How To Buy Stocks In Singapore For Beginners (with Lowest Fees)

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Do you want to invest in Singapore Stocks?

Buying and selling stocks listed in Singapore is a great way to build wealth. Singapore like United States, Hong Kong and China let investors to buy shares in the company listed in the Singapore Exchange (SGX).

Singapore Stocks Trading Platform For Beginners

In Singapore, there are many top online broker for investors to choose from, however, brokerage that operates in Singapore must hold a valid capital market services (CMS) license issued by Monetary Authority of Singapore.

If you just started investing, it’s a good idea to open trading accounts on online brokerage firms that are members of the Singapore Exchange (SGX).

Here are a comprehensive list of members of the SGX and also online stock trading platforms brokers that let you invest in shares of companies listed in the Singapore stock exchange.  

BROKERAGE	MIN. FEES (SGD)	TRADING COMMISSIONS (SGD)	ACCOUNT TYPE	CUSTODIAN FEES (SGD)
Moomoo	$0.99	0.03% Trade Value	Custodian	No custodian fees
Tiger Brokers	$0.99	0.03% Trade Value	Custodian	No custodian fees
Phillip Securities	$25.00	0.08% Trade Value	Custodian	$15 Per Quarter
KGI Securities	$25.00	0.18% Trade Value	Custodian	$2.14 Per Quarter
Lim & Tan Securities	$25.00	0.18% Trade Value	Custodian	$15 Per Quarter or 0.0025% pa of Market Value of Share
iFAST Financial	$8.80	0.08% Trade Value	Custodian	No custodian fees
Maybank Kim Eng Securities	$25.00	0.275% Trade Value	CDP	Not Applicable
DBS Vickers	$25.00	0.12% Trade Value	CDP	Not Applicable
UOB Kay Hian	$25.00	0.18% Trade Value	CDP	Not Applicable
OCBC Securities	$25.00	0.275% Trade Value	CDP	Not Applicable
CGS-CIMB Securities	$25.00	0.18% Trade Value	CDP	Not Applicable

Note: Data are consolidated, checked for accuracy and ensure outmost reliability by the Author through hours of research into each of the brokerage platforms, the author aims to provide the most accurate data by following strictly according to our editorial guidelines but always do your own due diligence before investing. Fees are for Singapore Stocks only. Updated in 2023.

How To Start Investing In Stocks In Singapore

Before you start trading stocks in Singapore, you need to decided which brokers in Singapore to open your trading account.

Finding a good brokerage to open your account can help you buy and sell shares with ease, while most brokerage are pretty similar, they are separated into two types of brokerage, providing slightly different forms of service.

1. Open a brokerage account with a securities broking firm that link your stock trading to a CDP account

Opening a brokerage account with securities broking firm that link your stock trading to a CDP account means that all your stocks and securities listed on the SGX will be deposited to your own personal Central Depositor Account (CDP).

• When you buy any SGX listed stocks or securities, all your purchase will be kept safe in your CDP.
• When you sell any SGX listed stocks or securities, your broker will inform CDP of the sale and your stocks will be deducted from your CDP account.

With this account, it is integrated to your CDP account to provide clearing, settlement and depository of your stocks and securities.

Securities broking firm that link your stock trading to a CDP account will requires you to open a CDP account prior to opening an brokerage account with them.

2. Open a sub-account with a securities broking firm that held your stocks and securities under the brokerage firm

Opening a brokerage account that is a sub-account with a securities broking firm means all your stocks and securities will be held by the securities broking firm.

• When you buy any SGX listed stocks or securities, all your purchase will be deposited within the brokerage.
• When you sell any SGX listed stocks or securities, your broker will sell your stocks immediately from your holdings in their depository.

With this account, you do not need to deal with CDP, but directly with your stock broker on any purchase or selling of your stocks and ETFs listed on SGX.

Beginners Guide To Buy Stocks In Singapore

Even as a beginner, get yourself started in investing is easy. Getting started in trading shares in Singapore only needs a few steps to get started.

