sign up free for different short investing courses conducted by their in-house trainer as well as ask the Experts any questions. Such social interactivity is unique to uSMART and likely a very helpful resource for a newbie investor who might have plenty of questions “waiting to be answered” (more on this in the next segment).
At the time of writing this, I still hadn’t yet gained access to UTrade’s platform because of the long waiting time for opening an account. So, I went on to UOB KayHian’s website instead to see if I could get a feel of what their platform provides.
They provide different tools like stock screeners and stock alerts and have research pieces that dive deep in for our reading pleasure. On top of that, they also hold regular seminars to provide the latest market insights and updates to their user base.
Since I had gone to Utrade’s website for this, I thought it would only be fair for me to also take a look at Prosperus’ and uSMART’s websites.
Unsurprisingly, Prosperus’ website also provided a decent amount of value beyond its app. There was information on upcoming webinars and research pieces as well. However, if I were to compare, I’d say UOB KayHian’s website one-ups Prosperus’.
On the other hand, uSMART’s website is clean and uncluttered while providing essential information. Users can download its desktop app to be used on both Windows and Mac OS. This can be found under its “Download” tab. After downloading the Windows application onto my PC, I am pleasantly surprised as to how sleek uSMART’s desktop app is, which users who are very accustomed to using a desktop app will find very welcoming.
The diagram below shows its multi-quotation function which provides a quick birds-eye view of key price charts that one might be interested to track. This is an interesting function that is available only on its desktop application.
Social Media Ecosystem
Remember earlier on I mentioned that uSMART’s news feed is a consolidation of market-relevant news articles from different sources?
Well, they make up for it with their Social Media Ecosystem through their Learning section within the app which contains 2 modules – Expert and BeeRich.
Expert
Instead of reading research articles written by analysts, how about asking these analysts questions directly?
For example, user Ruch here was wondering why travel stocks are doing poorly, and along came Caroline, uSMART’s investment analyst to the rescue giving a well-thought-out answer to Ruch’s question.
If Ruch eventually finds Caroline’s answer enlightening and of value, she can follow Caroline on the platform and have access to her views, videos and her past answered questions. She can even initiate a chat with Caroline!
This is pretty awesome. Instead of having to search the internet for articles that are touching on the topics you are researching on, you can ask whatever questions you have in Caroline’s chatroom. It’s as if the investment analyst is your friend! This brings investing a lot more “personable”.
Beerich
In a nutshell, Beerich is the TikTok interface of uSMART. I can picture entertaining myself with the videos after a long day of doing my research and investing.
The short videos are circled around financial concepts and can be a fun way for younger users to pick them up. Hang around long enough and I believe that you will pick up a thing or two about investing in a fun way.
uSMART Intel Subscription
You can take it a step further with uSMART by subscribing to their Intel Subscription at $18.80 /30 days for a recurring subscription or $28.80 for a 1-time 30 days. If you’re not sure whether it’s worth it and it is a little out of your budget, fret not because u can try out the first month at $0.01!
Once you are subscribed, you will have access to a world of stock picks, strategies, trends, technical analysis, and value screeners. Contrary to the research you see with traditional brokers which have both quantitative and qualitative elements, the content within the Intel Subscription is primarily very quantitative.
These are ideas and strategies that you can adopt immediately or piggyback on to build your own.
We had previously written pretty extensively on the Intel subscription and you can click on the link here to read more about it. (https://newacademyoffinance.com/usmart-review-usmart-intel-fractional-investing/)
This is the part where uSMART one-ups both Utrade and Prosperus as neither of the latter platforms has any form of social media ecosystem.
Conclusion: When it comes to getting company-specific news, incumbent brokerage platforms with their “army” of analysts will be able to provide that resources and research to their users. However, having said that, this is mostly restricted to SG-companies’ research, where there are also external websites that provide such information.
An online brokerage like uSMART focuses on using technology to scale efficiently and does not have its team of research analysts to “deep-dive” into a company’s fundamentals. Instead, it provides more of a news aggregating service. The key standout feature for uSMART is its social media ecosystem which allows users to engage actively with subject-matter experts on its platform as well as “mimic” a portfolio of data-driven strategies that is proprietary to uSMART and historically out-of-reach for the man-in-the-street.
This is something that is lacking with traditional brokerages like Prosperus and UTrade.
Instruments Available
Nothing will beat me compiling this piece of information in the form of a spreadsheet because every one of us would use this piece of data very differently as we have interests in different instruments.
