FAQs

When you invest with CONNECT, you are investing in a globally diversified and actively managed portfolio, or Certificate, which is issued by Banque Julius Baer. This Certificate is an efficient way for us to invest in up to 12 different asset classes on your behalf and rebalance periodically, without incurring the fees of traditional investing in separate underlying securities.

Your investment portfolio is held as the reference asset in a CONNECT Certificate. This means that you have three main risk factors to consider before making an investment:

Are you comfortable with the risk level that you have selected in terms of exposure to global markets?

Your market risk exposure is determined by the preferences that you set for each goal.

Are you comfortable with the credit quality of the issuer of the Certificates?

In our case the issuer of the CONNECT Certificates is Banque Julius Baer, a Swiss bank that is rated A3 by Moody’s.

Are you comfortable with the custodian that is holding your cash and securities?

Your assets and funds will be held in custody with BNY Mellon’s Pershing LLC (see https://www.pershing.com/about/strength-and-stability). Pershing LLC (member FINRA, NYSE, SIPC), is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation.

Absolutely not. Our portfolios offer daily liquidity with no redemption or transaction fees. Please note that sales orders, like purchase orders, settle on a T+3 basis – this means that it typically takes three business days for your transactions to settle and reflect as available cash in your CONNECT account.

The My Dashboard page has links to the investments in your portfolio. Explore this section to find out more about the status of your investments, monitor their progress as well as download term sheets, and other useful analytical data.

The minimum starting deposit is US$ 1,500 or its equivalent in foreign currency. Subsequent deposits may be made in any amount. There is no minimum balance required to keep your account active.

The portfolio allocation depends on each goal. On your account page, you can click on a goal to see its breakdown by asset classes (equities, bonds, alternative investments and cash) and by regions.

Your investment in each goal is held within a CONNECT Certificate. We rebalance at least monthly but may also rebalance in order to keep your portfolio aligned with your goals and risk suitability in the event of a major market movement or a change in fundamental economic conditions. Because rebalancing occurs within the Certificates, there are no transactions or fees generated when this happens.

As with all investments the expected returns depend on your stated risk profile. On your account page, you can click on a goal to see its expected return. Expected returns are based on the historical performance of similar investments and are indicative. In addition, the greater the expected return, the greater the risk associated with owning that portfolio.

Once you have transferred funds to your CONNECT account, you can log in to CONNECT to make your investment choices. We will do our best to see that the full balance in your account is invested, however due to the minimum unit size of the Certificates you could be left with a small cash balance. The settlement of the trade will take three business days.

Investments made via the CONNECT platform settle in three business days. You will see your investment reflected on your CONNECT account after settlement.

CONNECT is designed to provide you with an actively managed and balanced portfolio specifically matched to the risk and return preferences you establish for each goal. Should you change your risk preferences for any goal, you can switch to a different portfolio without incurring any fees. All access to your CONNECT account is accomplished through the CONNECT platform.

That’s simple and easy. Transfer funds into your CONNECT account from your approved funding bank account and once cleared it will show as un-invested cash in your CONNECT portfolio. Select an existing goal or create a new one to make your new investments.

Simply visit CONNECT online and redeem your investment in the related goal. Once the cash value is visible in CONNECT, you can notify us on support@crossbridgeCONNECT.com that you would like to withdraw the funds and we’ll provide the necessary documentation that needs to be completed. Cash transfers can only be made to your approved bank accounts.

In order to open a CONNECT account you will need to agree to and E-sign our Terms of Business and provide us with some information about yourself.

We are required to identify all of our potential customers so we will need you to provide satisfactory identification documents and we will need to verify these as part of our on-boarding procedure.

This is a standard process for clients seeking to establish a relationship with any Financial Institution.

We’d like to know if you use any names other than your legal name provided on your identification documentation. This is part of our Know Your Customer (KYC) policy.

We will need the following documentation to complete your account:

A National Registration Identification Card, or NRIC, is the identity document used in Singapore for Singapore citizens.

A Foreign Identification Number, or FIN, is issued to an individual who is a permanent resident of Singapore and long-term pass holders by the Singapore government.

Providing this information is optional but may speed up your account application.

There are a number of options available to verify your passport. You can choose the most suitable for you.

We are required by current regulation to know where you are a tax resident.

When prompted during the account set up process, please select the primary country in which you work and pay taxes.

Different countries pose different risks of money laundering and dependent on your answer, we may be in touch to gather a little more information.

We can accept the following as proof of residency:

We may be required to verify your proof of residency depending on the documents you have provided. There are a number of options available in the event this is necessary. You can choose the one that’s best for you:

You will need to provide documentation showing:

(a) you have net personal assets exceeding SG$ 2 million, whereby the net value of his/her primary residence is taken into account for no more than SG$ 1 million, or

(b) that your income in the preceding 12 months is not less than SG$ 300,000 or

(c) you have financial assets (net of any related liabilities) exceeding SG$ 1 million.

