May 3, 2011

Battle of the Online Unit Trust Platform - Fundsupermart Malaysia vs eUnitTrust

I'm have been an active users for both online unit trust platform available in Malaysia currently - Fundsupermart Malaysia (FSM) and eUnitTrust (eUT) for the past two years. Both platforms offer the sales of selected unit trust funds with discounted sales charges. Typically, the sales charge for equity funds sold in these platforms, and the sales charge for fixed income funds ranges from 0 - 1.5%.

However, I prefer FSM over eUT for the few reasons highlighted below:
  1. Promotions: FSM always have thematic promotions for funds with even lower sales charge (1 - 1.5% for equity funds) from time to time. I have yet to see eUT platform offer such promotion.
  2. User-friendly platform: The whole web site is fairly easy to use for an average computer literate user. For eUT, the layout seems to be cluttered and "old fashioned".
  3. Wide selection of funds: Admittedly both platforms have quite similar range of funds available online. As of to date, FSM has 147 funds and eUT has 143 funds for sales online.
  4. Payment methods: FSM offers wider range of payment method, ranging from Cash Management fund, cheque deposit, funds transfer and Internet bill payment. Currently, you can directly pay for your purchases from your CIMB and HLB bank account. eUT does not offer Internet bill payment facility.
  5. Live Help: If you need help, just buzz Live Help for real time help from FSM helpdesk. I find this very useful especially for beginners where you will get help from a person, rather than just shooting email to support.
  6. Research: FSM chunk out tons of research reports and papers to analyze current economic and market conditions. Admittedly, some of the papers are skewed towards promoting their funds/investment themes. But, hey it's a willing seller willing buyer market here....so no offence to me!
  7. Forum: FSM has an online forum where fellow investors can discuss and share their knowledge on investment topics, although the forum is currently not as active. eUT does not have such feature.
The only disadvantage of both platforms is the limited selection of funds from popular fund houses such as Public Mutual, Hwang-DBS, MAAKL Mutual and etc. These fund houses focuses their selling efforts via their agents and hence the lack of motivation to offer online discounted sales charge.

So, why pay 5 - 6.5% sales charge where you can get most of the funds online at 2% sales charge or even lower? Remember, the basic rule of investments: keep the investment costs as low as possible to stay profitable!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

yes! i m a fundsupermart user too! i love them alot especially the Client service they have offer. Seriously, u cant find any better CS in Malaysia that been so helpful.

Jutamind said...

yes, they are helpful indeed.

i just hope they can rope in more established fund houses to give us investors more choices of funds.

yong said...

I fully support jutamind in his suggestion

Anonymous said...

i have roughly look at both websites. but i see eUnitTrust have a lot more fund compare to fundsupermart. the sales charge is the same for both..so, in eunittrust, we can compare more funds.. in my opinion, eUnitTrust is better la..

Jutamind said...

if you are looking at the drop down list in Fund Finder in eUnitTrust web site, you will see a much larger list, but be aware that those funds listed with a * cannot be sold online.

You may have a look at this pdf file (https://www.eunittrust.com.my/pdf/OnlineFundList.pdf) and focus on Online column. The funds with checked Online column means they are sold online. Else, the remaining funds are only transacted offline, i.e. by filling in forms, submit and pay etc.

BernMhp said...

Interesting article. I've never aware of such online service before. Thank you for your sharing.

Jutamind said...

Thanks for visiting my blog. Am glad that I can share some of the financial knowledge that I've gained.

Do click the Like button to share it out to other users as well.

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