There are plenty of Robo Advisors and Brokerages out there, so why Syfe? I would try to answer this from my personal experience. And why I’m settled with them after spending countless times finding the best passive investing platform.
update: Not anymore, reason at the bottom.
What is Syfe?
Background info
Syfe is an international Singapore-based Robo Advisor company launched in 2019, so it’s rather new. What they provide: Syfe Wealth and Syfe Trade (Robo advisor and stock trading)
What Syfe Wealth Does
Let you pick ETFs or preset themes for you, based on themes like Energy, REITs, S&P 500 etc, which for each includes chosen ETFs, and auto-invest for you monthly.
What Syfe Trade Does
Let you trade the US market in market order, limit order and fractional shares orders(You can buy in dollar amount or 0.00X shares instead of 1, for example). No options.
Fees
- Syfe Wealth charges vary based on the size of your capital. However, the more capital you have in the account, the lower the yearly rate.
- Syfe Trade offers two free trades every month and after that USD 0.99 per trade. No platform fee, no withdrawal fee.
Why did I choose Syfe? (Not anymore, see bottom)
- Smooth and Simple UI
I love their UI is not filled with different options, that’s what I like about Syfe, Compared to Stashaway, it’s more user-friendly to me. They do offer both apps and website platforms.
- Customizable Portfolio
I’ve tried quite some Robo Advisors, or should I say brokerages with the auto-invest feature, they don’t let you pick your own ETFs, so that’s an advantage if you want to manage your money in your own hand sometimes (probably not always).
- Delay
Yes, I actually like their slower deposit time and transfers between portfolios take a few days to complete, which can calm me down, and always think before making any adjustment. A long-term investment is my plan.
- Singapore Dollar
I’m not from Singapore, so I don’t hold SGD in my local bank account, but the fact that holding one more currency could already diversify your risks. Plus you can put your SGD in a Money Market Fund, which also generates around 1% p.a., and you could arrange monthly investment to other portfolios using this fund as well. Smart system.
- Singapore REITs
Yes, I love to have access to it. I’m from Hong Kong, so I know how a small international city rent and housing market works. The REITS portfolio in Syfe Wealth lets you invest in Singapore REITS in SGD, so that’s a big plus for me to be able to imagine myself already bought my property. Kidding, to diversify is the reason. If you think it’s not enough, you could always build a VNQ, VNQI custom portfolio.
- Reasonable Management Fees
I couldn’t find hidden fees from this company. I always try to find them in brokerages. Those who say they have no platform fee, usually charge commissions; Those who say they have neither, charge trade handling fees; Or those say they don’t charge those fees, would charge inactive fees, etc. I’ve seen trickier, you got the idea.
I mainly use Syfe for passive investing, and the fee is cheaper than its peers, and definitely cheaper than banks while being more versatile. That being said, for serious trading and advanced feature like option, you better off using other platforms for now.
- Prompt Customer Service
I’ve contacted them multiple times via email, online chat, and on the app. Once I start the chat I could choose to contact a real person instead of a Bot, and a second later a CS will try to answer my enquiry. If CS are not online, they will reply to me via email when they can. I am satisfied with them so far.
- Can Be Auto Rebalanced Or Not Be
This is a vital reason for me to choose Syfe. Most of the Robo Advisors just pick the portfolio for you and not let you pick which ETFs are included in the portfolio. On a shady side of view, I might suspect the Robo Advisor company would adjust or rebalance the fund allocation to their liking for their own profits.
I know I should better own individual stock if I think this way, but a non-rebalanced portfolio suits my needs just fine. There are also saying that re-balancing would lower your performance, I believe so too, after all, I’ve already lowered my risk by DCA.
What I don’t like about Syfe
- Slow fund handling
As a foreigner myself, I send USD. The conversion between USD and SGD usually takes a day or two. And then for the money to invest into portfolios, it takes another 2 days. I believe it’s because of how fractional shares work, you just have to always wait for a day or two for each process.
I ended up waiting for almost a week to get my funds to show up in the corresponding portfolio. So definitely not fast. But I’m not to blame them, because I know it’s how it works. I’ve experienced the same for SoFi HK auto-invest. For stock trading to be able to do fast trade, I usually put 25k USD into other apps, just to make sure I could day trade or be more swift and flexible.
- Customer Service Was Robotic
Umm, just my personal preference. I enjoy easy-going individual-oriented personnel instead of templated dialogue openers, and enders. For example, multiple times they use “ Allow me to” to start a sentence, it itches me a bit, because you don’t have to be allowed by me. They are the ones who are helping, I am the one that needs help. Nothing really an issue here, except being a bit too robotic.
