Stashaway Malaysia Review 2024: 21 Secrets you Missed

This is a full, no fluff expose of what Stashaway is and what it isn’t.

Unlike many other Stashaway Malaysia Reviews saturating the Internet…

…written by half-past-six bloggers with the sole intention of persuading you to sign up for Stashaway Malaysia account using their referral (affiliate) links,

…this Q&A style non-nonsense, no-holds-barred article will dispel all the myths, misconception and half-truths out there.

Stashaway Malaysia Review: 23 Secrets Exposed! (2024) by CF Lieu - Certified Financial Planner Malaysia — Proof? See what Tiffany had to say about this 👆

Alright, let’s dive right in.

Table of Contents

What is Stashaway Malaysia fees?

There is zero upfront and withdrawal fees. There is only an annual management fee between 0.2 to 0.8 percent depending on amount invested.

What is Stashaway Malaysia Performance?

Investment performance varies depending on your chosen risk index. Refer to this video lesson for super-detailed explanation: https://youtu.be/3vIN2gFvlYI

How Stashaway works?

The StashAway’s ERAA® AI algorithm allocates your money into a range of US ETFs listed here https://www.stashaway.my/r/stashaways-etf-selection, based on your risk index (SRI)

Why you want to read this entirely

CF Lieu is a trained engineer, and not only is he a certified financial planner, but also a licensed independent fee-for-advice consultant which means that you should heed his words seriously.
Unlike 99% Stashaway Malaysia review articles out there, zero affiliate links are included in this post, and we will receive none, nil, zilch, nadda commission from Stashaway no matter what you do.

Stashaway – how does it work?

Stashaway Malaysia or Singapore or any robo advisor for that matter, is nothing more than a blackbox with a built-in artificial intelligence that takes in relevant economic and financial data to make investment decisions. The AI learns from its success and mistakes over time when the outcome of those decisions are feedbacked to itself.

This means if you feed it good inputs, it will yield good outputs. The contrary to this is rubbish in, rubbish out. Its learning and decision making process is governed by how good the algorithm programmed into it by humans.

What’s inside the black box? These variables (Stashaway Malaysia ETF list), which may change from time to time. A combination of the variables available inside the black box is being used to achieve best possible outcome at all times, though not all variables are necessarily utilized at all times or even at all.

There you go, that is HOW all robo advisers work so now you don’t need need to go research things like ‘stashaway alternative’ or ‘stashaway vs wahed’ or ‘stashaway vs mytheo’.

How much can you earn from Stashaway?

It all depends on whether you are investing in its conservative, moderate or aggressive portfolio, but generally, you should expect between 2% to 10% per year on a 5 years moving average across all its portfolio.

Warning! Very Technical: A critical review of my 4 years with Stashaway (click to read)

Stashaway After 1 Year Performance

Stashaway Performance Review

Robo Advisor Malaysia Review & Comparison

How much should I invest in Stashaway?

As with any form of investment, investing in Stashaway is meant to be for long term so you should only invest any amount you do not need to utilize in the next 3 to 5 years.

However, you can put any emergency fund into Stashaway Cash Management Portfolio (known as Stashaway Simple in Malaysia).

Stashaway is a robo-adviser app to manage your investment (WRONG!)

A robo-advisor is a software product that helps you self-manage your investments.
Gavinesh from RinggitGenie (lawyer by profession)

Wrong, Stashaway is a platform which has a well-designed app (software) that acts as an fully online intermediary to help you construct and rebalance your investments into exchange-traded funds (ETFs) domiciled outside of Malaysia (primarily in US). It leverages on artificial intelligence (AI or more aptly know as robo adviser) to make decisions on the what’s and when’s of investment portfolio management.

Stashway Malaysia yielded spectacular ROI – 24% returns in a year, WOW!

Stashaway is the greatest thing since sliced bread, it made me 24% Annual Returns in 2019. Lucky that Stashaway Malaysia invested in a portfolio of ETFs, that tracked the best companies in US. If we had ever known Stashaway Malaysia was going to give a return that matches Warren Buffett’s return, we would have piled in every cent that we have into Stashaway Malaysia.
JP from MyKayaPlus (a food tech graduate)

Not too shabby but S&P 500 also delivers 31% so what is there to shout about? See below. (S&P 500 is a stock market index that measures the stock performance of 500 large companies listed on stock exchanges in the United States)

In the same period, Warren Buffett underperformed when Berkshire Hathaway only yielded 11%. Proof that even you are historically known as the best investor in the world, you don’t always beat the market

Closer to home, within Malaysia, unit trust fund like Principal Global Titans, invested heavily in US, although not a direct apple to apple comparison, delivered 21.43 % in 2019 net of fees, 23.23% before fees.

