Understanding Endowus: How This FinTech Investment Advisor Will Help S’pore Investors Access Superior Global Portfolios At Low Cost

The Financial Technology (FinTech) space in Singapore has been heating up, and consumers today are no longer restricted to plain-vanilla methods of investing, such as buying stocks and bonds on the stock market or choosing only unit trusts or investment-linked plans (ILPs) from the banks they save with. Some consumers may want to try new ways of investing, such as using Robo-Advisors that rely solely on easily accessible ETFs, or investing in loans through P2P lending platforms such as Funding Societies.

The wider range of options is a positive development, but it also means investors need to understand exactly what they are buying into. Different platforms can vary significantly in how they construct portfolios, charge fees, manage risk, and handle liquidity. Greater access should make investing more convenient, not more confusing, and that makes product knowledge and financial discipline even more important. Investors are still best served by choosing solutions that match their goals, time horizon, and tolerance for risk.

That is where WealthTech platforms such as Endowus have gained traction. Endowus positions itself as an independent digital wealth platform offering access to cash, CPF, and SRS, with a focus on personalised advice, diversified portfolios, and lower-cost institutional-class funds. The firm is licensed by MAS, and in October 2025, the group said client assets had surpassed US$10 billion, underscoring how quickly digital wealth management has moved from a niche offering to mainstream consideration for Singapore investors.

Endowus, An Investment Platform That Offers Access To Best-In-Class Funds At Low Cost

Endowus is a FinTech platform that aims to help Singaporeans grow their wealth by investing systematically. The platform is independently owned and operated by experienced investment professionals who want to help investors find efficient ways to invest their savings in Singapore. Endowus aims to be a platform that allows all Singapore investors to invest efficiently like the major institutions such as university endowments, sovereign wealth funds, and the GICs of this world.

The investment team is led by Samuel Rhee, an experienced investor with more than 27 years of experience in the industry. He is the former CEO and Chief Investment Officer of Morgan Stanley Investment Management in Asia, where he managed approximately US$15 billion in assets for institutional clients. His expertise includes macro analysis, asset allocation, portfolio construction, and optimisation. There is deep financial and technology domain knowledge within the team, and other founding team members have worked at major global financial institutions and tech companies, including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, UBS, Blackstone, Nomura, HSBC, Zalora, Carousell, and Grab.

Endowus is a MAS-licensed financial adviser. It’s also an independent, fee-only firm. This means that Endowus is only paid by its clients (i.e. us, the investors) and not by any product providers, which allows them to independently choose the best investment products out there that are the most suitable to their clients.

Endowus only charges an all-in-one Access Fee, which includes advice, portfolio services, investment, rebalancing, transfers, and brokerage services, as well as access to some of the best-in-class funds around the world. Endowus does not charge any sales fees or receive any trailer fees or rebates from the funds it works with. Furthermore, Endowus is not paid on a per-transaction basis and therefore has no incentive to push its clients to trade or churn their accounts. If the fund pays a trailer fee to Endowus, it is automatically returned to investors.

How Does Endowus Work?

Endowus believes in a systematic and evidence-based approach to investing. Underpinning their belief is Nobel Laureate Eugene Fama’s decades of work on asset pricing, which deals with the power of markets, understanding that the market price efficiently reflects all available information. In equities, one should focus on building data-driven portfolios to gain broad global market exposure, with a tilt towards factors proven to outperform over the long term, such as small and value companies.

They also focus on low-cost access, with the understanding that the lowest possible cost would ultimately give investors the highest chance of investment success over the long-term.

Endowus creates diversified investment portfolios, through investing in various types of funds, which generate the highest possible expected return for every level of risk taken by an investor. They invest, on their client’s behalf, in a portfolio of top funds which they have identified. Though they are agnostic to the type of funds they use to construct portfolios, they do not currently invest in ETFs, especially for fixed income where passive investing is more difficult and the benefits less than in equities.

