In 2009, Vanguard opened their UK office in London. They are able to offer their flagship index funds via the IFA channels. Vanguard is well known for their indexing strategy and I am pleasantly surprised that they are distributing through IFAs. In fact, according to page 11 of their marketing brochure (found HERE ), Vanguard expects investors to invest these index funds through Independent Financial Advisers (IFAs).

When I checked, the factsheets, I was shocked to learn that GBP 100,000 is the minimum to invest in these funds if bought directly from Vanguard. But when I surfed the Vanguard UK’s webpage (found HERE ), I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the minimum investment is much lower if it is bought through a platform. So I just randomly pick one IFA platform provider like THIS and the FAQ states that the minimum platform investment is only GBP 5,000!

I really wish we have something like this in Singapore. Over here, we need a more complex route to gain access to index funds like opening brokerage account to buy ETFs. Worst still, the number of swap-based ETFs listed on SGX is really making me very uncomfortable.