And yes, we are helping our clients invest directly into this fund, even using their EPF account 1 money, with zero sales charge. So what they get is exactly what is shown below in the fund factsheet.

A lot of newbie investors in the age of social media fall into this trap of shiny object syndrome. That is not to say Stashaway Malaysia annual return or Stashaway average returns are bad. Often, there are easier and more straightforward path to what you want to do or want to go.

Why isn’t Stashaway Malaysia Shariah compliant?

Stashaway Malaysia is halal or Syariah (Shariah) compliant?
Concerned Muslim

It is just a platform, whether it it Syariah compliant or not depends on the ETFs the Stashaway algorithm (‘Economic Regime-based Asset Allocation’ ERAA) is allocating your funds into, which is updated in this page.

But because these funds are domiciled outside Malaysia, making them Syariah compliant is likely on the funds’ manufacturers lowest priority list. Stick to Malaysian Islamic funds with mandate to invest outside Malaysia if investing into Syariah compliant fund is important consideration for you.

Stashaway is legitimately dominating as the most popular robo advisor in Malaysia!

Stashaway is it safe? Is Stashaway legit?
Concerned first time investor

Stashaway Malaysia is a fintech startup certified by Securities Commission (SC) as the first robo-adviser in Malaysia and therefore has first mover advantage

Pacific Trustees is a Securities Commission licensed trustee who provide custodial services to StashAway Malaysia. Your cash deposits are held with Pacific Trustees’s Citibank Berhad account.

Pacific Trustees has opened this account specifically for safekeeping the assets of StashAway Malaysia’s customers.

Similarly, the account with our broker Saxo is also opened by Pacific Trustees. This provides additional security for customers and mitigates against the risk of StashAway Malaysia going bankrupt as customers’ funds are unmingled with StashAway Malaysia’s.

On another note, if the demand for robo-adviser reaches a critical mass, and Stashaway is still around because they can sustain operation and profitability;ity, then it could really be the market leader cum pioneer.

You must be aware that some robo advisor platform like Smart.ly in Singapore shut down and investors like you will be forced to liquidate your holdings at a loss.

No entry and exit fees using Stashaway Malaysia!

Stashaway Malaysia is great because you are not charged any fee to invest or withdraw
Many fee-allergic investors who sees fee as a sin in investment

Most funds do not charge any fee for withdrawal (redemption after selling your units). So this is nothing new. There might be transaction (brokerage) fees when you sell ETFs under some platform because ETFs trades like your stocks.

Fees to invest usually refers to sales charge, front load or upfront fee for mutual funds and unit trusts. This is true when you go through your usual banking channels or unit trust agents. Hey, people got to eat right? Nobody works for free, the question is, whether the fee you are paying is worth or not (hint: it’s NOT if you don’t get proper investment advice and the ‘work’ done is just to help you fill in some paperwork)

But for independent financial advisers like us, we can offer clients up to 0% sales charge or upfront fee for our advisory clients. One such situation is when clients had an under-performing investment portfolio which he or she is transferring to us to be managed.

Stashaway is the cheapest way to invest in Malaysia!

Stashaway is cheaper than investing in unit trust in Malaysia
Uninformed investor

That’s also why I don’t invest in mutual funds because most mutual funds charge up to a 5% sales fee with an additional 1% to 3% management fee and transaction fee combined. It means that you’re losing money before even making anything in return.
Dean of DeanYeong.com

Absolutely if you are being charged the max 5% upfront sales fee as allowable in the fund’s prospectus because Stashaway charges 0%

The annual management fees for Stashaway Malaysia is 0.2 to 0.8 percent, whereas it is a norm for actively managed equity funds to have 1.5 to 1.8 percent per annum flat rate (factored into NAV). No actively managed fund dared to charge 3% per annum so we are not sure where he get that fact from.

The real question you should ask is – what are my returns net of fees instead of looking at just the fees.