The financial advice and the investment methodology are what Endowus focuses on. Endowus believes in key investment principles such as diversification, asset allocation, personal risk tolerance, tax efficiency, low cost and time spent being invested in the market.

What Does Endowus Invest In?

Independent fee-only financial advisers that provide sophisticated and personalised financial planning are quite popular in the US and other developed markets, but it is not prevalent in Singapore or Asia. Endowus is seeking to emulate independent financial advisors in the US by focusing on the most value-added aspect of providing holistic financial advice to its clients.

Endowus is also focused on providing access to the best funds at the lowest cost. They access what are known as institutional share-class funds, which have no rebates or kickbacks and thus have the lowest fees possible. These funds are managed by top global investment management companies, such as Dimensional and PIMCO, with long track records of delivering strong returns that are not normally available to retail investors. Basically, Endowus allows investors to access institutional share-class funds at institutional-level fees, similar to how major sovereign wealth funds would invest.

The funds selected are denominated in Singapore Dollars to avoid currency inefficiencies and are tax-efficient for non-US Persons (unlike US-listed ETFs, where you are exposed to US withholding taxes that eat into your returns). Endowus portfolios are truly purpose-built for Singapore-based investors.

You can invest with Endowus via cash, SRS or your CPF monies. Do note that the individual funds you invest in via Endowus must be approved specifically for SRS or CPF investments. In other words, there may be some funds on Endowus that you can invest in using cash, but not your SRS or CPF monies.

Read Also: Should You Invest Your CPF Monies? (And How Endowus Wants To Help You With It)

Endowus Core Advised Portfolio (Also Known As Endowus Flagship Portfolio)

Endowus makes the asset allocation and portfolio construction decisions to create a customised portfolio for its investors. They use a top-down, data-driven, institutional asset allocation framework for portfolio construction and conduct extensive due diligence and analysis to select the best-in-class funds to implement the allocation and create the optimal portfolio for the investor.

They apply quantitative and qualitative screens to find funds that have delivered outperformance over long track records, rather than backtested numbers that are not real returns. The selected funds would have outperformed their peer group and benchmarks across various periods and would have a consistent investment philosophy and process. They look at performance consistency, volatility and downside risk relative to their peer group and benchmarks. They remove the difficulty of evaluating the multitude of funds available for investment, making it easy for investors to build and invest in a globally diversified, low-cost, holistic portfolio.

Normally, these funds will be very expensive or not available for retail investors, but Endowus has made it possible by working with these fund managers to access the low-cost institutional share classes of the funds.

They also advise clients to invest in portfolios appropriate to their investment goals, time horizon, and risk tolerance. This is key because the biggest drag on returns over the long term is the behavioural biases in investors that lead them to panic or become too exuberant at the wrong times. Endowus will help investors invest in the right way for the long term, allowing them to stick to their investment plan through market ups and downs, as a proper independent financial advisor should.

According to the company, Endowus Core is typically the first and most popular portfolio of choice for most clients.

Endowus ESG Portfolio

Endowus also offers investors the opportunity to invest in ESG portfolios. This is an advised portfolio by Endowus that helps you gain exposure to a well-diversified ESG portfolio comprising equities and/or fixed-income products, across developed and emerging markets and various investment strategies.

For both the Core Advised Portfolio and the ESG portfolio, we will choose our risk tolerance level, and Endowus will help us build a customised ESG portfolio that is suitable for our risk profile. You can read our review of the Endowus ESG Portfolios.

Endowus Fund Smart

To provide investors with more choice and control over their investment portfolio and at the same time, provide robo-advisory services, such as allowing investors to have a hands-off approach towards managing their portfolio, Endowus also offers the Endowus Fund Smart to help investors create their own best-in-class unit investment portfolio, guided and advised by the Endowus platform.

