Savings, CPF
Endowus Review: Best for CPF investing?
By Beansprout • 06 Jun 2023 • 0 min read
Looking for a digital wealth platform to serve your investment needs? Read our review of Endowus and find out how you can invest using your CPF and SRS funds.
In this article
TL;DR
- Endowus is a robo-advisor in Singapore that allows you to invest using your CPF and SRS funds
- What users like about Endowus: good range of products, competitive fees, and ease of use
- What users may not like about Endowus: Limited customisation for recurring investments and relatively long withdrawal periods
- Platform fee ranges from 0.15% to 0.60% per annum + GST
What is Endowus?
Endowus is a digital wealth platform that allows investors to access various investment products, including unit trusts and mutual funds.
Founded in 2017, the Singapore-based company has grown in popularity with more than S$2 billion in assets under advice as of August 2022.
Interested in what Endowus has to offer? Read on to find out more.
What users may like about Endowus
#1 Good range of products
Endowus partners with established fund managers like PIMCO, Schroders, and Dimensional Fund Advisors to offer a range of investment portfolios tailored to different risk profiles and investment objectives.
These funds cover a range of asset classes such as equities, fixed income, multi-asset, commodities, cash/money market, hedge funds, private equities and alternatives.
These funds are typically more costly to access via traditional mediums, but Endowus aims to offer you access at a lower cost. As Samuel Rhee, the CEO of Endowus explains:
For investors who prefer to earn a yield on their investments, Endowus offers a cash management solution called Cash Smart, which is designed to optimise the returns on idle cash while providing liquidity and flexibility to investors.
Cash Smart aims to provide an alternative to traditional savings accounts by offering higher interest rates across three different portfolios: Secure, Enhanced, and Ultra.
Cash Smart portfolios | ||
| Secure | Enhanced | Ultra |
Stable & sound Secure combines a cash fund that invests in institutional fixed deposits with one of Singapore’s best-performing money market funds. | Enhanced yield Enhanced combines a short duration fund with one of the best-performing money market funds offered by Singapore’s largest SGD money managers offering higher yield than Secure. | Highest yield Ultra aims to provide the highest yield among the three Cash Smart portfolios over time by having a diversified allocation across some short duration bond and money market funds. |
Underlying funds
| Underlying funds
| Underlying funds
|
Risk considerations Suitable for immediate and near-term cash needs. Key focus is capital preservation with good yield. Absolute fall in value (drawdowns) are highly unlikely, with any negative returns expected to be minimal. | Risk considerations Suitable for both near-term and mid-term cash needs. Balanced portfolio with higher yield than Secure with a slight increase in risk. Drawdowns can occur more frequently and for longer periods than Secure, although the negative returns are expected to be minimal compared to Ultra. | Risk considerations Suitable for mid-term cash needs and may result in the need to hold on for longer during periods of volatility to achieve higher yield. Drawdowns can be sharper with a prolonged recovery period compared to Enhanced, although the maximum negative returns are expected to be in the low single digits. Negative months can occur when fixed income markets fall. |
| Historical max loss: -0.05% | Historical max loss: -1.1% | Historical max loss: -5.07% |
| Projected return p.a. 3.7% to 4.0% | Projected return p.a. 4.4% to 4.7% | Projected return p.a. 4.9% to 5.3% |
| Fund-level fees after Cashback (0.15%) | Fund-level fees after Cashback (0.27%) | Fund-level fees after Cashback (0.29%) |
| Endowus Fee (0.05%) | Endowus Fee (0.05%) | Endowus Fee (0.05%) |
| Projected return p.a. after all fees 3.5% to 3.8% | Projected return p.a. after all fees 4.1% to 4.4% | Projected return p.a. after all fees 4.6% to 4.9% |
| Source: Endowus | ||
#2 – Invest using CPF and SRS funds
Endowus allows you to invest your CPF OA or SRS funds in a broad-based global market index fund at relatively low cost.
Most other robo-advisors allow you to invest your SRS funds, but not your CPF OA funds.
All you need to do is to open a CPF Investment Account and link it to your Endowus account.
#3 – Competitive fees
The fees charged by Endowus are competitive with other robo-advisors like StashAway and Syfe.
If you invest using cash, the fee structure is as follows:
Cash | |
| ≤ $20,000 | 0.6% p.a. |
| $200,001 to $1,000,000 | 0.5% p.a. |
| $1,000,001 to $5,000,000 | 0.35% p.a. |
| ≥ $5,000,001 | 0.25% p.a. |
For a full breakdown of their fees, you may refer to the table below:
It might be worth noting that the fees are subject to a 8% goods and service tax (GST) charge.
So if you are invested in a mulit-fund portfolio with a value of S$10,000, you would be charged a total fee of S$64.80.
#4 Ease of use
As a robo-advisory service provider, Endowus makes it easy for users to use the platform.
For investors who do not have time for a DIY approach, they may prefer to pay a small fee for Endowus to automate their investments for them.
A DIY approach that involves depositing money into your brokerage account and buying mutual funds or ETFs requires you to manually dollar cost average every month and can be cumbersome to some.
Automating your investments is also a good way of dealing with emotional investing in response to market fluctuations.
Finally, there is no lock-up period and you can withdraw your investments either partially or completely at any point in time.
#5 - Regulated by the MAS
Some of you may be wondering - Is Endowus safe? Can Endowus be trusted?
Endowus hold a Capital Markets Services License, and is regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
Note that when you register an account with Endowus, they will create a trust account in your name at UOB Kay Hian which will hold your assets.
This would mean that you will not be forced to liquidate your holdings in any circumstance since your assets are held in a trust account with UOB as custodian.
What users may dislike about Endowus
#1 - Limited customisation for recurring investments
With a minimum deposit of S$1,000, users can automatically dollar cost average on a regular basis.
This can be done through setting up a GIRO payment with your bank account, setting up a monthly investment in Endowus, and the process will be automated for you.
However, there is limited customisation for such recurring investments, with only monthly investments offered currently.
Also, there is no direct debit authorisation (DDA) to enable users to pull funds from bank accounts.
#2 - Relatively slow withdrawal periods
Investors may experience longer withdrawal periods compared to stock trading platforms and other robo-advisors. This would include withdrawals from its Cash Smart solutions.
As such, investors should consider their liquidity needs and whether they would need to use their funds for emergency purposes.
What’s the final verdict on Endowus?
Endowus prides itself as Singapore’s first CPF digital advisor, and is an option for investors who want to explore diversifying their CPF portfolios.
It offers a wide range of fund products to meet different investor objectives and risk appetite at a competitive fee.
However, it would not have much to offer do-it-yourself (DIY) investors who would like more autonomy in selecting their own stocks.
If you’re interested to start investing with Endowus, we are pleased to offer Beansprout readers a promotional $20 off Endowus’ access fee.
Sign up using this link to claim this special offer.
Get $20 off access fee when you sign up for an Endowus account today
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