- Phillip Securities
- DBS Vickers
- OCBC Securities
- UOB KayHian
- Kim Eng
- Lim & Tan
Brokerages only provides a platform for you to trade, while the actual shares that you buy will be kept with CDP which is a Central Depsitory account under Singapore Exchange. Since all the shares are kept seperate from the brokerages, your asset will be save even if any of the brokerage you trade with runs into any trouble. Having say that, centralise storage provides the benefit of cross platform trading, meaning when you buy shares from Brokerage A, you are able to sell it through Brokerage B.
The next most important website to every single investor needs to be familiar with is the Singapore Exchange as this is the site where all the brokerages will pull the prices of shares and present it to you. It contains all the informations on every single listed companies.
After buying what you want in the market, it is time to pay up. Typical shares in Singapore trade in per lot size (1000 unit shares). Let's say you want to buy 1 lot of SGX shares at $7.80, be prepare to pay $7800 plus brokerage commision, exchange clearing fees and GST which amounts to an addition of about $30 depending on the amount you buy. If you are using a cash trading account with the brokerage, payment can be made through EPS (Electronic Payment for Shares) with any of the local banks.
Don't worry about all the accounts that need to be open and link up, just visit any of the brokerage and they will gladly get everything done for you. Do prepare to wait for a couple of weeks for your CDP account to be approved though, so even if you have no intention to trade right away, it is really good to start applying for your account now since 2 weeks in the market is a long time and the price you are interested in might have already moved way above what you are willing to pay.
