A new brokerage account

Currently, I am using UOB Kayhian and iOCBC as my brokerage firms, well actually only UOB kayhian. Basically, I haven't really got down to using iOCBC ever since it was opened at a whim somewhere in end 2012, when they had some promotion with relation to lower brokerage fees. And so, ever since, I have been only using UOB Kayhian, no real reason why I am such a loyal customer, maybe its just pure inertia to change broker all the time.

Well, recently I came across an advertisement by Lim and Tan securities. It was pretty attractive I must say, comparing to the existing loyalty rewards of UOB Kayhian. This was the advertisement.

Basically, this year is Singapore's 50th birthday, and many business have been giving some discounts/promotions in celebration of SG50. All we have to do is to be a new account holder of Lim and Tan securities, make 3 trades with 3 months of account opening and we can have $88 worth of reward points credited. That is about free 3 trades or so, assuming $25 commission each trade. So buy 3 trades, get 3 trades free. And to further sweeten the deal, if the new account holder makes 3 trades within a month of opening, he/she will get an extra $80 worth of NTUC fairprice vouchers! So its true, $168 worth of rewards if we make 3 trades within a month of opening.

I decided to open a new account, largely based on the anticipation that I would most likely achieve the 3 trades in 3 months, if not the 3 trades in 1 month bonus. Assuming I were to make 3 trades, that will work out to be $75 in total of brokerage fees, and then if I were to execute them all within a month, I would be able to get $168 worth of rewards, quite a good deal I feel.

And so, yesterday, I made a trip down to Vivocity, where they were holding an SGX carnival, I think it was a My First Stock Carnival, and had my account opened there. I had actually planned to get the documents ready and mail it to them, but since Vivocity is near enough for me to cycle there (about 10km), I thought I might as well go down to get it done sooner.