State of Play for Brokerages in Singapore

In the recent months, there was an industry changing annoucement of basically commission free trades from major US brokerags like Interactive Brokers, Charles Schwab, TD Ameritrade, E*Trade and the likes. Investors and traders can rejoice over this piece of good news.

The revolution was first started at around 2014 by the commission free trading app, Robinhood, but only recently gained main stream attention when the big brokerages started offering free trades.

Business margin will no doubt be squeezed leading to more consolidation in the brokerage industry. I believe brokerages be looking at ways to expand their scope service towards more banking and asset management like facilities to present a more attractive proposition to their customers.

While the impact is not yet being felt in Singapore. I believe local brokerages will feel the pressure soon. DBS may be the first mover in this aspect as they have already disbanded their remiser base and integrated their clients into their banking platform. Phillip Securites have also recently teamed up with other partners in a bid to secure a digital banking license.

Read my previous article on this subject:
New business model

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