UOB Kay Hian is Singapore's largest home-grown stockbroker, and its retail trading arm runs under the UTRADE name. For a young investor the appeal is simple: a long-established, MAS-regulated broker that lets you hold SGX shares in your own CDP account instead of a custodian. The catch is price. UOB Kay Hian's cash-account commission starts at 0.275% with a S$25 minimum, which is fine on a S$20,000 trade but punishing on a S$500 one. This review walks through the actual UTRADE fee tiers, the difference between the cash and prepaid accounts, what a real SGX trade costs once exchange fees and GST are added, and the cheaper brokers you should compare it against before you commit.
UOB Kay Hian Holdings is a Singapore-listed brokerage that traces its roots to Kay Hian & Co in the early 1900s and took its current form when Kay Hian Holdings merged with UOB Securities in October 2000. It is licensed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore and runs offices across Hong Kong, Bangkok, Jakarta, London, Toronto and New York, which makes it one of the larger brokers in the region rather than a thin app-only outfit.
Retail clients trade through UTRADE, the firm's online and mobile platform. You can place orders for SGX-listed shares, US, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand, the UK, Canada and a handful of other markets from one login. The headline difference versus the newer discount apps is that UOB Kay Hian still supports a true CDP-linked cash account, so your Singapore shares sit in your own name at the Central Depository (CDP) rather than pooled under the broker's name.
Almost every fee and ownership question with UOB Kay Hian comes down to which of two account types you open. Get this right and the rest of the pricing follows.
A cash account is CDP-linked. Your SGX shares are registered directly to you at CDP, you settle the trade by T+2, and you keep voting rights and dividends paid straight to your bank. The trade-off is the higher 0.275% starting commission with a S$25 minimum. A prepaid (custodian) account holds your shares under UOB Kay Hian's nominee. You pre-fund the account, commission drops to roughly 0.12% with a S$10 minimum, but the shares are not in your own CDP name and moving them out later can cost a transfer fee.
The figures below are the UOB Kay Hian commission tiers as reported in current 2026 broker comparisons; exchange fees come from SGX and DBS primary sources. Brokerage rates change without much notice, so confirm the live schedule on the UTRADE site before you open an account.
Commission is only part of the bill. Every SGX trade also carries an SGX clearing fee of 0.0325% of contract value and an SGX trading fee of 0.0075%, with 9% GST applied on top of brokerage and exchange fees. That is why a tiny trade is so inefficient: the S$25 minimum commission alone is 5% of a S$500 ticket before any other charge.
| Broker / account | SGX commission | Minimum per trade | Shares held at |
|---|---|---|---|
| UOB Kay Hian - Cash (CDP) | 0.275% (up to S$50k), 0.22% (S$50k-100k), 0.20% (above S$100k) | S$25 | Your own CDP |
| UOB Kay Hian - Prepaid (custodian) | 0.12% flat | S$10 | Broker nominee |
| DBS Vickers - Cash (CDP) | 0.275% tiered | S$25 | Your own CDP |
| FSMOne | 0.08% | S$8.80 | Broker nominee |
| Tiger Brokers | 0.025% + platform fee | Low (custodian) | Broker nominee |
| Interactive Brokers | around 0.08% | around US$2 / S$2.50 | Broker nominee |
Take a S$5,000 buy of an SGX-listed stock on the cash account. Commission at 0.275% is S$13.75, but that is below the S$25 floor, so you pay S$25. Add the SGX clearing fee (0.0325% = S$1.63) and trading fee (0.0075% = S$0.38), then 9% GST on the S$26.76 of fees, roughly S$2.41. Total cost is about S$29.40, or 0.59% of your S$5,000 - and you pay again to sell.
Now run the same S$5,000 buy through the prepaid account. Commission at 0.12% is S$6, below the S$10 floor, so you pay S$10. With the same exchange fees and GST, the total lands near S$13.10, less than half the cash-account bill. The lesson is blunt: on small SGX tickets the cash account's S$25 minimum dominates everything, and you either trade in larger sizes or use the cheaper account. Our fixed deposit vs investing calculator can help you sanity-check whether the expected return justifies the trading drag at all.
UTRADE gives one account access to US, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand, the UK and Canadian markets, which is convenient if you want a single statement. US-stock commission is reported around 0.30% with a roughly US$20 minimum in 2026 comparisons. That is steep next to the discount brokers: on a US$2,000 US trade you are looking at about US$20 here versus a couple of dollars on a platform like Interactive Brokers.
If your portfolio is mostly US ETFs and shares, UOB Kay Hian is rarely the cheapest door. Its strength is the SGX-CDP combination, not low-cost foreign-market access. Many young investors end up splitting: a CDP-linked broker for Singapore dividend names and a discount broker for US stocks.
Opening is free and there is no minimum deposit for the cash account, though some account types and margin facilities carry their own funding requirements. You apply online through the UTRADE or UOB Kay Hian site, verify with Singpass, and choose your account type and markets up front.
To trade SGX shares on a cash account you need a CDP securities account in your own name first. If you do not have one, open it directly with SGX before or during your broker application - our step-by-step CDP and brokerage account guide covers the full sequence. A prepaid (custodian) account does not require CDP because the broker holds the shares for you.
UOB Kay Hian fits the investor who wants direct CDP ownership of Singapore shares, plans to hold dividend stocks and REITs for years, values a long-established MAS-regulated broker and research desk, and trades in sizes where a S$25 minimum is a rounding error. If you are building a Singapore REIT income portfolio, the CDP route keeps the shares in your name and pays dividends straight to your bank.
It is the wrong fit if you are dollar-cost-averaging small amounts, trading US stocks heavily, or chasing the absolute lowest commission. In those cases the discount brokers win on cost, and you accept custodian holding as the trade-off. Compare your real trade sizes against the fee table above rather than the marketing headline.
Yes, for its cash account. SGX shares bought on a UOB Kay Hian cash account are held in your own CDP securities account, so you own them directly and receive dividends to your bank. Its prepaid (custodian) account instead holds shares under the broker's nominee at a lower commission.
The cash (CDP) account has a minimum commission of about S$25 per trade, while the prepaid custodian account is around S$10, both as of June 2026. Because these floors apply to small trades, a S$500 ticket can cost 5% in commission alone, so confirm the live rates on the UTRADE site.
It depends on your trade size. Beginners who invest larger lump sums into Singapore shares benefit from direct CDP ownership and an established broker. Beginners who drip-feed small amounts will lose a large share of each trade to the minimum commission and are usually better served by a lower-cost custodian broker.
Yes. UTRADE gives access to US, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand, UK and Canadian markets from one account. However, US commission is reported around 0.30% with a roughly US$20 minimum in 2026, which is far more expensive than dedicated discount brokers for foreign shares.
This is general financial information for Singapore, not personal financial advice. Figures change — verify current rates against the official sources above before acting. See our full disclaimer.