Is Invest-Saver or digiPortfolio for me?

If you’ve only got a minute:

• If you are keen to start investing, a regular savings plans like DBS Invest-Saver and a robo-advisor like DBS digiPortfolio are assessable options for you.
• With DBS Invest-Saver, you have a flexible portfolio which you can tailor based on your investment goal, preferences, and risk appetite.
• DBS digiPortfolio provides you with ready-made, quarterly rebalanced portfolios that’s curated by the DBS Investment Team.

Investing is an effective way to put your savings to work. It presents opportunities for you to preserve and build your wealth, ensuring that over time, the value of your hard-earned savings is not eroded by inflation.

While many of us know this, we might face inertia to embark on our investment journey. Some common worries behind the hesitation include making investment mistakes, not having the time or know-how to monitor their investments, or simply not knowing where to start. 

As a general rule of thumb, if you are new to investing, you should take note of your financial circumstances, investment goals, risk appetite and time horizon. Once you are aware of them, you can then consider what investments are available to you.

DBS Invest-Saver & DBS digiPortfolio

There are 2 investment solutions that you can consider - DBS Invest-Saver and DBS digiPortfolio.

These solutions share 2 key similarities. They offer the benefits of a low barrier to entry while providing you with diversification benefits, making them suitable for a wide range of investors (even the experienced ones!).

This means that you’ll have to evaluate their differences to understand which of the 2 is better suited to you.

Learn more: DBS Invest-Saver

Learn more: DBS digiPortfolio

1. Investment frequency

DBS Invest-Saver is a regular savings plan (RSP) that adopts a dollar cost averaging (DCA) strategy. With an RSP like DBS Invest-Saver, you are setting aside a pre-determined amount of savings – starting from $100 per month – for investing. The cash you set aside is then invested for you on a fixed day each month in diversified investment products like exchange-traded funds and unit trusts of your choosing.

With this method of investing, you are able to accumulate your investments in a steady and progressive manner.

Read more: What to know about DCA

Meanwhile, DBS digiPortfolio is a robo-advisor that allows you to invest in ready-made portfolios starting from $100. These portfolios are managed by a team of portfolio managers at DBS, who are supported by algorithms so that your investment portfolio can survive through different economic scenarios. This gives you the best of both worlds.

With DBS digiPortfolio, you will have to make lump-sum contributions. Using this approach means you have the option to top-up your investment in DBS digiPortfolio along the way if you have more cash on hand or if you see a market opportunity to do so.

2. Investment fees

With any investment, the fees you incur can to a certain extent, eat into your overall returns. As such, it is important to know the fee schedule of the investments you are undertaking – how and when they are charged.

DBS Invest-Saver charges a transaction fee based on each monthly transaction, while DBS digiPortfolio charges an annual management fee which goes towards the research, monitoring and rebalancing of the DBS digiPortfolio.

Read more: Understanding investment fees

3. Flexibility for personalisation

As we progress through the different life stages, it is only natural that our investment goals, objectives, and risk tolerances will change over time. As such, there’s no one-size-fits-all portfolio that will cater perfectly to every individual. In light of this, it is helpful to have the option of customising your portfolio as necessary.

DBS Invest-Saver offers you high flexibility for personalising your portfolio to align it with your investment goals, preferences, and risk appetite.

For instance, risk averse individuals can choose to pick up more fixed income ETFs/unit trusts and dividend-focused ETFs/unit trusts while those with higher risk appetite can allocate more funds into the Singapore equity ETF or Singapore-focused unit trusts.

You can also choose from an extensive list of unit trusts to gain exposure into your preferred markets (i.e. local, global) or industries (i.e. banks, property).

That said, this does come with a caveat. You will have need to be more hands-on when it comes to managing which individual ETFs or unit trusts to invest in as well as how much to allocate.

On the other hand, DBS digiPortfolio provides you with ready-made, quarterly rebalanced portfolios that’s handled by professionals.

While this leaves you with less flexibility to personalise your portfolio, if you are unsure of what to invest in, all you have to do is fill in a questionnaire covering your investment objective and risk appetite, among others. Suitable options will be listed for you.

4. Level of guidance

Apart from the flexibility, DBS digiPortfolio and DBS Invest-Saver also come with different levels of guidance. If you are using DBS Invest-Saver, you are essentially building your own portfolio with your own ETF and/or unit trust picks. That’s great if you are a savvy investor!

However, if you prefer to let the professionals do the research and portfolio management for you, then DBS digiPortfolio is the way to go. You will have the full expertise of the DBS Investment Team to help you design, build, and maintain your portfolio. Each portfolio consists of quality ETFs/unit trusts that are carefully curated to ensure optimal asset allocation and portfolio resilience.

5. Choices to make

When you are investing in the stock market, you are bound to make choices. The same choices will have to be made whether you choose to invest with DBS Invest-Saver or DBS digiPortfolio. Well, the only difference is the amount of choices you will be making.

To invest with DBS Invest-Saver, you will need to be prepared to make a handful of choices. From which ETF/unit trust to add into your portfolio to the proportion of your funds that you allocate to each ETF/unit trust in your portfolio, you have plenty of choices to make. You will also need to decide on other things such as the risk, asset allocation and the rebalancing strategy.

If you’d rather not have to make so many choices, DBS digiPortfolio will better suit your needs. All you have to do is to choose a portfolio and pick the preferred level of risk you are comfortable with.

Strike while the iron is hot!

While it is important to choose the right investment solutions to help you kickstart your investment journey, don’t let this be a stumbling block for you.

After all, if you feel that your choice doesn’t suit your changing needs, you can always make tweaks later on. If you have doubts on which option to take, you can speak to DBS Wealth Planning Managers, who are always on hand to explore your financial planning options with you.

Here’s a summary of the factors to consider when choosing between DBS Invest-Saver and DBS digiPortfolio.

The key is to start investing as early as possible, and embrace the virtues of discipline, time, and patience, so as to grow your wealth and reap the full benefits of compounding.

Read more: Discipline, time, and patience in investing

Begin your journey with DBS Invest-Saver or DBS digiPortfolio today!

Investment Tip: Earn higher interest on your investments with a DBS Multiplier Account. Invest-Saver and digiPortfolio are now recognised as eligible transactions for investments, and contribute to your total monthly eligible transactions. Check out how DBS Multiplier makes it easier for you to multiply your money.

Ready to start?

Speak to a Wealth Planning Manager for a financial health check and discuss how you can better plan your finances.

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Disclaimers and Important Notice
This article is meant for information only and should not be relied upon as financial advice. Before making any decision to buy, sell or hold any investment or insurance product, you should seek advice from a financial adviser regarding its suitability.

All investments come with risks and you can lose money on your investment. Invest only if you understand and can monitor your investment. Diversify your investments and avoid investing a large portion of your money in a single product issuer.

This advertisement has not been reviewed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.

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