StashAway - A Beginner-Friendly Platform to Start Investing

As someone exploring passive investing, I’ve been researching robo-advisors to find a platform that aligns with my goals of growing my money while getting portfolio diversification. 

Unlike building my own portfolio, which can be time consuming, robo-advisors handle key aspects of portfolio management for me, such as selecting investments and rebalancing portfolios. 

This eliminates the need for me to spend hours researching individual stocks or closely monitoring the markets, providing me a hands-off approach to investing. 

StashAway, is one such platform, which launched in 2016. It offers a range of solutions catered to beginner and passive investors with various financial goals. 

In this review, I’ll dig into StashAway offerings, the platform’s benefits, and some potential drawbacks.

If you’re exploring options to simplify your investing, read on to see if StashAway aligns with your financial objectives!

What types of products does StashAway offer?

Like many robo-advisors, StashAway provides a variety of pre-built portfolios designed to meet different investment goals and risk appetites. 

Here’s a breakdown of StashAway’s current product lineup:

Let’s take a closer look at what each offering provides.

#1 – StashAway Simple

For investors looking to earn higher yields on idle cash while maintaining flexibility, StashAway offers a range of cash management solutions under the StashAway Simple brand. 

Currently, there are three options available: Simple Guaranteed, Simple, and Simple Plus. Here’s a comparison of their features:

StashAway Simple is a straightforward cash management account. Some key benefits are:

• No minimum balance requirement
• No cap on balances eligible to earn returns
• No need for salary crediting, insurance purchases or other conditions to earn a return
• You can invest with your cash or SRS funds

#2 – General Investing Portfolios

​​StashAway’s General Investing Portfolios offer diversified, passive investment solutions catered to various risk tolerance and financial goals. 

These portfolios are designed to help investors grow their wealth over the long term, leveraging automatic rebalancing strategies and globally diversified ETFs.

StashAway offers three types of General Investing Portfolios:

1. General Investing powered by StashAway
2. General Investing powered by BlackRock
3. Responsible Investing with ESG

Here’s an overview of each portfolio and how they differ:

General investing powered by StashAway

This portfolio leverages StashAway’s proprietary Economic Regime-based Asset Allocation (ERAA) strategy, which adjusts asset allocation based on macroeconomic data to keep your portfolio within the risk level that you’ve selected.

Key features:

• Risk management: Portfolios are built to keep your risk level constant, regardless of market volatility.
• Pre-set risk levels: Choose from 12 risk levels, ranging from 6.5% (low risk) to 36% (high risk), based on your comfort with potential losses. The percentages indicate the percentage loss that you may face when investing at that risk level.
• Low-cost ETFs: Includes globally recognized ETFs such as iShares Core S&P 500 (IVV) and SPDR Consumer Staples (XLP), with an average expense ratio of 0.2% p.a. (Full list of ETFs here)

Here’s a breakdown of some of the portfolios’ returns as of 13 December 2024

General investing powered by BlackRock

StashAway partners with BlackRock for these portfolios where the investment insights and asset allocation expertise are provided by BlackRock.

Key features:

• Equity-bond ratios: Choose from 20-80 (conservative) to 100-0 (very aggressive) allocations.
• True passive investing: The portfolio tracks the market closely according to the asset allocation you’ve selected. This differs from the risk-based approach used in the StashAway-managed portfolio, which may deviate from the market’s movements.
• Low-cost ETFs: Built using iShares® ETFs with an average expense ratio of 0.2% p.a.

I’ve listed each portfolio’s performance below: 

#3 - Other portfolios

In addition to General Investing, StashAway offers a range of portfolios tailored to specific investment goals. Whether you’re seeking income, diversification, or exposure to unique themes, these portfolios provide flexibility and professional management.

Here’s a comparison of the different portfolios:

All of StashAway’s portfolios are managed by its investment professionals and automatically rebalanced or updated by its technology. You can invest in StashAway’s portfolios using cash or SRS funds with no lock-in periods. 

The best part is that you can start investing with any amount as there is no minimum balance or monthly requirements. 

Find out more about the various managed portfolios StashAway offers here.

What are the benefits of StashAway?

#1 - Low fees

One of StashAway’s most attractive features is its competitive fee structure.

Fees range from 0.2% to 0.8% per annum on managed portfolios depending on your investment amount. 

For Simple portfolios, fees range from 0.15% to 0.2% per annum, while Simple Guaranteed has no management fees.