We can accept a bank statement, title deed, property tax statements, pay slips (three months), IRAS statement, a CPF statement or brokerage statement. Documents have to be dated within the last three months or alternatively once a year annual statements to be supported by one recent pay slip.

Other than the proof of AI status, we will also require the Opt-In Form, where you declare that you want to be treated as an AI.

You can upload multiple documents to evidence your Accredited Investor status.

You are required to make a declaration of your tax residency by completing either the W-8BEN or W9 form during the account set up process.

If you are a U.S. person, please complete and submit the W9 form.

If you are not a U.S. person, please complete and submit the W-8BEN form.

For clarity on the definition of U.S. persons and whether you should be classified as one, please seek professional independent advice.

We require you to provide your personal bank details when setting up your CONNECT account. Incoming funds can only be accepted if transferred from this approved account (or other approved accounts that you may add later) and any withdrawal you request can only be made to this (these) account(s).

The account must be in your name and match the name of your CONNECT account. Third party transfers are not accepted.

To change your funding account details associated with CONNECT you will need to contact support@crossbridgeCONNECT.com.

Changing the destination of any outgoing funds post account set up requires a number of security checks on our side.

For your security, we are extremely careful when processing such requests and as such, updating these details may take a little time.

Our Terms of Business document sets out the terms and conditions of the services that we will provide to you and you should read them carefully before accepting them.

This document is available here.

To comply with our internal Know Your Customer procedures, we screen some of your personal information against various international databases via a widely used third-party service.

This is an important step in ensuring we can identify and exclude potential money laundering risks. The search does not have any impact on your credit rating.

We aim to make closing an account as quick and simple as possible. Simply send an email to operations@crossbridgeCONNECT.com to request account closure and we will contact you to process your request.

No problem.

To change any of your account details associated with CONNECT simply contact support@crossbridgeCONNECT.com

We are required by current regulation and our internal Know Your Customer procedures to conduct periodic reviews of our customers’ files. This includes ensuring we have valid and current identification documents on file and that you remain an Accredited Investor. We will be in touch when your review is due to let you know what documents we require.

CONNECT is Singapore’s first digital advisory platform developed by Crossbridge Capital’s in-house investment advisory team. Based on your financial goals which you create, CONNECT will establish if investing in a diversified portfolio is the right strategy for you. If so, it will match you to a CONNECT portfolio we have created tailored to your individual investment needs.

Investing with CONNECT provides you with the benefits of a personalised and diversified portfolio without the hassle and the high fees of traditional providers. We aim to help you visualise and achieve your financial goals and to allocate investments accordingly.

If you are at least 18 years of age and an Accredited Investor according to Singapore regulations, you may be eligible to become a client of CONNECT. See the Account Opening FAQs for further guidance on residency requirements.

In Singapore, an Accredited Investor has:

(a) net personal assets exceeding SG$ 2 million (or equivalent in foreign currency) whereby the net value of his/her primary residence is taken into account for no more than SG$ 1 million, or

(b) an income in the preceding 12 months of not less than SG$ 300,000 (or equivalent in foreign currency), as defined in Section 4A(1)(a) of the Securities and Futures Act (SFA), Chapter 289, or

(c) financial assets (net of any related liabilities) exceeding SG$ 1 million, where “financial asset” means a deposit, an investment product or any other assets.

We aim to make pricing as simple and transparent as possible.

With CONNECT, you benefit from a simple pricing model without transaction charges, brokerage costs or any hidden fees.

CONNECT Certificates include administrative and management fees of up to a maximum of 1.25% per annum. As the Investment Adviser we receive a portion of these fees to manage the portfolios we have created for you. These fees only apply to your investment amount and do not apply to your cash balance. As result, when we present a target return to you, this is the net number. There are no other fees. What you see is what you get.

No. There are no fees on transactions with CONNECT.

We do not charge entry fees or exit fees.

Traditionally financial institutions create a risk profile for each client by asking them a series of multiple choice questions that are designed to evaluate the client’s ability to tolerate risk versus the return they expect.

There are two problems with this approach. Firstly, one risk profile probably doesn’t fit all of your goals. For example, a low risk, low return investment may be appropriate for a long term goal like university savings whereas a higher return investment might be needed for a shorter term goal such as a wedding party. Secondly, these traditional risk profiles often become stale as the client’s financial situation changes over time.

Using technology, we have found a better approach.

CONNECT allows you to define your risk and suitability profile for each goal. As part of your on-boarding process and before investing in each new goal you will interact with a set of sliders, or controls. Moving the sliders changes the expected investment outcome on the graph and it also generates a risk suitability profile that describes the characteristics of a person who would typically make a similar investment. Once you have seen the description, you might decide to change your risk profile to fit another description.