For example, a BMW car can set you back RM 4k/month of installments and it’s nuts even if you are earning 10k/month coz that’s 40% of your income.

However if you are earning 30k/month, that’s just 12% of your income. It’s like someone earning 5k/month paying for a MyVi installments of 600/month. Which is very much acceptable.

For example one of the ETFs under Stashaway Malaysia portfolio is Technology Select Sector SPDR fund. Snapshot as of July 2020 – its 3 years and 5 years annualized return are circa 16 percent.

A similar actively managed from Franklin Templeton – Franklin Technology Fund (which we are managing it into our client’s portfolio) gets you 22% 3 years annualized return and 19% 5 years annualized return.

The annual management fee is a small contributor the the overall long term performance of an actively or passively managed fund.

What you really want to focus is to lower down your one time upfront fees. And only independent, fee-based adviser can do that for you, usually not your conventional unit trust agent or through most retail banking channels.

Stashaway helps me invest globally with low barrier of entry!

investing globally in your individual capacity requires a lot of capital. Further, the trading fees and the currency conversion costs can be quite high.
Gavinesh from RinggitGenie (lawyer by profession)

Investing in US ETFs means high fees (up to $25 and more per trade) here in Malaysia.
Dean of DeanYeong.com

Absolutely bollocks. For example, you can buy 1 unit of stocks or ETF in US market, instead of 1 lot (100 units) in Malaysia.

When you invest into US ETFs via Stashaway Malaysia, the trading fees (if any) and currency conversion fees (0.1% on the spot rate) has already been factored in. These ‘costs’ are declared transparently and built-in as you transfer funds into Stashaway. Similarly, when you invest into US ETFs directly while wiring the Ringgit-denominated funds to your US brokerage receiving banks, you will also know these investment costs crystal clear.

Furthermore, investment fees are trending down. Even in 2013, where I, CF Lieu, started to invest into Vanguard ETFs via platforms like US-based TDAmeritrade, the costs of buying/selling ETFs is free (the cost of buying/selling stocks is $ 9.99 flat rate). So whatever platform charging $ 25 in 2020 is definitely overpriced; ditch it immediately.

The $25 fee, the author mentioned, is probably referring to the Telegraphic Transfer fees charged by the intermediary bank(s) as you wire the Ringgit-denominated funds to your US brokerage

I don’t need to worry about value investing using Stashaway Malaysia !

Using Stashaway I don’t have to worry about undervalued or over-valued index funds
Dean of DeanYeong.com

Yes, because there’s no such thing as under or over valued funds of any sorts. Only stocks or real estate property are over or under valued.

Stashaway Malaysia removes the pain and hassle of investment portfolio rebalancing!

I find it hard to sell & rebalance.
Dean of DeanYeong.com

You probably don’t like doing it but you can always learn how it works because this is your money we are dealing with here. Finding it hard and thus refusing to do it is just an excuse.

Everyone will find it unexpectedly awkward and hard to have sex the first time despite porn shows you how easy it is, you just learn to get better over time. You don’t refrain from having sex and resort to a lifetime of masturbation to fulfill your very natural human urges when you fumbled in your first ‘encounter’.

Once you know how to do it, you can outsource it out (unlike sex, we are talking about investing here). You need to learn how to fish, not just forever in the mode of dependent on others to give you the fish.

Otherwise, you are just like owner of a Michelin stars restaurant who know jack shit about cooking or an engineering manager who does not know how to code but are tasked to manage team of software engineers

Stashaway Malaysia is more transparent than traditional ways of investing!

To me, StashAway provides the right amount of transparency and control—way more than most traditional brokers—that allows me to know what I need to know and ignore what I don’t need to know.
Dean of DeanYeong.com

No, you just don’t ignore what you *think don’t need to know when it comes to money. You need to know EVERYTHING (or as much as you can) from a high level. Knowing everything and understanding a lot though, does not mean you have to do everything yourself.

Ignorance is bliss. After all, nobody gonna care more about your money than you because it’s your money.

When it comes to money, you cannot be passively involved. Yes, you could call Stashaway as a form of passive investing but you cannot be passively involved. You need to understand what’s going on, at the very least.

For example, how economic and business conditions affect your investment with Stashaway Malaysia or with any platform. As an independent adviser, we are well-versed in the workings of the economy and business landscape. Watch below (not lip service)

You never want a passive relationship (where only you are doing all the work but not your partner) or passive sex (where you only lie there like a dead fish every single time); if you do, then would it sustain for long? That’s the biggest misconception on passive investing.