Here’s a breakdown of the fees:

Another fee to be aware of is the FX spread fee, which is 0.22% per currency conversion.

#2 - Ability to invest with SRS

Singapore’s voluntary Supplementary Retirement Scheme (SRS) allows you to enhance your retirement savings beyond CPF contributions, with the added benefit of tax relief on contributions. 

Investing your SRS with StashAway retains your tax relief perks, allowing investors to grow their retirement savings more effectively while enjoying annual tax savings.

StashAway investment products offer a higher return than the 0.05% p.a. interest rate in the SRS account.

#3 - Wide variety and ability to customise investments 

StashAway allows investors to select portfolios with risk levels tailored to their comfort and financial goals. 

The platform’s range of options, from low-risk cash management to high-growth thematic portfolios, provides flexibility for various investing styles and time horizons.

#4 - Licensed by the MAS

StashAway is licensed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). 

Your investment portfolios first go through a DBS trust account and are securely held in a custody account at Saxo Capital Markets. 

StashAway Simple funds are held at HSBC Hong Kong.

What are some potential drawbacks?

#1 – USD exposure

The majority of StashAway’s ETFs are traded in USD as their base currency, with the exception of the Singapore Investing portfolio.

This could pose a potential drawback if the SGD strengthens against the USD. In such a scenario, the value of your investments in SGD terms may decrease due to the appreciation of the SGD relative to the USD.

#2 – Higher withholding tax for US ETFs

Since many of the ETFs in StashAway’s portfolios are listed in the US, dividends from these US ETFs may be subject to a 30% withholding tax.

However, the General Investing portfolios powered by BlackRock include ETFs domiciled in Ireland, such as the iShares Core S&P 500 UCITS ETF (CSPX), which has a lower withholding tax rate of 15% on dividends.

#3 – Unable to invest using CPF

The CPF Investment Schemes (CPFIS) allows you to invest savings from your CPF OA and CPF SA to grow your retirement savings. 

At the moment StashAway does not offer the option to invest in its portfolios using your CPF funds. 

StashAway vs Syfe vs Endowus vs Autowealth: Which has lower fees?

For cash management solutions, both StashAway and Syfe offer fees ranging from 0% to 0.20% per annum, making them attractive low-cost options for investors. In contrast, AutoWealth charges a flat fee of 0.10% per annum, while Endowus charges a flat fee of 0.15% per annum. 

When it comes to managed portfolios, StashAway charges a fee range at 0.20% to 0.80% per annum, which varies depending on the portfolio size and type. Syfe charges a fee ranging from 0.25% to 0.65% per annum, while Endowus charges a fee ranging from 0.25% to 0.60% per annum. AutoWealth charges a fee range of 0.40% to 0.50% per annum. 

What will Beansprout do?

After exploring StashAway’s offerings and platform, I liked that the platform was easy to navigate, and provided a wide range of options to suit different financial goals. 

If I were looking for a low-risk way to park my funds while waiting for investment opportunities, such as when I’m anticipating a market drop to buy in at a lower price, I’d consider StashAway’s cash management solutions like Simple or Simple Plus. They offer decent short-term yields without locking in my funds. 

As a passive investor looking for a hands off approach to investing, StashAway’s General Investing Portfolios allows me to put my money to work even if I don’t have extensive expertise, market knowledge, or time to invest directly in stocks. 

The idea is that I can pick a risk level or portfolio allocation that aligns with my comfort level, and the investment team handles the rest. 

They make the allocation decisions and the ETF selection to ensure that the portfolios are always in line with my chosen risk level or allocation. Since ETFs are passive securities that track the benchmark indices, they naturally fit into a passive investing strategy. 

For someone looking for long-term growth with minimal effort, it's an easy entry point into investing without a steep learning curve often associated with building and managing a DIY portfolio.

In the event that I want more control over my asset choices, I’d explore the Flexible Portfolio to curate my own selection of ETFs to my preference. 

Finally, as someone thinking about retirement savings, the ability to invest with SRS contributions is a plus point. I can both maximise my tax relief and grow my retirement nest egg through a portfolio that suits my risk appetite.

For me, the key takeaway is the platform’s ability to simplify investing without compromising on flexibility, something that’ll likely prove valuable as I move through different stages in life and adjust my investments to match my evolving goals. 

Compare StashAway with other platforms to find the best robo-advisor in Singapore here. 

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