A Candid Review: Is moomoo SG Trying Too Hard?

A Recap of 2021

I first wrote about moomoo SG in March 2021, after trying out the app for a week.

For years, I envied my US counterparts for having the opportunity to buy 1 share at a time as a dollar-cost averaging (DCA) strategy and incur fees below 1% of their transactional value.

So honestly, in early 2021, I was thankful that there was this option to use a low-cost online brokerage to trade stocks in Singapore. Using the platform proved to be a great experience as the trades were executed swiftly and fees incurred were much lower than traditional brokerages.

At the same time, to entice investors and traders to come onboard and test out the moomoo SG platform, an attractive welcome bundle was offered. The typical bundle of a free Apple share and cash vouchers worth SGD200 was available almost throughout 2021, a good immediate 7% return if you deposited the minimum SGD2,700 to meet the criteria.

Rebuffs

Therefore, unsurprisingly, I hustled really hard and recommended moomoo SG to many close family members and friends. Most of them were happy to take advantage of this promotion and obliged to deposit SGD2,700 to open a moomoo SG universal account.

However, on a few occasions, I received some rebuffs that went something like this:

“Hey Mr 15HWW, why are you promoting such a scam? You are asking me to risk SGD2,700 for SGD200 of benefits? Do you know how ridiculous and ponzi-like this sounds?

 

Such Chinese brokers are dubious at best and you had better be careful yourself.”

A small part of me empathised with such comments but I must admit I am glad and relieved that nobody has reported having any issues selling their free Apple shares or withdrawing their capital from moomoo SG during the past two years.

Moomoo SG Might Need More Time To Build Stronger Trust

Trust is probably the hardest thing to earn in the financial world but moomoo SG’s persistence and performance in the past two years in Singapore should have earned themselves some brownie points.

Detractors will not care that moomoo SG ’s parent company, Futu Holdings had annual net income (non-GAAP) of US$176 million and US$373 million for 2020 and 2021, respectively and that Futu Holdings has a substantial net worth of US$2.69 billion (approximately HK$20.99 billion) in 2021, for example.

Even if this scale of net assets exceeds those of many Hong Kong banks and represents a solid financial operation.

Most Singaporeans only trust brokerages that are linked to one of the three local banks, even while grudgingly paying substantial transaction or custodial fees.

I think moomoo SG probably knows this. Hoping to assuage skeptical investors, moomoo SG ’s latest promotion for new users involves even less risk on users’ part as compared to a year ago. In fact, users do not even have to invest in stocks or volatile assets and run the risk of suffering paper losses. Yes, we are in a bear market and the majority just wants to protect their capital.

One simply needs to deposit a minimum of SGD100 in a cash management fund and will be able to receive S$2 of cashback everyday for 30 days*. One would only have to ‘risk’ S$100 to earn a potential S$60, a 60% return!

S$60 might not be a lot of money to you, but for a young adult who is still in school (anyone above 18 can open a moomoo SG universal account), that could be one week of allowance!

Moomoo SG is evolving into an All-In-One investing app. Besides allowing you to buy stocks or ETFs, one can even park cash/currencies on the platform for a decent yield. Really convenient. At the minimum, I believe moomoo SG is a useful platform for many to set aside a small amount of funds to express any short-term views they have of the market.

What it probably lacks is time in the SG market and trust, which should manifest in the long run if they continue to innovate and offer a competitive product.

Conclusion

Objectively, I do hope moomoo SG and other low-cost online brokerages succeed and thrive in the SG scene. At the minimum, this will put pressure on traditional brokerages to streamline, innovate and not just purely rely on longevity and trust to retain customers’ investment capital.

Thanks for reading.

*Terms and conditions apply. 

This article is written in collaboration with moomoo Singapore. All views expressed in the article are of my independent opinion. Neither moomoo Singapore or its affiliates shall be liable for the content of the information provided. This advertisement has not been reviewed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.