Also curious on what’s is so not transparent about traditional brokers when they are regulated and governed by securities law?

Robo advisor like Stashaway Malaysia is a great alternative investment vehicle!

For experienced investors, especially in other investment vehicles like traditional mutual funds and real estate, StashAway could be an alternative to diversify your overall portfolio.
Dean of DeanYeong.com

Stashaway is an investment platform leveraging on the power of artificial intelligence. It is not an asset class. You don’t diversify into different platforms. That’s like you saying you need a balanced diet but instead of only eating Sea Bass, you also include Ikan Bilis, Salmon and Ikan Pari in your meals (what you should do is to include brown rice, fiber-rich vegetables and healthy fats like avocado)

If you want diversification, you diversify into various asset classes like Bonds (Fixed Income) or Private Equity, on top of Stocks (Equities). Or geographical diversification (US, AsiaPacific, Malaysia etc). Or sectorial diversification (healthcare, REITs, Consumer Goods, Technology). But your Stashaway portfolio has already done that for you anyway.

Stashaway Malaysia will soon cause a lot of unit trust agents and brokerage houses to go out of business!

First, the so-called financial experts from the insurance agent to the mutual fund salesperson have nothing to gain from it. Secondly, there are just not that many options for ETFs in Malaysia. And finally, it’s not sexy to talk about—invest 15% of your income to index funds for 30 years versus owning five real estate properties with no money down—of course everyone would rather listen to the later.
Dean of DeanYeong.com

Very TRUE on 3 counts. Usually, tied insurance agents and unit trust agents (or even bank relationship managers) are nothing more than glorified sales person in ties and suits whom had underwent 3 hours of technical investment training but 30 hours of sales training. That is until most people (who had been ‘mistreated’ and ‘abused’ by those sales-and-product-driven financial intermediaries) meet independent advisers like us. Something Tony Robbins mentioned in his book Unshakeable: Your Financial Freedom Playbook as fiduciary financial adviser – someone who is going to look out for you more than anything else.

But beware! Not all independent adviser act like an fiduciary adviser. They can use the product-and-sales driven approach as well (a wolf in sheep clothing). Your best bet is to read this guide: Hire an Authentic Financial Planner- 52 Trusted Tip Nobody Told You About and do a thorough background check what their clients said about them (example, just like an extensive list of clients’ testimonials we have over here)

You may think hiring an adviser for financial advice is expensive, and it’s only for ‘atas’ people.

Firstly, we have made it super affordable to anyone having financial questions to have their queries answered. At what cost? Well, it is probably even cheaper than your monthly Netflix subscription. See it over here.

Secondly, we wonder why you have not considered these ‘atas’ as well – paying for a Grab ride or ordering food online or spending RM 12 for car wash? You could have taken a bus, tapau yourself or wash your own car.

Also read: Obsession with property investing with no money down ruining lives

Unlike many other investment options in Malaysia, Stashaway is made for average folks like me!

I hate to say it but it is truly P.I.T.A to deal with traditional brokers in Malaysia unless you have millions to invest. Most financial instruments are simply not designed for the average folks like you and me.
Dean of DeanYeong.com

Not entirely true. Yes, traditional broker may not have an app as user-friendly as Stashaway app but you don’t have to possess millions to invest.

Financial ‘instruments’ like stocks and funds have low barrier of entry even for average folks – usually RM 1,000 or even RM 500 – that’s 1 lot (100 units) of stocks or minimum initial investment for unit trust fund.

Most newbie investors (millennial) just don’t feel these straightforward options (which has been around for decades) suit their fancy palate. Understood that using robo-adviser with a fancy app is trendy but even without these, it does not prevent Baby Boomers like our parents from investing and accumulating wealth.

However, more advanced instruments like structured investments or private equity though, are indeed for well-heeled accredited investors; it’s true you won’t even know about those options unless you are are private banking level client.

Other investment platforms are hard to use, but Stashaway Malaysia made it super simple and easy!

