Sunday 21 June 2020

A review of DBS's Invest-Saver!

Hey all readers out there,

hope you guys have been staying safe out there! As Singapore enters the much awaited Phase 2 of our post-circuit breaker life, it is important for us to remember that Covid-19 is still out there, and to take the necessary precautions when heading out! Anyways, in today's post, I will be talking more about DBS's Invest-Saver plan that I used to start investing when I first started to take proper care of my personal finances.

DBS's Invest-Saver plan is a Regular Savings Plan(RSP) that allows you to invest a fixed sum monthly, into your choice of Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) or Unit Trusts (UTs) (The list of ETFs and UTs available for the RSP is on DBS's website). It allows you to start with as little as $100 per month (which was what I started with!) and only charges a mere 0.5% - 0.82% of sales charge. This makes the plan really suitable for those who are interested to start investing, but do not really have the know-how yet, as this plan allows you to start with a relatively small amount, and does not require a CDP account, thus making it less complicated. It is important to note that you do have to be at 18 years of age to start this plan though.

The Invest-Saver could also be interesting for those of you looking for a way to practice some discipline in your savings. When I first started managing my own finances, this plan really helped me in building my savings as the money was automatically deducted from my bank account on the 15th of every month, and I wasn't able to use it even if I start running low on cash towards the end of month, and hence I learnt to work my spending around this constraint every month. 

Creating and using the Invest-Saver offered by DBS was a seamless experience for me. Starting the Invest-Saver was really easy, taking only a few clicks on DBS's website to set-up. Also, in case you're worried that you might lose track of your investments since you are investing on a monthly basis, DBS allows you to look up your investments on their website easily. Once you log-in, you are able to look up your average investment price, the last known indicative price of the fund and your unrealized profit/loss. This allows you to assess how your investments are doing anytime, anywhere conveniently, which I felt was a really neat feature from DBS. 

To my knowledge, there are other RSPs offered by the other banks out there as well. However, the costs they charge may defer and there are already websites out there that have done the comparisons, and hence I encourage you to do your own due diligence.

In all, the combination of a low-starting cost and low fees makes DBS's RSP Invest-Saver an excellent savings plan suitable for most youths out there who are looking to start their investing journey somewhere. However, I think it is important for the youths who are looking to start this plan to have a healthy amount of savings set aside before starting on this RSP, since after all this is a form of investment which ultimately carries a certain amount of risk. Hence, it wouldn't be the financially sound decision to put all of your eggs in this basket (or in any basket, to be fair).

Stay safe and healthy,
T

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