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If you haven’t already heard, yet another online broker has entered Singapore, hoping to contend for market share.
Webull is the newest kid on the block having just launched in Singapore in May 2022, and they came in guns blazing.
So, who or what is Webull and what do they have to offer?
What makes Webull a good option given the plethora of options that are already available in Singapore?
These are questions I’ll aim to tackle in this post, so read on to find out my thoughts!
Who Is Webull?
Webull is a Chinese-owned, United States (US)- based online broker.
It is owned by the Chinese holding company Fumi Technology which is backed by Xiaomi, Shunwei Capital, and other Chinese private equity investors.
Webull is a fairly renowned broker in the US that is looking to expand into the APAC region with Singapore as its APAC Regional Headquarters.
From their website, Webull Securities (Singapore) Pte. Ltd. was incorporated in 2021 and is regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).
It also holds a Capital Markets Services (CMS) License on the Securities and Futures Act 2001.
Is Webull Safe?
I couldn’t seem to find much information on their website about how Webull safeguards our assets, so I reached out to them and this is the response I got:
“Any asset and money deposited by you with us will be held by us in a custody account (“Custody Account”) held on trust and maintained by us in accordance with the Client Asset Rules and Client Money Rules. In the remote event of insolvency, no one has the right to claim those assets and money except for the client, themselves.
Your money and assets held by the US custodian are also SIPC protected.
For more information about SIPC protection, you may refer to their website to find out more.“
SIPC is the Securities Investor Protection Corporation, which is a non-profit corporation that protects investors’ cash and securities in the event that their broker fails.
US investments are covered by SIPC, which means our US investments are quite safe in Webull.
However, HK investments are not covered by SIPC, so there is some risk.
If you want to mitigate this risk, you can choose to use Webull only for US investments and pick other brokers for HK investments.
Which Markets Are Available To Trade?
Currently, Webull only supports trading on US and Hong Kong (HK) markets.
This is fewer than what is offered by its competitors Tiger Brokers (TB) and moomoo, both of which support the local Singapore market in addition to the US and HK markets.
TB also supports the Australian and China market.
Why Should You Use Webull?
Commission-Free Trades
Webull offers an extremely competitive pricing structure in Singapore’s broker scene.
As part of their sign-up reward, users will be eligible for 0 commission, platform, membership, and contract fees for US markets permanently.
They are also offering 0 commission, platform, membership, and contract fees for HK markets as part of a limited-time promotion, set to end on 30 June 2022.
For both US and HK markets, regulatory and/or clearing fees as charged by the relevant exchanges or other institutions are still applicable and will be charged to customers.
However, these will be the only fees that customers can expect to pay, which is a pretty attractive offer.
While the concept of 0-fee trading isn’t new in Singapore, Webull’s offer seems to be the most competitive one around – at least for now.
Syfe Trade offers free trades to users, but these are capped at a monthly limit whereas Webull imposes no limit on how many 0-fee trades customers can make.
This makes Webull more flexible for investors because they are able to enjoy low fees regardless of how many trades they wish to make.
And even though TB and moomoo now offer commission-free trading, they still charge platform fees for all trades, on top of any other regulatory fees that may be applicable.
So their offer of 0 commission fees doesn’t quite come close to Webull’s offer of 0 commission, platform, membership, and contract fees.
Fractional Shares
Webull supports fractional share trading for US equities, which is a nice feature that brokers like TB and moomoo currently don’t offer.
This allows investors to own a fraction of a share rather than be forced to own a full share.
This is advantageous because it makes stocks and ETFs with a high share price more accessible to investors with smaller capital since they are not required to own a whole share.
To illustrate this, imagine that you want to invest in VOO (an S&P 500 ETF) but you only have S$300.
As of writing this post, VOO is trading at approximately US$350 or S$487, which means you would not be able to invest in VOO.
This means that all of your cash would be left idle and not invested in the market, which may cause you to lose out on some returns.
With fractional shares, you’d be able to invest your S$300 into 0.616 shares of VOO and mitigate this issue altogether.
Fractional shares are especially beneficial to students and young adults who usually don’t have much cash to invest at any time or anyone who is employing a dollar-cost-averaging (DCA) strategy.
That’s because it guarantees that you will be able to invest whatever cash you have set aside.
This feature isn’t unique to Webull – it’s also offered by Interactive Brokers and Syfe Trade.
For Webull, the minimum amount required to trade fractional shares is US$5, which is slightly higher than that required by IBKR or Syfe Trade at US$1.
Also, fractional share trading is only available for market orders, a common limitation across all 3 platforms that support it.
