DBS NAV Planner’s New Digital Advisor: How This Personalised Feature Empowers You to Invest with Confidence

This post was written in collaboration with DBS. While we are financially compensated by them, we nonetheless strive to maintain our editorial integrity and review products with the same objective lens. We are committed to providing the best recommendations and advice in order for you to make personal financial decisions with confidence. You can view our Editorial Guidelines here.

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Before the advent of robo-advisors and online brokerages, people typically invested via their brokers or wealth planning managers.

It’s great having the undivided attention of someone whose job is to provide personalised financial advice, but let’s face it — we’re so occupied with our multiple commitments (family, job, fitness, Disney+…) that by the time we have the time and headspace to do a financial stock take or to read up on investing, it’s after 10pm.

Anyway, I digress. But you get my drift: With limited time in the day, some of us may have to opt for the self-service route when it comes to investing. We just have to trust our own research, and go forth with confidence when making our first foray into the market.

However, as the saying goes: “You don’t know what you don’t know.”

The issue I have with the self-service route is that I’m not entirely sure what investments are suitable for me — how would I know that there’s something better if the product doesn’t show up in my research? You know, like best-kept secrets of a neighbourhood, you really need to speak to a long-time resident to know about the yummiest food.

How can I invest confidently and stop procrastinating? Read on to find out, and get to know how this updated DBS NAV Planner feature can benefit anyone who is looking to invest.

DBS NAV Planner digital advisory — what’s new?

By now, you’re probably quite familiar with the DBS NAV Planner tool and its various features such as charting your financial health and retirement planning. From December 2020, DBS NAV Planner’s capability also got supercharged by SGFinDex.

This new digital advisory feature, also known as Make Your Money Work Harder (MYMWH), can be found under DBS NAV Planner’s Investment page (just scroll down till you spot it):

With this new feature, anyone, even non-DBS customers (just click on the ‘Plan’ tab on the DBS banking app to find it), can receive investment advice and product recommendations so they can invest confidently.

Just like a wealth planning manager (WPM), this new MYMWH digital advisory feature will only provide investment advice and product recommendations after holistically assessing the individual’s risk profile, investment goals, investment knowledge, preferred investment tenure, assets and liabilities, as well as cashflow (do connect your other bank accounts via SGFinDex for the most accurate assessment).

And yes, you’ll need to take the Customer Knowledge Assessment/Customer Account Review — but don’t worry, you can still invest if you fail. There are still Excluded Investment Products (Specified Investment Products are for those with more investment experience) available for total beginners to invest in with confidence.

Just like a WPM, the digital advisory feature can provide spot-on recommendations based on your investment preferences and habits. Think of it as the full-fledged digital equivalent of a flesh-and-blood WPM who inspires confidence by empowering you with their personalised investment picks.

Once you click “Start profile”, just follow the steps onscreen and fill up your information. Just like what a WPM does when he or she sits down with you, there are 5 main sections to complete: Your financial objective, your risk profile, your knowledge and experience, your investment preferences, and your current finances.

When you’re done, the exciting bit begins — you’re about to embark (or further) your investment journey. And get closer to your financial goals, yay empowerment!

Here’s some additional insight into how DBS NAV Planner’s new digital advisory feature can empower you and give you confidence in your investment decisions with personalised investment picks:

5 reasons DBS NAV Planner’s digital advisory feature inspires confidence

1. There’s a wide range of products available

Currently, DBS offers one of the widest range of financial products on a digital platform in Singapore. There are 6 product types available: Unit Trusts, Exchange Traded Funds, Managed Portfolios, Investment-Linked Policies, Endowment Plans, and Income Stream Plans.

Although your results will show you “top pick(s)”, you can always click on “show more” to see other available products that fit your profile criteria.

You can go deeper by clicking into each product category to see individual products:

And deeper still, where you can read about each product’s fund documentation, product disclosure and quick summary:

While you don’t HAVE to go along with the top pick(s), having these available product recommendations helps a lot with the “you don’t know what you don’t know” part of investing. In this Internet age, it’s so easy to Google these products so that you can truly know where your money is going, and it empowers you to make your investment decision with confidence.

2. NAV Planner’s digital advisory is neutral

No matter how advanced this MYMWH feature is, you’re still interacting with a bunch of code and algorithms. In short, what you input is simply analysed by the computer, which generates recommendations based only on what you input — not coloured by bias or emotion.

It’s brilliant, because behind this objectivity is a sophisticated intelligence — the ability to consider holistically the various inputs from a user to generate the most suitable product(s).

Just note that how you fill in your profile will affect the product recommendations you get — so do it as accurately as possible for the best results!

3. Invest in your own time, own target

Only free after 1am? While these are hours where you wouldn’t want to disturb a living and breathing WPM, you can easily consult DBS NAV Planner’s digital advisory feature without interrupting anyone’s sleep/Netflix time/gaming hours.

And when you’re interacting with a digital advisory, you won’t feel pressured to buy anything or to quickly make a decision on the spot… Even if you wish to keep looking at different recommendations or insisting on doing your research first or taking time to think about it, there’s no obligation at all to stay.

By all means, with DBS NAV Planner’s digital advisory you can “leave” and return to the same point where you left off to continue your journey (go ahead, close the browser). DBS NAV Planner doesn’t need an explanation that you had to attend to an urgent matter, your computer ran out of juice, you reached your MRT stop, you fell asleep halfway, or that you simply ran out of “brain” to continue your investment adventure (there’s always next time).

In fact, what’s useful is that this is a fully digital journey (mostly) — you don’t need to physically meet a real-life WPM to make the final transaction (but you still can, if you want).

4. You’re empowered

DBS NAV Planner’s Make Your Money Work Harder feature is indeed empowering, especially for newbie investors. It lays out all the investment options that meet one’s personalised goals and targets, using one’s unique data, profile and preferences — not a one-size-fits-all template kind of recommendation tool.

Users are also empowered to make their own decision by choosing to read further on the recommended picks before buying the actual product.

Whether you’re new to investing or a seasoned investor, this feature helps you cut through the many financial products in the market with its personalised recommendations. Who knows — You might discover something you previously never considered or heard about? It’s just so empowering having access to all the information at your fingertips so finding a new investment is quick and suitable for your needs.

5. DBS NAV Planner’s digital advisory retains the human touch

Speaking of which, those who still prefer human interaction or the insight of veteran WPMs can always blend their digital journey with real-life sessions.

The magic of NAV Planner’s digital advisory is that, if you’ve already created your profile and input your data, this goes to the same database that the WPM can assess (with your permission). All progress is not lost — the WPM simply picks up from where you left off in your digital journey.

Yay to increased efficiency while still preserving the human touch!

Bonus: Your investments could earn you additional DBS Multiplier interest

If you have a DBS Multiplier account, you’ll know that this savings deposit account offers bonus interest, in addition to its base interest rate. The bonus interest rate increases according to your DBS credit card spend, home loan, investments, or insurance.

As it’s through the same bank, eligible investments bought via the NAV Planner digital advisory tool can also count towards transactions for you to earn DBS Multiplier account bonus interest. For example, Unit Trusts and ETFs (Invest-Saver) qualify for the investment category, while Investment-Linked Policies, Endowment and Income Stream Products qualify for the insurance category.

How’s that for taking a step to grow your money, AND actually growing your existing savings?

 

You’re now ready to embark upon your Make Your Money Work Harder digital advisory journey. Login to your DBS digibank to start using DBS NAV Planner now. Have the digibank app? Simply login and click on the ‘Plan’ tab to access DBS NAV Planner.

This advertisement has not been reviewed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.