CONNECT presents you with a selective set of portfolios that correspond to your specific risk profile and focuses on diversification and optimal risk-adjusted performance.

With CONNECT, you benefit from a simple pricing model without transaction charges or any hidden fees.

You invest and monitor your portfolio through a simple and user friendly web-based interface, whenever you want.

Once you fund your account, CONNECT takes care of all transactions:

We do not charge brokerage fees to rebalance your portfolio.

CONNECT is designed for Accredited Investors only.

This means we can provide you with exposure to asset classes that may not be available to retail investors. Additionally, we utilise highly efficient CONNECT Certificates as investment vehicles to reduce the negative effect of transaction costs on your returns.

Assuming you had the time and the expertise, you could build a portfolio yourself. You are likely to find that the DIY option often ends up costing you more in fees (both disclosed and hidden) especially after you consider initial transaction fees, rebalancing transaction fees, embedded product fees, custodian fees, statement fees, confirmation fees… and the list goes on. At CONNECT the only fees you pay are the advisory and administrative fees built in to the CONNECT Certificates. You also might consider hiring a professional manager either through your bank or by purchasing units of a mutual fund. We created CONNECT because the high fees associated with those traditional options can seriously impact the returns on your portfolio.

Yes, CONNECT is part of Crossbridge Capital Asia, which has a Capital Markets Services License granted by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.

Additionally, Crossbridge Capital Asia is part of the Crossbridge Capital Group, the leading global wealth management company, which also has other regulated entities in London and Monaco and counts two Swiss Banks as minority shareholders.

We can open accounts for non-Singaporean residents. Please complete the account set up process online and we will be in touch regarding your eligibility and further details, if any are needed. Unfortunately, if you are domiciled in the United States, we cannot open an account for you on the CONNECT platform at this time.

Yes, the CONNECT platform is available to U.S. persons residing outside of the United States. On the CONNECT platform, your assets and funds will be held in custody with BNY Mellon’s Pershing LLC (see  https://www.pershing.com/about/strength-and-stability). Pershing offers U.S. tax reporting as part of its suite of services. All tax matters relating to your own tax position remain your own responsibility.

No. You are responsible for assessing the potential tax implications of choosing to invest with CONNECT in Singapore. CONNECT is not responsible for any tax consequences of your investments.

U.S. persons using CONNECT will receive an IRS 1099 Form in order to facilitate their U.S. tax reporting and documentation.

CONNECT is compliant with Singapore’s Personal Data Protection Act 2012 (PDPA).

We take data security very seriously and have ensured that the latest technologies are used to host the CONNECT platform. Any of your data stored at CONNECT is encrypted to 256-bit level both in transit and at rest. This is the same, or in some cases, higher than the level used by banks.

Assuming you had the time and the expertise, you could build a portfolio yourself. You are likely to find that the DIY option often ends up costing you more in fees (both disclosed and hidden) especially after you consider initial transaction fees, rebalancing transaction fees, embedded product fees, custodian fees, statement fees, confirmation fees… and the list goes on.

At CONNECT the only fees you pay are the advisory and administrative fees built into the CONNECT Certificates.

You might also consider hiring a professional manager either through your bank or by purchasing units of a mutual fund. We created CONNECT because the high fees associated with those traditional options can seriously and negatively impact the returns on your portfolio.

Yes. All assets – cash and investments – will be held in custody with BNY Mellon’s Pershing LLC. Clients’ funds and securities held at Pershing are protected by the SIPC (Securities Investors Protection Corp). This insures accounts up to US$ 500,000 (US$ 250,000 limit on cash). See https://www.pershing.com/about/strength-and-stability.

The CONNECT team has taken great measures to ensure resiliency and recoverability when developing the CONNECT platform and any unavailability of the platform is highly unlikely.

Should this ever occur, you can call the investment team which is available to help and continue to manage your account while we get CONNECT back online.

If CONNECT stops operating, your cash and investments held in custody with Pershing will not be affected. You can choose to move your investments to another custodian or choose another financial institution to continue managing your account.

No. You will maintain your current bank account(s). You will have an account on the CONNECT platform on which your assets and funds will be held in custody with BNY Mellon’s Pershing LLC (see https://www.pershing.com/about/strength-and-stability). You will be notified via email of trade confirmations and monthly statements, which can be retrieved via a secure portal.

No. All communication with CONNECT is in English. At this time CONNECT cannot undertake to supply any translation or accept any instructions regarding your CONNECT account in any other language.

If you have any comments on how we can improve our service or if you’re not completely happy about anything, we’d like to hear about it straight away. Please write to us at info@crossbridgeconnect.com or call us at +65 6723 8173.