Here is how you can setup your account and begin trading ETFs and stocks online in Singapore.

1. Open A CDP Account

For investors who are going to open CDP-linked brokerage account, you’ll need to open a CDP account that will help you deposit and safekeep your Singapore securities.

A personal CDP account is where you keep all your SGX listed securities including; ETFs, individual stocks, bonds, RETs, Singapore Government Securities (SGS).

Setting up your CDP account

• Go to the CDP website and apply for a CDP securities account either online.
• Choose to apply either individual account or joint account.
• Prepare your supporting documents for the application accordingly; Singaporean/Permanent Resident, Malaysian, Other Nationality.

Documents Required For Singaporean/Permanent Resident:

• Singapore Bank Account
• Photographed/Scanned Copy of Signature
• NRIC and/or Tax Identification Number (TIN)

Documents Required For Other Nationality/Malaysian/Foreigner:

• Singapore Bank Account
• Bank Statement From any Account Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) licensed banks; or CPF; or IRAS
• Photographed/Scanned Copy of Signature
• Passport or Work pass
• Tax Identification Number (TIN)

Opening a CDP account can be skipped if you are:

• Using a custodian brokerage account and not CDP-linked brokerage account.
• Investing using a Regular Saving Plan (RSP) offered by DBS, OCBC, UOB, and POEMS.

However, if you are unsure, it is best to open a CDP account as it is free and it opens you to many other options when choosing which brokerage to start your investing journey.

2. Open Online Brokerage Account That Buy And Sell Singapore Securities

Online brokerage is requires to let you buy and sell any stocks listed in the SGX.

Depending on which brokerage firms you open your account, you will be offered a list of different features that may suit you.

Thus, when choosing the right online brokerage, it is good to consider the following factors:

• Ease-of-use of the online brokerage platform.
• Fees and trading commission of using the online platform.
• Accessibility of the platform such as availability of App to allow on-the-go trading.
• Available of purchasing fractional shares instead of having to buy a certain minimum number of shares.
• Availability of advance trading options such as option trading to let you trade stock options when you become more advance in inventing.
• Option to invest in other markets such as US Stocks, Hong Kong Stocks, and China Stocks.

As a retail investor, these are some of the factors I will look for when picking the right online trading platform.

3. Fund Your Account For Stock Purchases

When you are using pre-funded account or a custodian account, you will need to fund your account before you can start purchasing any stocks and shares.

Personally, I prefer to fund my account with money from my bank account before I start to invest. This is because of a few reasons:

• Fees for pre-funded account trading are often much lower.
• I have a better idea on how much money I can use for investing.
• I will not over commit myself to buy a stock.

When you just started to invest, buying a small amount will be good, don’t overcommit yourself during investing.

Investing is a marathon, not a sprint.

Fund your stocks via money from your bank account, you can start with $100, $1,000, or even $10,000, it totally depends on you.

As a personal rule, it is always better to have 10% to 20% more than what you think you require in your account, and always avoid leveraging your investment.

Leverage is a good tool, but also a curse for many investors, beginner or experts.

4. Decide On What Stocks To Buy or Sell In The Singapore Stock Market

Choosing what stocks or ETFs to buy is probably one of the hardest question.

As a beginner investors it’s a good idea to start your investing journey by buying stocks and shares such as:

• Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs)

Buying individual stocks often requires more knowledge in investing, with individual stocks you can probably consider:

• Blue-chip stocks
• Dividend stocks
• REITs

Timing the market and looking at the market trends when purchasing the share is not easy, and often investors will “miss the boat”.

As a beginner investor, it is good to learn more about fundamental analysis and technical analysis, these are the two ways to pick the right stocks to invest.

5. Begin Stock Trading

When you start your stock trading on the online trading platform, there are a few things to lookout for:

1. Stock Prices: Price of the stock you are planning to invest. You always want to buy low sell high and not the other way around.
2. Minimum Number Of Share: Number of shares you need to buy per trade, typically it is 100 units of shares per lot, but different stocks varies greatly.
3. Brokerage Fees: Trading fees, custodian fees and commission varies amount brokerage, thus finding one which have low fees will be a good start.

