Open a CDP account and a CDP-linked brokerage account online, and know what each application asks you for.
Before anything else, pull up the sheet you made in Lesson 1.4, "Compare two brokers on one sheet", and find the broker type you settled on. If it is a CDP-linked broker, you will be opening two accounts. If it is a custodian broker, you will open one. Next, read the current application steps on both the SGX website and your broker's website. These steps get revised from time to time, so what a friend did last year may no longer match.
A CDP-linked broker settles every trade into a CDP account held in your own name. The CDP account is that record of ownership. The Central Depository runs it, and the Central Depository is part of SGX (Singapore Exchange). You only ever open one, and you keep it for life. You can connect it to several brokers at once. If you move to a new broker, or use two side by side, your holdings stay in the same CDP account.
Your brokerage account does a different job. You use it to put in buy and sell orders and to pay for them. When a purchase goes through a CDP-linked broker, the broker keeps a record of the trade and CDP keeps the record of who owns the shares. You need both accounts to buy shares. With only a CDP account you have no way to place an order. A brokerage account with no link to your CDP account cannot settle a CDP-linked trade.
A custodian broker keeps the shares on your behalf, so you skip the CDP account and apply for the brokerage account alone. Nearly everything below still holds for that one application.
You can usually apply online to both CDP and your broker, and many of these forms can be filled in with Singpass Myinfo. Once you give consent, Myinfo copies your name, NRIC or FIN, address, date of birth and other details across from government records. You type less, and in most cases you won't need to upload an NRIC copy or a proof of address.
Find out early how your broker deals with CDP. Some brokers build the CDP application into their own form and open the account for you. Others want you to open the CDP account first on the SGX website, then type the CDP account number into the broker's form. If you know which way your broker works, you won't apply for a CDP account twice.
Brokers are required to know who their customers are, so the questions go beyond your name and address. Be ready to give:
your job and your income range where the money you plan to invest comes from your tax residency how much you know about investing and what experience you have
Answer every question honestly. Certain products, leveraged and inverse ETFs among them, need a separate assessment before the broker will let you trade them. A plain index ETF bought on SGX normally needs no such assessment.
Most forms also ask you to pick an account type. Choose a cash account, which means you pay the full price of anything you buy. Stay away from accounts that let you borrow money to buy shares, usually called margin accounts, until you understand exactly how they work. The last screen asks you to accept the terms and conditions and the fee schedule. Save a copy of each.
Nadia, an invented example, kept a Saturday morning free for her applications and assumed she would need about an hour. The typing took her fifteen minutes. Then came nine working days of waiting, and nobody had warned her about it. CDP approved her account after four working days. The broker approved hers after nine, because her broker waited for the CDP account to exist before linking it.
Once you submit, both applications go through checks. Expect a few working days. It can take longer if something needs a second look, or if your Myinfo details differ from something you typed by hand. You can trade only after both accounts are active and the broker has linked them. Two messages tell you that point has arrived. CDP sends an email or letter with your CDP account number. The broker tells you the account is ready, often with login details or an invitation to set up its app.
If a week goes by with no news, check the broker's application status page or contact the broker. A small mismatch can hold up an application, for example your address spelled one way in Myinfo and another way on the form, and you are unlikely to hear about it unless you ask.
Open a note before you submit anything. Log the date of each application, any reference number you are given and the email address you applied with. Add your CDP account number and broker account number when they come through. Keep the note limited to dates, reference numbers and account numbers. Passwords, Singpass details and one-time codes never go in it. Store those in a password manager or remember them. Lesson 3.3 turns this note into a fuller record.
To start the note now, go to your chosen broker's website and the SGX website before you submit. List the steps each site asks for, in order, with any documents they need. The list shows you exactly what you are agreeing to, and it becomes the first entry in your record.
List the steps and documents your chosen broker and CDP ask for. When you submit each application, write down the date.
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