A market order means placing a trade to be executed immediately at the current market price.
In other words, unlike a limit order, you don’t get to set the price at which you wish to execute the trade.
Also, market orders can only be placed during regular trading hours – they cannot be placed during pre-trading and post-trading hours.
Sign-Up Reward
Webull is offering up to US$100 worth of Apple shares (AAPL) to new users, which is broken down into 2 rewards of US$60 and US$40 respectively.
To qualify for the US$60 AAPL share reward, customers must:
- make an initial deposit of at least S$2000 within 30 days of account approval
- execute at least 1 US stock/ETF/options buy trade within 30 days of account approval
- maintain a Net Cumulative Deposit of at least S$2000 for a period of 30 consecutive days
To qualify for the additional US$40 AAPL share reward, customers must:
- execute an additional 5 US stock/ETF/options buy trades (total 6 buy trades) within 30 days of account approval
- maintain a Net Cumulative Deposit of at least S$2000 for a period of 30 consecutive days
Net Cumulative Deposit = Accumulated deposit amount – Accumulated withdrawal amount, capital gains & losses are excluded.
In other words, as long as you don’t make any withdrawals from your account for 30 days after funding it with S$2000, you will fulfil the Net Cumulative Deposit requirement.
There are no restrictions on selling the AAPL shares after you have received them.
How Does It Compare To Other Brokers?
Commission Fees – US
| Broker | Fees |
| Webull | 0 USD |
| Interactive Brokers | 0.35 USD |
| Syfe Trade | 0.99 USD / 1.49 USD |
| Tiger Brokers | 1 USD* / 1.99 USD |
| moomoo | 0 USD^ / 1 USD |
*: Upon successful referral only to receive commission-free trades
^: 1 year only
Commission Fees – HK
| Broker | Fees |
| Webull | 0 HKD* |
| Interactive Brokers | 18 HKD |
| Tiger Brokers | 15 HKD |
| moomoo | 18 HKD |
*: Until 30 Jun 2022 only
Clearly, with Webull’s offering of 0-fee trades for US and HK markets, they are the cheapest broker around for both of these markets.
The fees stated for Syfe Trade are the fees that will apply after the monthly free trades are used up.
However, note that Webull’s 0-fee trading for HK markets is only valid until 30 Jun 2022.
They have not revealed what the pricing will look like for HK markets after that, so we shall see if they are able to remain as competitive as they are now.
FX Rates
Aside from commission fees, foreign currency (FX) fees is another cost of investing that we need to account for.
Many brokers don’t charge an upfront FX fee, but instead, price it into their conversion rates.
Let’s take a closer look at how Webull’s rates compare to other online brokers for conversion from SGD to USD at approximately the same time.
Since Interactive Brokers (IBKR) is known for their market spot rate FX conversions, we’ll use their rates as the baseline.
First, let’s look at Webull’s FX rate.
Webull’s exchange rate is 1 SGD = 0.7159 USD.
Webull VS IBKR
IBKR’s exchange rate is 1 SGD = 0.718 USD.
IKR offers a better rate because they offer market-rate conversions and they don’t profit off arbitrage.
However, they do charge an FX fee of 2 USD.
Taking IBKR’s rate as the market rate, this means that the implicit cost of FX conversion on Webull is (0.718 -0.7159)/0.718 = 0.29%.
Webull VS Syfe Trade
Syfe Trade’s exchange rate is 1 SGD = 0.7163 USD with no FX fees.
This translates into an implicit cost of 0.24%, making it slightly cheaper than Webull.
Webull VS Tiger Brokers
TB’s exchange rate is 1 SGD = 0.7155 USD with no FX fees.
This translates into an implicit cost of 0.35% which is slightly more expensive than Webull.
While Webull’s FX rates may not be the best, they remain highly competitive, placing in between brokers like Syfe Trade and TB.
Also, remember that IBKR charges an FX fee of 2 USD, which may turn out to be more than the 0.29% you’d pay with Webull.
To be exact, unless you’re converting (2/0.29%) = 690 USD = 960 SGD or more, paying 0.29% is actually cheaper than paying 2 USD.
Who Should Use Webull?
Given Webull’s unlimited, low-cost trades for US markets, it’s a great broker for anyone who regularly invests in US stocks/ETFs/options.
This could be someone who has or wants to build a complex portfolio with many different components.
Chances are that in order to maintain such a portfolio, they would often need to place multiple trades.
The pricing structure of Webull will allow them to place many trades while keeping the cost of investing low.
Traders can also benefit from Webull since they tend to place many trades in a day.