The way it works is that investors can pick a combination of up to 8 funds from a carefully curated list of more than 400. Endowus has done the heavy lifting to identify these funds as best in class. This includes Shariah-compliant funds (Templeton Shariah Global Equity Fund), Asian Growth Fund (Schroder Asian Growth Fund), and bond funds (PIMCO GIS Income Fund). You can also sort out the funds based on your criteria, such as investment style (dividends, ESG, Growth, etc), risk level, geography and many more.

Unlike the Endowus advised portfolio, the Endowus Fund Smart will require you to select 1) the funds that you want to invest in (from 1 to 8 funds out of a list of more than 400 funds) and 2) the allocation that you wish to set for each fund. You decide this, not Endowus. Read our review of Endowus Fund Smart.

If you are an accredited investor, you will be able to access more funds.

Endowus Income

Endowus Income is a portfolio designed to provide regular income payouts to investors. According to Endowus, the portfolios are built with resilience in mind to manage risk amid market volatility and changing macroeconomic environments. This portfolio provides investors with some of the best-in-class income-generating funds and opportunities worldwide.

Investors can choose from three different portfolios – Stable Income, Higher Income & Future Income.

Stable Income is a portfolio that is ideal for retirees and those seeking a regular income. It provides a stable and dependable monthly income of between 5.0% and 6.0% p.a. The portfolio is 100% allocated to fixed income only. It also carries a lower risk for preserving your capital.

The Higher Income portfolio has a 20% allocation to equities and an 80% allocation to fixed income. The payout target is at 5.0% to 6.0% per annum. It takes a higher risk to achieve a higher payout and some capital growth.

The Future Income portfolio has a 40% equity allocation and a 60% fixed-income allocation. It has the highest risk among the three income portfolios but also offers the greatest potential for growth. The payout target is at 3.5% to 4.5% per annum.

Endowus Satellite

The Endowus Satellite portfolios allow investors to invest in specific sectors. These include 1) Real Assets, 2) Technology, 3) China Equities and 4) Megatrends.

All of these portfolios are considered very aggressive portfolios. Investors who strongly believe in the growth story of a specific sector can consider investing in one or more of these themes. However, we should see these portfolios as complementary to our Endowus Core Portfolio, rather than as a substitute for it.

Read Also: Thematic investing: How You Can Capitalise On Megatrends For High Growth

Endowus Cash Smart Account

For those who prefer to hold cash, Endowus also offers its Cash Smart Account. This is an account that allows you to park your cash in extremely low-risk and highly liquid cash funds and money market funds. These funds typically hold only short-term debt instruments issued by high-quality issuers, such as the government or corporations with high credit ratings, or even Singapore Dollar deposits with eligible financial institutions, making them extremely safe.

The Endowus Cash Smart Account provides investors with access to three cash-offering portfolios: Secure, Enhanced, and Ultra. Secure is a portfolio that takes on lower volatility, while Ultra is a portfolio that can give you the highest yield among the three cash management accounts offered by Endowus. Do note that, unlike the other portfolios offered by Endowus, the Endowus Cash Smart is meant primarily for investors with a shorter-term investment horizon, or who just want to earn extra interest on their emergency savings.

What Endowus Does NOT Do

When you invest via Endowus, actual investments in the funds are made by the fund managers that Endowus works with, such as PIMCO and Dimensional. These fund management experts manage the underlying funds in the portfolio, enabling Endowus to leverage its global resources, investment expertise, and trading capabilities.

Endowus works with global fund management houses to select and gain access to the best funds in each asset class and focuses on providing advice, including asset allocation and portfolio construction, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel by creating new funds using underlying ETFs.

Endowus does not directly handle your investment monies. As part of onboarding with Endowus, investors will need to create a UOB Kay Hian trust account in their own name, which will act as a custodian for all your Endowus investments. This means that Endowus does not directly touch your money, adding a layer of security to your account, and your money is safe in a trust account under your name. There is no additional cost involved as it is included in the transparent all-in fees.

There is no lock-in period for the funds, meaning your investment can be invested in or redeemed daily.