6. Confirm Number Of Shares In Your Account

After purchasing any stocks, always check and confirm the number of share you have in your account.

• CDP-linked brokerage account: You can check your CDP securities holding by visiting your SGX investor’s dashboard. There you can see the number of share you have for each of your stocks.
• Custodian brokerage account: You can check the number of share you have for each of your securities in the brokerage platform.

Understanding the total amount of shares you have and the list of stocks you have in your account is important because you do not want to short-sell any stocks.

Selling stocks you don’t have which is also known as short-selling is very risky. It is borrowing stocks you don’t own and sell. If the price of the stock goes higher in the future, you will make a loss in your investment.

7. Build Your Investment Portfolio

As you invest, you will build you own portfolio of stocks and securities. Different individual have different preference in the types of stocks and securities that they want to invest, thus following different investing philosophy.

• Dividend investing
• Growth investing
• Value investing

Depending on the market trends, you may want to adjust your investment portfolio accordingly and change the types of stocks you should invest.

Medium to high risk investment options in Singapore:

• Growth stocks
• Dividend stocks
• Value stocks

Moderate risk investment options in Singapore:

• Bonds
• Blue-chip stocks
• Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs)

Low risk investment options in Singapore:

• Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs)
• Singapore Government Securities (SGS) Bonds
• Singapore Saving Bonds (SSB)
• Singapore Treasury Bills (T-Bills)

Is Singapore Stock Market A Good Investment?

Singapore stock market is a good place to start investing as it offers investors many opportunities to invest in a wide range of securities at low cost, highly secured and highly regulated environment, protecting your investment while letting investors grow their wealth in the stock market.

Similar to the US stock exchange, Hong Kong stocks exchange and China stock exchange, Singapore stock exchange (SGX) have established Singapore Exchange Regulation (SGX RegCo) to protect public interest as as a market regulator.

• Ensure market is fair, orderly and transparent.
• Ensure cutting-edge cyber-security protection.
• Regulate and monitor abnormal market activities to protect investors from pump-and-dump scams. (Very common on other stock exchanges)

Tax wise, not only there is no capital gain tax in Singapore, you do not need to pay tax you earn from the dividend distributed by the stocks you hold under the one-tier corporate tax system.

However if you are being consider as “trading in properties” you may still be subjected to taxations, check with your financial advisor or lawyer if you are unsure.

(Personally, I will think that the tax for investing is pretty grey, but unless you are a full time trader or earn your living from investment alone, generally there is no tax for investing in SGX for Singaporeans and Singapore PRs)

Which Trading Platform Is Best For Beginners in Singapore?

The best trading platform for beginners is Moomoo. Moomoo trading platform is one of the lowest fee trading platform that let you buy and sell Singapore listed stocks and ETFs on both desktop and though mobile App.

Here are some reasons why I personally think Moomoo is the best trading platform for beginners:

• Lowest trading fees to trade Singapore stocks.
• Ease-to-use platform and simple user interface.
• Real-time market data.
• Community of investors to learn investing.
• Real time investing news of the companies and industry.
• Educational resources and help support.
• Fully featured trading platform with extensive charting tools and data analytics.
• Good for fundamental analysis and technical analysis.
• Paper trading option to learn investing risk-free.
• Option trading available.
• Access to US Stocks, China Stocks, Hong Kong Stocks in additional to Singapore Stocks.

As a beginner investor, you can sign up a “Paper trade” account on Moomoo and learn how to trade with virtual money, letting you learn how to invest without risking investing real money.

When you are ready to start investing, you can fund your account and start buying and selling Singapore stocks.

What’s more, they are currently having promo where when you open a new account with Moomoo using this link, you will get a surprise exclusive deals as our reader at IncomeBuddies.

Products featured maybe from our partners who compensate us, this is how we can keep creating great content for you. While this may influence which products we write, it will not influence our review and evaluation. We follow strict editorial guidelines that ensure our reviews are unbias. Each product is guided by our rating methodology.