Trading fees are usually one of the biggest areas of concern for traders, and Webull mitigates this with their extremely low fees.
Sign-Up Reward Step-By-Step Guide
If you’d like to sign up for Webull, here’s a guide outlining the steps you need to take.
1: Register For Account
The first step is to register for a Webull account.
You can do this via my affiliate link here if you want to support me – I’ll earn a commission at no extra cost to you, which goes a long way in helping me maintain this blog.
Alternatively, you can head over to their website directly.
Either way, you will be eligible for their ongoing welcome offer.
2: Open Account
Once you have registered for a Webull account, your next step is to open an account.
This can only be done on their mobile app, so download the app from your phone’s app store by searching ‘Webull’.
Then, launch the app on your mobile phone and log in using the details you provided in step 1.
Tap on the ‘Open Account’ tab at the bottom of the screen, then tap ‘Open Account’ on the screen.
This is where you’ll need to provide your personal details.
You can retrieve your details via SingPass to make this process quick.
3: Fund Account
After your account has been opened, you’ll need to fund it.
Remember that to qualify for the welcome offer, your initial deposit, or first deposit, must be S$2000 or more.
Also, if you choose to deposit cash in a currency other than SGD for any reason, note that it will be converted to SGD upon deposit, and additional charges may apply.
So my advice would be to simply make the deposit in SGD.
To do this, tap on the Webull tab at the bottom of the screen and tap ‘Details’.
Under ‘Buying Power’, tap ‘Deposit’.
From here, you’ll be presented with 3 deposit options – eDDA Deposit, FAST, and Telegraphic Transfer.
eDDA Deposit is the fastest deposit method, so I’d recommend picking that option.
From there, follow the on-screen instructions to log in to your preferred mobile banking platform and add a bank account for eDDA deposits.
Then, enter the amount to deposit and tap ‘Submit’.
4: Convert Currency
Now that you have cash in your account, remember that you have to place buy trades for US markets to be eligible for the welcome offer.
This means you’ll need to convert your SGD to USD.
To do this, tap on the Webull tab at the bottom of the screen and tap ‘Details’.
Under ‘Cash Balance’, tap on ‘Exchange Currency’.
From there, select ‘From SGD’ and ‘To USD’ and enter the amount.
You will see the exchange rate before confirming the order.
5: Execute US Market Buy Order
Once you have successfully converted your SGD to USD, you’ll need to execute buy orders for either US stocks, ETFs, or options of your choice.
You can choose to just make 1 buy trade to receive US$60 of AAPL shares or 6 buy trades to receive US$60 + US$40 of AAPL shares.
There is no amount required for each trade, but note that if you want to make fractional trades, the minimum amount per trade is US$5.
6: Maintain Deposit Amount For 30 Days
After executing your buy trades, the only requirement left to receive your AAPL shares is to maintain a Net Cumulative Deposit of at least S$2000 for 30 consecutive days from the day you first funded your account.
In other words, your net amount deposited must exceed your net amount withdrawn by S$2000 or more for a full 30 days, starting from the day you fund your account.
This means that if you deposited exactly S$2000 in step 3, you just need to avoid making any withdrawals for 30 days.
Or, if you deposited more than S$2000, you’re free to withdraw the amount in excess of S$2000, ie S$500 if you deposited S$2500.
7: Receive AAPL Shares
After 30 days have passed, you will be eligible to receive either US$60 or US$100 of AAPL shares, depending on how many buy trades you executed in step 5.
The AAPL shares will be automatically credited into your account within 7 business days from the date you fulfil all the criteria.
In other words, if the date of your initial deposit was 1 Jun, you would meet all the eligibility criteria on 30 Jun.
Then, you will receive the AAPL shares within 7 business days from 30 Jun, ie by 11 Jul.
To summarise,
Another major broker from the US has landed on Singapore’s shores, making the competition in the online broker space even fiercer.
I think Webull’s entry into Singapore is great for us as retail investors because competition can result in better pricing for consumers.
Webull is already offering extremely attractive benefits like 0-fee trading with reasonable FX rates.
This makes Webull an excellent choice for a broker for anyone who makes many trades on the US market.
If existing players want to remain relevant, they will have to adjust their pricing structure to appeal to investors.
Webull’s welcome offer of up to 100 USD is also a great deal in itself.
This promotion ends soon, so if you’re interested in snagging this deal, be sure to sign up soon.
If you’ve found this post helpful and would like to support me, you can use my affiliate link to sign up for a Webull account.
I’ll earn a commission which helps me to maintain this blog at no added cost to you – it helps me out a lot!
Will you be using Webull? Why or why not? Let me know in the comments below!