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InvestPower vs WealthPro at SC

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  1. #1

    Join Date
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    InvestPower vs WealthPro at SC

    Does anyone know the difference between InvestPower and WealthPro at Standard Chartered? They appear similar, although the interest rate for WealthPro seems much higher than InvestPower.

    https://www.sc.com/hk/investment/wealth-lending/


  2. #2

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    I use Wealthpro with the grandfathered "Before August 2020" rates. This allows me to invest with SC, then redraw up to 80 % of this as like a multicurrency overdraft. For example, a few years ago I borrowed shit loads of Japanese yen @ 1% interest rate, transferred the money to AUD and dump it on my Aussie mortgage saving me around 4%. But now since the JPY plummet, in the last few months I have been repaying my JPY overdraft. I only have a fraction of this remaining now.

    Historically wealthpro was a great facility, but now with "After 2020" rates it looks quite shit. I'm lucky I have the old rates for now, not sure if one day they will send me a letter and pull the plug on this free money I am getting.

    Investpower, I might be wrong, but as far as I can tell is like a margin trading facility. ie Invest with SC, then you can leverage and invest even more with them over and above what you put in. eg put in $1m, you can purchase up to $6.6m worth of investments. The rates do look quite nice so maybe a good margin facility if thats what you want, but doesnt allow you to redraw like an overdraft that I have with the wealthpro.

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  3. #3

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    Quote Originally Posted by bdw:

    Historically wealthpro was a great facility, but now with "After 2020" rates it looks quite shit. I'm lucky I have the old rates for now, not sure if one day they will send me a letter and pull the plug on this free money I am getting.
    bdw i received a letter saying wealthpro is being phased out and they are reducing my limit to something stupidly low like 20k, and then this facilty will be cancelled by the end of the year. Did you receive the same?

    i also asked about transitioning to investpower but i think its essentially the same as wealthpro, in that you can't use shares as leverage.
    bdw likes this.

  4. #4

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    Quote Originally Posted by billyb:
    bdw i received a letter saying wealthpro is being phased out and they are reducing my limit to something stupidly low like 20k, and then this facilty will be cancelled by the end of the year. Did you receive the same?

    i also asked about transitioning to investpower but i think its essentially the same as wealthpro, in that you can't use shares as leverage.
    Thanks for this. Im overseas now and if I did receive a letter it will be in a huge pile of mail that has been building up in my HK office (my correspondence address with SC) for the last 2 years.

    Anyway I have recently discovered interactive brokers, and with their margin facilities is more or less a similar type of thing. ie I can purchase HK$1m of all sorts of investments with IB now, then magically withdraw something like 80% of this and IB also has quite low margin rates. So probably SC wealthpro is not really useful now I have IB. Although 1% JPY loans were good, with IB is 1.5%.

  5. #5

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    I went to see my Standard Chartered RM this morning (first time I had met him - very little contact with the bank these days). He did not want me to use WealthPro facilities (even though I think I am a 'legacy' client) so I did not push it. I basically got the impression that they did not really want my business.

    I still have Priority banking status with them. I think I get the Priority Pass airport lounge from them (but zero usage in recent years)! Any other reasons to keep cash there (I also use DBS and Citibank), or just move down to the lowest tier - Easy banking.

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  6. #6

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    I have SC priority by default simply because I have a property in HK and mortgage with them but otherwise not much reason for it either. Maybe I can start using lounge passes soon again as well.

    I asked the staff in my HK office if I have any letters from SC recently. Then sent me the picture below. I guess my wealthpro letter in there somewhere

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  7. #7

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    Went back to SC. The counter staff told me I have a year of 'waivers' to keep Priority banking status after my balance goes under the minimum. I often find the counter staff to have better English and to be generally more helpful than the RMs.


  8. #8

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    Quote Originally Posted by drumbrake:
    Went back to SC. The counter staff told me I have a year of 'waivers' to keep Priority banking status after my balance goes under the minimum. I often find the counter staff to have better English and to be generally more helpful than the RMs.
    I have Priority but honestly I don't find it worth it. I only keep it because I am grandfathered in with my salary.

    The one benefit I did have with Priority was the ability to open a Priority SCB account in Singapore, which I now use for my stock trading and margin loans.
    drumbrake likes this.