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24-07-2011, 06:07 PM
Temperament Wrote:The cheapest brokerage fees for selling stocks purchased with cash only (No CPF's Stock) is Citi Bank.
I tried to open an account with them, it took almost 15 days (with to & fro, to & fro queries) and still not open yet. In desperation, a little worm (me) dared to tell them you either opened my account today (the 15 day already) or voided the application. Of course the application was voided.
It seems Citi Bank not so interested to earn brokerage fee. Look like this is not their bread & butter in Singapore. Even then isn't $business is $business?
In Singapore, Citi has always targeted the affluent. So it's possible that they are using the brokerage as a "loss leader" to lure in new clients who can be sold loans, credit cards, unit trusts etc. So they may be asking lots of questions in order to ascertain whether the new client can be "upgraded" to other products that are more profitable.
Citi may not be keen to take on clients who are only interested in low-fee services since it may not be able to push higher-margin products on these clients.
As usual, YMMV.