Transforming the digital investing experience with Syfe

Syfe is a digital wealth management platform with a mission to empower people to build their wealth for a better future. Syfe’s revolutionary wealth management experience is designed for people to grow their money to its fullest potential and manage wealth in one destination. The company is now present in Singapore, Australia and Hong Kong, with over 100,000 investors in Singapore alone trusting Syfe to manage their money.

In January 2022, Syfe built on its managed portfolio offering to introduce a brokerage in Singapore with access to the US market. Through the platform’s ability to invest in fractional shares with no fees, news insights and analysis, and intuitive interface, Syfe strived to provide an alternative to aspiring investors who wanted to put their money to work but lacked the time, patience and know-how.

Given the nature of markets, Syfe’s team identified speed of deposits and withdrawals as key attributes in creating a seamless client experience on their platform. By granting the ability to investors to move funds to and from their accounts swiftly, they noted investors would feel more secure through quicker funding and withdrawal times, and more importantly, get to seize time-sensitive market opportunities as and when they spot one.

However, if clients did not include their identifications in the inward remittance reference fields, transferred funds could not be automatically applied to their investment accounts. This resulted in manual reconciliation of funds leading to delays in the user experience. Therefore, a process that could automate the recognition and reconciliation of incoming payments was essential for the business.

To achieve the fast and seamless deposit experience for its brokerage platform, HSBC worked with Syfe to co-create a solution that leveraged Virtual Accounts (VA) and the provision of instant confirmation of credits via automated messages (known in the industry as MT910 messages). The VA solution solves the problem of receivables reconciliation by providing a unique virtual account number for each payor, who remit funds to their assigned VA number. Funds are then automatically credited to their respective beneficiary account, with payor details such as name and bank account number, and the purpose of payment reflected in the remittance information to automate reconciliation. As a result, funding can be done in mere minutes.

For trade redemptions, HSBC worked with Syfe to deliver a solution integrating Singapore’s real time payments Fast and Secure Transfers (FAST) clearing channel in order to provide a smooth customer experience. For every trade redemption request, payments are instantly initiated via FAST the moment they are received. This allows funds to be credited to investors in just a matter of minutes. Overall, this accomplished the automated, near-instant payment and reconciliation process Syfe needed to support straight through investment and withdrawal of funds for their investors.

• 100% automation accomplished on payments and receivables reconciliation
• A scalable, standardised platform with efficient processes
• Enhanced customer experience achieved through real-time reconciliation and confirmation of funds to investors’ investment accounts
• Ease of matching remitter's account number and name in order to meet regulatory requirements on verifying third party deposits