It’s no secret that we have a few SG ETFs Monthly Investment Plans (MIPs) via banks and their associated brokerage arms. We believe that automated investing is the way to go given our busy work and personal schedules that is only going to get more intense if we plan to have a kid next year.
Which is why we are sensitive to any changes to these MIPs. Whether they are initiated on our side (e.g. amending the monthly cash amounts to be invested) or on their side (e.g. changes to the cash withdrawal dates or purchase price methodology).
That’s how I noticed the recent update to the POSB Invest-Saver this month. For both the Singapore ETFs [i.e. Nikko AM SG STI ETF (G3B on SGX) and ABF SG Bond Index Fund (A35 on SGX)], the monthly debiting from the savings account is now on the 15th of every month. It would be the next business day if the 15th is a non-business day.
There is no change to the purchase price methodology – generally based on the average subscription price on the business day following the day the savings account is debited. This means my wife should be receiving the average price on the 16th of every month or on the relevant business day after that.
As such, S$200 was debited from my wife’s POSB eSavings account on Thurs 15 Jun 2017. We were expecting the purchases of Nikko AM SG STI ETF (G3B on SGX) and ABF SG Bond Index Fund (A35 on SGX)] to be made on Fri 16 Jun 2017 with the associated average prices. However, there has been no update on the Regular Savings Plan section of my wife’s internet banking account for these purchases as of today.
Given how the update is usually done by the next business day following the purchase date, it makes me wonder whether there are any issues from the latest update. We will have to continue monitoring this, which is annoying because the plan was to reduce manual intervention and oversight. Let’s hope it gets resolved soon.
Anyway, this got me thinking about the funds transfer mechanisms for Smartly and StashAway when we eventually set our robo-advisor portfolios up. I know the initial plan was to set the automated funds transfer on the same date, time and amount to Smartly and StashAway for comparison purposes. But that might be pointless since we will be sticking with both of them for a while and we will essentially be receiving the same purchase prices for the ETFs in these robo-advisor portfolios.
At this stage, our MIPs’ purchase dates are generally on the 8th, 16th and 22nd of every month if they are business days. They are spread out in the middle of the month about one week from each other. We might set the automated funds transfer amounts to Smartly and StashAway to be the same. However, maybe it might be better to have one of them at the start of the month and the other at the end of the month. That way, we are capturing the price actions almost every week without any need to vary the amounts. If necessary, we can inject more cash funds into the equity markets manually when there are dips and crashes without touching the automated investing components.
It’s good to plan ahead even though Smartly and StashAway have not launched yet. After all, it’s important to incorporate these robo-advisors into our asset portfolio in a long-term and sustainable manner. Depending on the user capability, appearance, ease of set up & use, my wife and I will choose one each. Can’t wait to compare the both of them!