Some days ago I found a letter in my mailbox from Standard Chartered bank. This is not a rare occurrence, given that this bank is not able to issue e-statements for online trading and instead sends monthly statements and letters after every single transaction.
Unfortunately this time the letter contained some bad news: “a revision of minimum brokerage amount”…
“Revision” is wrongly used in this context, as there used to be no minimum commission, but now there is.
Priority banking clients (as far as I know, this means more than SGD 200,000 invested with the bank or loans over a certain amount) do not have to pay the minimum commission.
For all other accounts the following minimum commission applies from August 1, which I compare here with other leading retail banks:
Minimum commission for stocks trading on SGX
| Standard Chartered | DBS Vickers | OCBC Basic Trading (Cash) Account | OCBC Equities Plus Account | |
| Minimum commission for shares traded in SGD | 10 | 25 | 25 | 18 |
| Minimum commission for shares traded in HKD | 100 | 125 | 100 | ?* |
| Minimum commission for shares traded in USD | 10 | 15 | 14 | ?* |
| Where are your shares kept? | Custodian account | Your CDP account | Your CDP account | Custodian account |
*The official data sheet from OCBC is lacking this information
Commission rates and other fees for online trading on SGX with volume less than SGD 50,000 for “normal” customers
| Standard Chartered | DBS Vickers | OCBC Basic Trading (Cash) Account | OCBC Equities Plus Account | |
| Commission rate | 0.20% | 0.28% | 0.275% | 0.18% |
| Custody fee for foreign stocks | None | SGD 2 per counter per month | None | ?* |
| CDP Quarterly sub account fee | None | Does not apply | Does not apply | SGD 15 |
| Dividend processing fee | None | None | None | 1% of net dividend (Min S$5, Max S$100) |
Some remarks: While the OCBC Equities Plus Account is dangling some nice low commission in front of our faces like a carrot it has a lot of terrible charges including an asinine CDP Quarterly Sub Account Fee of SGD 15. Not cool!
Standard Chartered Online Brokerage: Is it still competitive?
Overall I still feel that the offer from Standard Chartered remains competitive even though trading small amount of shares will be quite a bit more expensive.
In my books, Standard Chartered’s saving grace is that it has a clear and easy to understand fee structure, much in contrast to peers that promote low commission rates but then impose quarterly fees or fees for dividend processing.
I hope some of the proceeds from the higher commission rates can be used to finally introduce e-statements for Online Trading – save some trees, Standard Chartered!
Trees look much better this way as compared to Standard Chartered’s printed and mailed statements
What do you think?
What do you think about the new fee structure? Which broker do you use and why? Just post in the comments, would love to hear from you!
Disclaimer: I made every effort to make sure that the data in this post is correct, but I cannot guarantee this. Please do your own research before you make any investment decisions and also read my blog disclaimer.
I would be so frustrated at the introduction of these fees. Even if they are “fair” in the market.