iFAST Corporation is a Singapore-headquartered company that was listed on the Singapore Exchange Mainboard in December 2014.
The iFAST group of companies also operates in Malaysia, Hong Kong, and India.
iFAST provides investment solutions to financial advisers, financial institutions, insurance companies, pension fund managers, retail investors, and multi-national companies.
Leveraging on technology and services, iFAST helps their clients manage investments in one place - efficiently, securely and online.
In 2007, iFAST Corporation expanded into Hong Kong, and took over its main competitor, the ING I-WRAP platform. In 2008, iFAST entered the Malaysia market.
In 2009, the iFAST Global Prestige (iGP) platform for high net worth investors and wealth advisers was launched in Singapore, and subsequently in Hong Kong in 2010.
iFAST is effectively an internet-based investment products distribution platform –delivering trading and administration solutions. Over 150 FA companies, financial institutions and banks (with over 5,000 financial adviser representatives) use iFAST’s Business-to-Business (B2B) platform in Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia and India.
In 2009, iFAST Global Prestige Platform was launched to cater to the needs of high net worth investors and wealth advisers servicing them in Singapore, and subsequently in Hong Kong in 2010.
iFAST Global’s Prestige Platform is the company’s flagship international product – although very much angled towards advisers and HNWIs in Asia. It enables online dealing, settlement, fund setup and provider management, reconciliation, custody, pricing, trailer fee management and transaction.
The iFAST group of companies is licenced in Singapore through its Capital Market Services Licence and Financial Adviser Licence (also CPFIS registration), Hong Kong with a SFC Type 1 and Type 4, and Malaysia with a Capital Market Services License and FIMM registration. iFAST Financial India Pvt Ltd (India) is an AMFI- registered Mutual Fund Distributor.
The age and size of iFAST Group and the regulation under which it operates gives the company some credibility in its core markets.
iFAST offers access to around 500 funds from just over 90 fund managers, and a wide range of ETFs which allow for very low cost retail client investments. The basic platform is attractive to those with smaller amounts (as little as $1,000).
No lock-in or early surrender penalties are applied, but in order to move wrappers from elsewhere, e.g. pensions, a wrap account is required. This incurs an undisclosed percentage fee and is tailored to advisers.
Neither the Prestige nor the basic platform are available outside of Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, or India.
The B2C division provides a distribution and transactional platform to investors via the Fundsupermart.com (FSM) / FSMOne website.
FSM has a reputation for providing a wide range of investment products, a transparent fees structure, tools to compare investments easily, solid customer services support and research advice.
Fundsupermart.com/FSMOne (FSM, www.fundsupermart.com) is the online investment products distribution platform for Do-It-Yourself (DIY) investors.
FSM made its debut in Singapore in 2000, and has since built a reputation for offering an extensive range of investment products (funds, bonds and stocks/ETFs) and insurance products for DIY investors who prefer to transact on their own, while providing research and analyses from iFast's research team and other industry specialists.
The website experience is meant to make it easy for DIY investors to use for their transactions. Investors in Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia can have access to a wide array of investment products, including unit trusts (funds) and bonds (corporate, government, quasi-sovereign and high yield), while stocks and ETFs are available in Hong Kong and the new FSMOne platform in Singapore.
iFast's Robo-advisory portfolio management service was also launched on the Hong Kong FSM platform in 2015, and subsequently in Singapore and Malaysia in 2016 and 2017 respectively (known as My Assisted Portfolio Services (FSM MAPS) on the Singapore FSMOne platform).
To facilitate investors’ investment decisions, FSM provides in-house research analyses and tools on both the website and mobile application, to make it easy for investors to compare the different products available on iFast's platform.
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Our verdict is that platforms that are not completely transparent in terms of fees tend not to be in the interest of consumers, but salespeople and providers. In fact, iFAST even state that they offer complete flexibility in terms of charges, so that the annual wrap fee is variable and determined by the wealth adviser, which further enforces our point.
We would not recommend a client hold assets with this platform.
If you are an existing overseas investor with iFAST Financial, we recommend you have a free, no obligation X-Ray Review™ conducted to give you the information you need to make a decision on the best way forward.
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