Yes. The $20,000 restriction only applies to monies in your Ordinary Account. You will still able to invest the monies in your CPF Investment Account with the agent bank, provided the monies are not refunded back to your Ordinary Account.

No. The CPF monies already invested will NOT be affected. You are not required to sell your CPF holdings if you had purchased them even if your balance in your CPF OA account is below $20,000 and balance in CPF SA account is below $40,000.00.

For CPF-OA investments made via FSM Global (a CPFIS registered Investment Administrator), the agent bank charge for buy transaction is typically $2.50* + GST per dealing day, regardless of number of units or funds transacted on a dealing day.

*based on the DBS and OCBC agent bank charge.

For more details on CPF IA benefits, please click here

CPF-OA Account	CPF Investment Account	How much can I invest?
$X <= $20,000	$Y	Up to $Y
$X > $20,000	$Y	Up to ($X-$20,000) + $Y

Note: You will have to pay the agent bank charge for your CPF-OA buy transaction. Your CPF-OA buy order may be voided if you do not have sufficient monies to pay for this agent bank charge. Hence, on top of the investment amount, please also ensure that you have sufficient excess amount in your CPF Investment Account or CPF-OA Account (subject to $20,000 requirement) to pay for such agent bank charge. Please note that such agent bank charge can not be withdrawn from your CPF-OA should the balance is below $20,000.

See below example for illustration: ( assuming Agent Bank Charge is $2.50 per dealing day)

 

CPF-OA Account Balance	CPF Investment Account Balance	Investment Amount for Buy Order	Outcome
$20,000 and below	$10,000	$10,000	Voided Reason: Unsuccessful deduction as you do not have excess monies to pay for the Agent Bank Charge.
$20,000 and below	$10,000	<=$9,997.50	Successful
$X > $20,000	$10,000	$10,000	Successful if the excess of $20,000 in your CPF-OA Account is sufficient to pay for Agent Bank Charge. Voided if the excess of $20,000 in your CPF-OA Account is NOT sufficient to pay for Agent Bank Charge.

CPF-OA Account	CPF Investment Account	How much can I invest?
$X + $Y <= $20,000	$0	$0
$X + $Y > $20,000	$0	Up to ($X+$Y) - $20,000

CPF-SA Account	How much can I invest?
$X < = $40,000	$0
$X > $40,000	Up to ($X - $40,000)

Your unit trusts buy order will be voided in the event that the deduction of your CPF monies is not successful. iFAST reserves the right to claim any loss suffered by iFAST resulting from the failure by the investor to make such payment.

This is because your buy order will be executed and submitted to the relevant fund manager on T day, prior to the actual receipt of your CPF monies. In the event that the deduction of your CPF monies is unsuccessful, the subscription may be cancelled or resold to the relevant Fund Manager at market losses.

1) Ensure you have sufficient CPF monies in your CPF Investment account with Agent Bank/ CPF Accounts before submitting a buy order.

2) For CPF-OA investment, please also ensure that you have sufficient monies in your CPF-OA Investment Account/ CPF-OA to pay for your Agent Bank Charge.

3) CPF Agent Bank Charge can not be withdrawn from your CPF-OA if the balance is below $20,000.

4) As the actual deduction of your CPF monies will only take place within 3 business days after we process your unit trusts buy order, please ensure that the monies for investment are available till the deduction is successful.

5) Your unit trusts buy order will be voided should the deduction of your CPF monies is not successful. iFAST reserves the right to claim any loss suffered by iFAST resulting from the failure by the investor to make such payment.

For CPF-OA
The sell/redemption proceeds will be credited back to your CPF Investment Account with your agent bank. You may re-invest the sell/redemption proceeds in your CPF Investment Account, even if your CPF-OA balance is below $20,000. If there are no further investments made using CPF-OA for the next 2 months (for a more accurate timeline, please check with your Agent Bank), the agent bank will credit your sell/redemption proceeds back to your CPF-OA at CPF Board and you may not re-invest the balance if your CPF-OA balance is below $20,000.

For CPF-SA
The sell/redemption proceeds will be credited back to your CPF-SA with CPF Board directly and you may not re-invest the sell/redemption proceeds if your CPF-SA balance is below $40,000.

To know more about the New CPFIS rules from 1 May 2009, click here.
 