How Much Does Endowus Charge For Its Fees

The only thing Endowus earns is a simple, transparent, all-in-one Access Fee, based on the assets invested. The Access Fee is paid to Endowus for advice, portfolio service, investment, rebalancing, transfers and brokerage services. There are no separate fees, such as sales charges or custodian fees, and no additional fees are paid to UOB Kay Hian.

Cash Investments

CPF & SRS Investments

The all-in-one Access Fee is 0.40% p.a. for both CPF and SRS investments.

Endowus Cash Smart

For the Endowus Cash Smart, the access fee is just 0.15% p.a.

These fees do not include the fund management fees charged at the fund level. According to Endowus, the fund-level fees for its portfolios are at institutional levels ranging from 0.50% to 0.56% per annum, which is significantly lower than typical retail fund charges.

In other words, by using the platform and the funds it invests in, investors will pay a total fee of between 0.75% and 1.16% per annum, including advice, platform use, brokerage, transfers, and fund-level fees.

This compares very favourably to all-in fees for retail investors, which are generally much higher. Retail share-class funds typically charge fund-level fees of 1.6~2.0%, of which half is taken out of your investments without your knowledge and paid to the distributor, typically as rebates. There may also be upfront sales charges of 2.00-3.00%, and other distributors or fund platforms may also have additional charges, including platform/wrap fees (0.50%-1.00%) and transaction charges (0.25%-0.50%). The total burden to the normal investor is exorbitant and weighs on returns. This is why the most powerful predictor of future returns is, in fact, the cost of fees. Higher fees result in meaningfully lower returns in the future and vice versa.

Do note that, based on our observations, ESG funds tend to have higher fund management fees, which can exceed 1%.

Endowus Wants To Remove A Big, Inherent Conflict Of Interest Situation

One of the biggest value propositions, in our opinion, is that Endowus solves the inherent conflict of interest situation where fund distributors (e.g. your broker/financial adviser) are taking a distribution commission from the funds that they sell you as an investor. This fee is known as a trailer fee. You can read more about what trailer fees are in this article.

Trailer fees are typically between 0.5% and 1.0%, and they can be more than half of the fund-level fee. In other words, it’s possible that of the 1.80% fund management fee that you are paying for your unit trusts today, over 0.90% of the fee is actually going to the financial adviser who sold you the unit trust on a recurring basis.

Most retail investors are unaware of this trailer fee, as it’s already included in the fund management fee and deducted from NAV. However, it’s important for investors to realise that this creates a natural conflict of interest, since the fund distributors earn an ongoing fee from each fund they sell to you.

Endowus does not accept trailer fees. This makes their financial advice completely independent, as they do not receive any fees from the funds they recommend. As mentioned earlier, investors pay an Access Fee to Endowus directly (0.6% or lower) and a fund-level fee (0.50% to 0.56%) to the fund managers. Any trailer fee received is automatically refunded to the client.

What Does Endowus Offer For Investors In Singapore?

Firstly, Endowus provides sophisticated investment advice, which is much needed in Singapore. They build holistic and globally diversified portfolios personalised to your risk profile and deliver it in a seamless digital experience, thus satisfying the needs of the modern investor through a great customer experience.

Secondly, the company provides access to some of the leading investment funds worldwide, managed by top fund managers, that are not readily available to retail investors. These funds can charge low management fees of 0.50-0.56% because they do not pay trailer fees to their distributors, and Endowus can access institutional share classes.

Thirdly, the company helps investors find the right global funds to invest in. Endowus also helps investors actively monitor and manage their asset allocation, rebalancing their portfolios when needed. This ensures that the client’s portfolio remains aligned with their objectives and risk tolerance over a long investment period.

Last but certainly not least, Endowus does not accept any trailer fees from the funds it distributes. So while it partners with global fund management companies like Dimensional and PIMCO, it does not earn any revenue or commissions from these companies. The only fee it earns is a transparent and aligned all-in-one Access Fee from its investors.

Read Also: ETF Investing: Hidden Costs Passive Investors Need To Know About