OCBC BCIP Review

If you are looking for a way to automate your investment, OCBC BCIP is a Regular Savings Plan that allows you to buy into individual stocks or ETFs using a dollar cost averaging strategy. This means that you invest a fixed amount of money every month regardless of the market condition. Over time, you get an average cost of the stock/ETF you’ve invested.

Basic Overview

• Fees and Charges:
  For customers below age of 30 years old, and with initial investment of $500, the fee will be 0.88%.
  For customers above 30, min fee will be at min $5 or 0.3% (which ever is higher) per counter.
• Min Investment Amount:
  $100
• List of Counters Available:
  1. CapitaLand Limited
  2. CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust
  3. ComfortDelGro Corporation Limited
  4. DBS Group Holdings Limited
  5. Keppel Corporation Limited
  6. OCBC Limited
  7. SembCorp Industries Limited
  8. Singapore Airlines Limited
  9. Singapore Exchange Limited
  10. Singapore Press Holdings Limited
  11. Singapore Technologies Engineering Limited
  12. Singapore Telecommunication Ltd
  13. Starhub Ltd
  14. United Overseas Bank Limited
  15. Wilmar International Limited
  16. Lion Philip S-REIT ETF
  17. Nikko AM Singapore STI ETF
  18. Nikko AM SGD Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF
  19. Nikko AM-ICBCSG CN BD ETF SGD
  20. Lion-OCBC Securities Hang Seng Tech ETF
  21. Lion-OCBC Securities China Leaders ETF

Why Did I Invest Using RSP (Regular Savings Plan)

I started investing via OCBC BCIP in 2019. At that time, the market seemed like it was at all time high. I didn’t want to do a lump sum investment only to have a crash happening in the next couple of months. That’s when I decided I want to just do dollar cost averaging using RSP. This way, I can be in the market, and also be able to pick up more cheap shares should the market tank.

Why Did I Choose OCBC BCIP?

I had a blue chip stock in mind that I have been wanting to buy. And this blue chip stock was in the list of counters offer by OCBC BCIP. The other platform that offers RSP on individual stocks is POEMs Shares Builder. DBS Invest Saver and FSMOne offers only ETFs or Unit Trust.

I went with OCBC BCIP because I already had an OCBC savings account. so signing up with the blue chip investment plan was only a few clicks away via internet banking

Lastly, I was able to invest min $500 on the counter, the buying fee works out to be 1% which seems reasonable to me.

OCBC BCIP Fees

Since I am above 30 years old, the min fee will be at min $5 or 0.3% (which ever is higher) per counter.

As mentioned earlier, I am investing a min. of $500. This works out to be 1% fee.

Looking at the table below, if you are only investing $100, then it will work out to be a 5% fee, which I think is not that worth it. But if you are investing $500 and above, I would say it makes sense to go with BCIP.

This buy/sell fee is the only fee that you need to pay. There is no annual fee or platform fee.

Signup Process for OCBC Blue Chip Investment Plan

Like I mentioned, this was a breeze for me, as I already had a savings account with OCBC. You can sign up via internet banking site. You simply have to specify which blue chip counter and what amount. The amount is deducted via Giro on the 15th of each month. And the actually buying of the shares will happen on the 22nd of each month. Any unused amount will be refunded to you via Giro.

Dividend Crediting

If the stock that you are invested in declares dividend, you will receive the dividend, in my case it was just 1 day after.

Scrip Dividend

A letter will be sent to you during the election period for you to make the selection. You will need to send that reply slip back if you want to receive your dividend in scrip. Otherwise, you can just ignore the letter.

However, I did notice that there is no option for standing instruction. So you will always have to send in a reply if you want to opt in every time.

Portfolio Friendlyness

One thing that I find lacking is, on the OCBC BCIP investment page, all I get is the Number of units, the Estimated market value and the Current unit price. I do wish it tells me what my average cost price is, and if I’m at profit or loss for this investment

Summary of OCBC Blue Chip Investment Plan

Pros

• RSP for individual stocks
• Only buy/sell fee that you have to incur

Cons

• The buy/sell fee is considered expensive if you are investing a smaller amount e.g. $100
• You can’t easily tell if you are at profit or loss from the portfolio page.

Automating my investments is one of my favourite way of investing. You set it up and just forget about it. You invest and receive dividends in your savings account without doing anything after.

The OCBC BCIP is for you if you have a individual stock that you want to buy, that is from the list of counters. And you want to make use of dollar cost averaging to average out your investment.

Lastly, it will only be worth it, if you can invest a higher amount min $500, so it reduces your buy fee to 1%. Otherwise, you will have weigh out your option if it makes sense to have a higher fee of > 1%.

You can find out more on the OCBC BCIP page.