Unit trusts switching for your CPF holdings will not be affected (except for Non-IA to IA switches for CPF-SA Non-IA holdings. You may check your holding page under the column “IA Status” to determine if your CPF holdings are under Non-IA status).

If your CPF holdings are registered as “IA” status:
If you perform a switch order of your “IA” holding, your switch order will not be affected by the mentioned restriction. This is because the sell/redemption proceeds of the switch-sell order will not be credited to your CPF Investment Account with your Agent Bank. Instead, the sell/redemption proceeds will be channeled to the relevant Fund Manager to pay for the Switch-Buy order.

Basically as long as your CPF investment holding are registered with IA status, you will not be subjected to the mentioned restriction when you perform a switch order.

To know more about CPF IA and its benefits, please click here

If your CPF-SA holdings are registered as “Non-IA” status:
When you perform a switch order of your CPF-SA Non-IA holding, generally, the switch-sell order will be transacted on T and the switch-buy order will be transacted on T+5 business days. The switch-sell proceeds will be credited to your CPF-SA account. You may not re-invest the proceeds if your SA balance is below $40,000, and we may not be able to proceed with the switch-buy order. Your Switch Sell order will be deemed as a SELL order. Kindly note that iFAST will not buy back the holdings once it is sold.

If your CPF-OA holdings are registered as “Non-IA” status:
Switching from Non-IA to IA for your CPF-OA holdings involves the transfer of the proceeds from the switch-sell transaction to your CPF Investment Account with the agent bank, and the subsequent transfer of these monies to pay for the switch-buy transaction. Generally, the switch-sell order will be transacted on T and the switch-buy order will be transacted on T+5 business days. You would incur agent bank charges ** for both the switch-sell and switch-buy transactions.

To ensure the switching transaction from Non-IA to IA goes through successfully, it is important that there is a sufficient buffer to cover the agent bank charges **. Depending on the number of units and the currency involved in the switch-sell transaction, the buffer amount would vary.

As such, iFAST Financial will deduct a buffer amount (refer to next FAQ) from the switch-sell proceeds for the agent bank charge to ensure the switching transaction for Non-IA holdings to IA holdings goes through successfully.

** The Agent Bank Charge for Sell Transaction (Non-IA CPF-OA holding) is typically up to S$25 + GST. The Agent Bank Charge for Buy transaction via FSM is S$2.50 +GST per dealing day regardless of number of units.

iFAST Financial will deduct a buffer amount from the switch-sell proceeds for the agent bank charge to ensure the switching transaction for Non-IA unit trusts holdings to IA holdings goes through successfully.

If Switch-Sell Fund Currency is SGD:

Number of Units for Switch-Sell	Buffer Amount	Investment Amount for Switch-Buy
≤3000	SGD 11	Switch-Sell proceeds minus SGD11
>3000 and ≤6000	SGD 20	Switch-Sell proceeds minus SGD20
>6000	SGD 30	Switch-Sell proceeds minus SGD30

If Switch-Sell Fund Currency is Non-SGD:

Fund Currency	Buffer Amount
USD	USD 25
EUR	EUR 20
Others	SGD 30 divided by latest exchange rate of the currency(Rounded up to the nearest 5 dollars)

You may be able to convert the unit trusts status at 0% switching fee by placing an Intra-Switch order under Transact > Funds (Unit Trusts) > Sell/Switch tab (with some exceptions). After selecting your CPF Non-IA fund as the switch-sell fund, you will be able to select the SAME fund as the switch-buy fund. What we will do is that we will sell your existing Non-IA fund on T and buy back the same fund under “IA” status on T+5 business days later.

Once the status of your CPF fund has been changed to “Non-IA” to “IA” status, switching order placed going forward will not be subjected to the CPFIS minimum amount restriction.

Please note that you may have to bear the market risk involve in this conversion process. This is because the switch-sell price of your fund will be based on T date and the switch-buy price of your new fund will be based on T+5 business days later. You will also have to bear the agent bank charges incurred in this conversion process.

To prevent the possibility of failed trades, the monthly deduction date for ALL unit trusts RSP deductions (with Direct Debit/GIRO, CPFIS-OA, CPFIS-SA and SRS) will be standardised at 3 business days before the RSP subscription date.

RSP will be terminated automatically after 3 consecutive failed RSP deductions.