What I Wish Syfe Would Have
- Ability to transfer between Syfe Wealth and Syfe Trade. (They are working on this feature.)
- Ability to edit the allocation even after the portfolio is established and running. (They are adding a new edit feature too.)
- Advanced stock trading features like Options Trading and trailing stop % order.
- Larger user base: They make more money, and are there for adding more features and support.
- Debit / Credit Card: I don’t think they will be able to provide this in the near future. But it’s always good to write my request down.
Conclusion
Syfe is better than most robo advisors out there in terms of lower fees; Having access to Singapore REITS; Money park in a money market fund; Good CS support; Auto re-balancing portfolios every six months or the option to not to; Providing service for oversea investor like myself.
I do personally suggest people who are prone to excessive trading, or lack of time managing investing with Syfe. There were times I wish I just stuck to index ETFs instead of trading individual stocks, after all, it’s long-term wealth that counts.
If you are new to investing, you might want to know which type of investor you want to be.
If You Are Interested In Using Syfe
Here Is The Syfe Official Website
Use this Syfe Referral / Promocode (I don’t get benefit because I quit, you will however still get the cash-back.)
SRPSGBQ6R
You could earn a 6-month fee waiver for Syfe Wealth. As well as $10 cash back if you execute the first trade in Syfe Trade.
Disclaimer
I am not partnered with Syfe, the promotional code is just my referral code actually. As you can tell through my honest words, I just sincerely hope Syfe could suit someone who has been looking for something similar.
Update (I decided not to use their service.)
I quit using Syfe based on the following reasons: Deposit method frustration; Long deposit time & slow CS response time; Slow purchasing action; Lack of communities; And SIPC not registered under Syfe name.
- Not clear deposit instruction – 3 times, 2 failed for me
I wired a deposit to them multiple times, it might probably be just me. However the deposit instruction was not clear to me, and I have encountered problems while trying to make a deposit overseas.
On the other hand, I have used and deposits to many international brokers. I have Charles Schwab, Firstrade, Interactive Broker, Saxo, TD Ameritrade, SoFi accounts, no problem at all, not once.
Details For The Incident:
Syfe has a bank code and SWIFT Code provided. They also have SGD and USD accounts for each portfolio you create, with different numbers. I have had problems with both ends. There was no clear fixed instruction to demonstrate which bank account number, branch code, or SWIFT code to use. I ended up sending my funds to the wrong branch, got a problem with the account number, or deposited USD into SGD account (which was not allowed).
I also can’t add the SWIFT code they provided on my Citibank app. There’s a USD option you can tick to deposit to SGD Wallet but actually, you can only deposit SGD. So why was the option even there? However the fund did go through, and it just won’t show up in my account. So I have to reach the CS days later.
- Slow deposit time and slow CS response time
The deposit time could take up to 4 days on paper. So I need to wait for at least 4 days before I suspect any problem with the deposit. I also need to wait for another day for the follow-up. That’s a week in total before they start to work on knowing what’s happening.
- Slow purchasing action
I believe because they’re using Alpaca API, I need to wait for my fund to go to Alpaca first, wait, then Syfe system, wait, then to the SGD Wallet portfolios, wait, and another day to transfer to USD, and another day to purchase the ETFs in USD. That’s why purchasing takes so long, even moving money takes a long duration.
To be fair, SoFi also has auto-invest, which takes 3-4 days max, and I got a clearer status update for where and when will my money go. Syfe took me a week, at least.
I can safely say Syfe has the slowest deposit time I’ve ever encountered. I always got my international wire transfer ready to use with other brokers within the same day if not one day. I also receive individual CS calls from other brokers to follow up on my issues right away/ issues they found, instead of realizing the problem and informing them.
- Lack of communities
There’s a Syfe subreddit, the latest posts are at least a year ago, if not years. In the meantime, SoFi has their official workers always on the subreddit answering everyone’s’ questions.
- SIPC is not registered under Syfe’s name
Even though they stated clients’ funds are safeguarded with Banks in Singapore and with SIPC secured. They actually use Alpaca Securities as a sub-custodian, So you get SIPC. Last time I checked they don’t have Syfe name on the SIPC member list.
Not a big deal here but for example, Futu Securities uses Interactive Brokers API, but they still have their name on the SIPC website, more reliable I guess. If things go wrong, you’ll need to wait for extra days and deal with more complexity as they are using other services to provide you the service.
To Conclude
I decided not to use their service mainly out of frustration with the deposit experience I had. Why bother with it when I have plenty of options out there? It might probably be a sign to me as well.