I would just like to say that before this article I had never heard of Daily Leverage Certificates, Callable Bull/Bear Contract, and Inline Warrants. I have always thought I know a decent bit but now I am proven otherwise.
uSMART’s Fractional Investing Function for US stocks
As much as Tesla has dropped in price year to date, it still costs about $685 to snag one share as of this writing.
This, unfortunately, prices a lot of retail investors out and as a result we miss out on the long-term potential of Tesla.
Enter fractional shares, a concept that has gotten popular in recent years. With fractional share investing, instead of waiting for your dream company to do a stock split, you can purchase a fraction of their shares at the same fraction of a price!
For example, if you have USD 100 to spare, you could buy 0.1459 shares ($100 / $685.47) of Tesla instead of having to wait for their stock split.
This is a great feature, especially for new investors who want to get a good feel of the markets without having to throw in a huge chunk of capital. Do note that this function is limited to US stocks.
As of this article, uSMART is the only one that offers fractional investing out of the 3 platforms.
Conclusion: When it comes to product availability, incumbent brokerages like UTrade and Prosperus might still be ahead of the game in terms of product variety. However, for most investors, particularly those just getting started, having access to just a few products (mainly stocks) and markets (SG, US, HK) is more than sufficient.
I believe that uSMART’s ability to provide fractional investing for US stocks should be seen as a major plus point for new investors without significant capital to get started with minimal capital “barriers-to-entry”.
Charges
Because of the number of instruments and types of accounts that are available, it is very difficult to have an apple-to-apple comparison in terms of the charges. Instead, I thought what would be helpful was to compile the charges of the most common instruments traded on the lowest tier account and the platforms’ respective funding methods.
Looking at the numbers, I would lean towards uSMART if I am a small timer because the minimum charges are way cheaper.
It is the cheapest platform, hands-down, when it comes to trading/investing in SG stocks, with a $0 commission offering starting from 1st July (promo to end-2022). One will need to just pay for uSMART’s platform fees which amount to 0.03% (no minimum) which is cheaper than Prosperus 0.08% (no minimum) and Utrade 0.275% (minimum of SGD$25).
When it comes to US stocks, it will also be commission-free trading for uSMART till end-2022. Investors, though, will need to note the platform fees, where there is a minimum charge of USD$1 per order. Overall, uSMART’s US fees will be very competitive vs. a minimum of $20 for UTrade (variable of 0.18%) and $5 (flat) for Prosperus.
For most beginner investors trading/investing in US stocks where prices are typically at $20/share or more, they will most likely be incurring just the min $1 platform fees for uSMART unless their investment amount is 1) significantly large (>$5,000) or 2) they are trading penny counters with very low stock prices.Using existing incumbents’ platforms will result in fees of at least USD$5 and upwards.
Do note that misc fees such as trading and clearing fees by the respective exchanges are not included. For full details on charges and promotions, do refer to the respective websites.
For funding methods, most brokerages offer FAST Transfer or Paynow which is pretty quick (within a few hours or less than a day). For uSMART, its eGIRO function allows one to fund his/her account within a matter of 2-3 minutes which is pretty amazing.
Conclusion: Online brokerage platforms, with their “asset-light” model, will be able to pass on these savings and provide their users with much lower commission charges compared to the traditional brokerage platforms that have a physical presence and high overhead costs.
Conclusion
After exploring the 3 platforms, my conclusion is that the new kids on the block like uSMART are great for investors who are starting out because it caters to today’s very fast-paced environment by having everything you need to start your investing journey through an app on your phone.
On top of that, its charges are much more friendly for newer investors who usually prefer to start with a smaller quantum to get their feet wet. Fractional investing will also help them to diversify and gain a broad feel of the markets overall.
Learning and building up a knowledge base is also made more fun and interactive with uSMART’s social media ecosystem as research pieces can get dry sometimes.
If you are starting your investing journey today and are not sure where to begin, you can give uSMART’s trading platform a shot because it is currently giving out a FREE 0.1 Tesla fractional share (~worth SGD $100) + SGD $15 cash voucher when you set up a trading account with them (terms and condition apply). You can sign up for it here.
P.S By the way, if you are new to investing and are not sure where to start, we at NAOF are coming up with an ultimate must-have guide for those who want to grow their wealth. If you are interested, do sign up for our newsletter and you will be the first to be notified once it is released!
Disclaimer: All views expressed in the article are the independent opinions of mine. This article is intended for information purposes only and should not be construed as financial advice.
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