Tan Kin Lian's Blog: Platform fee on Fundsupermart (2)

Wednesday, April 07, 2010

Platform fee on Fundsupermart (2)

Some investors are unhappy with the platform fee of 0.5% that is being imposed by Fund Supermart. They have two options of responding:
- move to another platform, e.g. Dollar Dex or POEMS]
- sell their unit trusts

They should consider the second option for the following reasons:
- they probably make a profit from the high stockmarket prices now
- by selling the funds, the fund managers may ask FSM to remove their platform fee.

The underlying unit trusts already pay a share of their annual fee to FSM. It is not fair for FSM to add a new layer of fee.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...: If I have made a profit, I will sell all and exit from FSM. The problem is the UT that I am holding is still bleeding. I will have to move to another online distributor.; April 07, 2010 7:12 AM
Tan Kin Lian said...: Reply to 7:12 am

which fund did you invest in? For most people who invested during the past 12 months, they should have shown a good gain.; April 07, 2010 8:53 AM
Anonymous said...: Dear Mr Tan,
My fund is Infinity Global Stock Index fund bought in Aug 2006. It was profitable but sank during the recent global crisis. I have yet to recover from it.
Thanks.; April 07, 2010 12:17 PM
Vincent Sear said...: FundSupermart says no platform fee under CPFIS-OA/SA. That part is OK, but transfer the cash part away. Anyway, platform fee is an unfair idea.

The so-called platform fee, presumably the website and maintenance thereof, is to help FundSupermart to ply their trade at lower cost and wider outreach than storefront retail. It already saves on officefront and frontline staffing costs.

For those who're really pissed, transfer everything away, including CPFIS.; April 07, 2010 12:28 PM
Anonymous said...: Disappointed with FSM for introducing this fee.. will be transferring my cash holdings to another platform; April 07, 2010 2:01 PM
Vincent Teo said...: To Anon 7.12 am

You can transfer your Infinity Global Index Fund to POEMS. Transfer should be free. You have until Aug 2010 to do so before platform fee kick in. POEMS sales charge and RSP charge for the fund is also same as FSM at 1%.

Dollardex do not carry this fund unfortunately, only the Infinity European Fund. I wonder why.; April 07, 2010 2:22 PM
Bernard Lim said...: I don't like the way FSM giving emphasis to lower sales charge to make up for the fact that they are introducing platform fees.

I believe FSM only announced this through their email communications with their customers, so that it becomes customers' onus to read their email without fail.; April 08, 2010 12:14 AM
Unknown said...: Hi all,

I don't know if anyone is aware that FSM is now charging platform fees on their CASH FUND. This might effectively result in a NEGATIVE INTEREST YIELD on your money.
Meaning - YOU PAY THEM TO KEEP YOUR DEPOSIT WITH THEM!

What a wonderful deal we are getting from them!; March 18, 2011 2:48 AM