Controlling your fund fees is key to investment success

CEO and founding partner of Endowus - Gregory Van - explains in this Money Hacks podcast series why investors need to watch high fund fees to prevent such costs from eating into their returns.
PHOTO: ST FILE

Money Hacks Ep 80: Controlling your fund fees is key to investment success

10:33 min

Synopsis: Updated fortnightly on Mondays, The Business Times breaks down useful financial tips.

This episode tackles the importance of understanding and controlling your investment costs or fees, so you can let the power of compounding interest work for you.

Chris Lim hosts Gregory Van, chief executive and founding partner of Endowus, the only digital investment adviser that now has a CPF investment option.

They discuss the following points:

1. Are Singapore's investment fees higher than average sales and fund level fees globally? (1:08)

2. What is the little-known "trailer" fee in this industry? How that is practised here and why the investor does not see this (1:50)

3. The trailer fee raises the question: Are you working in the best interests of the client? (3:02)

4. Is there a way around this? Should your fund managers rebate that trailer fee to you here when they receive it? (4:48)

5. Why just a 1% fee difference over many years can result in compounding costs eating into your returns (7:20)

Produced by: Chris Lim and Ernest Luis

Edited by: Adam Azlee

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Do note: Any financial or investment information in this podcast is for use in Singapore only and is intended to be for your general information. Any particular investment or decision should only be made after consulting with a fully qualified financial adviser.

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