It literally took me weeks to open my first brokerage account via an investment bank, and it took me months just to figure out how to perform a trade. Worst, I learned it by reading blog posts, going through forums, and experimenting using the actual account. There are no clear instructions and easy-to-find knowledge base for it.
Dean of DeanYeong.com

If he’s referring to this from Malaysian context, this is not true; he can start from Malaysia in literally 10 minutes without lifting his butt off his chair. This is how to do it, step by ste p .

But for Malaysian to open an offshore trading or brokerage account, the process might indeed be more complex, particularly when it comes to identity verification and wiring your funds to the account.

That being said, for an reasonably IT-literate person, we have not encountered a situation where navigating around a brokerage platform took months to figure out (probably an exaggeration or figuratively speaking).

If the platform is so notoriously hard to use, the next best option is to just ditch it and use another platform instead of spending months browsing blogs, forums and experimenting. Keep the main thing, the main thing. It’s a individual-specific experience, not a generalization of how things are out there aside from Stashaway Malaysia .

Stashaway Simple is the Bank Killer for Fixed Deposit account!

like NoMoneyLah article here 😑

Myth or fact? Watch below and judge for yourself.

If I have 2 or more bank loans, Stashaway Malaysia prohibits me from opening an account?!

This is is really neither a joke nor a marketing gimmick when it comes to Stashaway Malaysia. See below:

So yes, it is TRUE that Malaysian having 2 or more auto loan or home loan, you are not eligible to invest in StashAway Malaysia.

If you wish to know more on Domestic Ringgit Borrowing, you can check out Bank negara (BNM) website

The KWEB Saga Pissed off a lot of Stashaway Investors in 2021

Excerpt from Elizabeth Tai’s Stashaway Malaysia (very honest review 2022)

Here’s why I’m convinced that StashAway actively managed: They’re trying to actively beat the market.

Around 2021, StashAway placed a large proportion of funds into KraneShares CSI China Internet ETF (KWEB). Many portfolios ended up overweight with China tech stocks, so when China regulators came down hard on Chinese tech companies in 2021, KWEB fell. By a lot.

But StashAway told investors to have a “long-term” view on KWEB….

Only to sell off KWEB months later due to sanction fears.

And then fate served StashAway a pie to the face when KWEB shot up by 39.72% a few days later.

Stashaway, in essence, sold at KWEB’s lowest point, cementing losses for many. So much for holding for the long term.

So, passive investors? I … don’t think so.

In an article by robo-advisor platform Endowus, Not all robo-advisors are created the same, Stashaway’s investment philosophy is described as “largely tactical and very active allocations that massively deviate from any global passive equities indices, and cannot be deemed as strategic or passive in nature. Not by any stretch of the imagination.”

Although StashAway technically follows indexes passively, the indexes they follow are too narrowly focused and are just not broad enough to mitigate the risks

Stashaway vs eToro, which one better?

This is an apple to durian comparison. eToro is essentially a commission-free global stocks brokerage platform with a fancy app that supports social-trading.

Stashaway vs Rakuten, which one better?

Again, an apple to durian comparison. Rakuten is also a local Malaysian stocks brokerage electronic platform which you can open an account conveniently under 10 minutes with zero paperwork

Stashaway vs Unit Trust?

Stashaway is a robo-advisor platform which invests in US ETFs, while unit trust aka mutual fund is just a vehicle to invest into multiple stocks with diversification even if you only have RM 1,000.

Stashaway vs FSM (Fundsupermart)?

FSM is an aggregator platform to invest into wide range of unit trusts, while Stashaway is a robo-adviser platform that invest into a selected range of exchange-traded funds. Whether one is better than another is irrelevant because the investment return depends on the actual fund composition of your portfolio (which is determined by your risk profile or risk index rating)

Just like your dividends from funds inside FSM, Stashaway dividends from ETFs will be reinvested automatically.

Similarly, direct debit and dollar cost average (DCA) is available for both.

Stashaway Malaysia vs ASB (Amanah Saham)?

ASB wins hands-down because it is so positively consistent that it never drops below 0% return. That being said, it also almost certainly will never reap double digit percentage returns in a year, unlike passively managed funds (ETFs) or actively managed funds (unit trusts).

Stashaway charged me hidden management fee when when I withdraw my money! WTF

That’s one of the comments in Stashaway Malaysia Google Reviews page.

What Jay Ng wants: to lock-in the ETF investment portfolio value he was looking at the moment he hit SELL and REDEEM (withdrawal = redemption, terms used interchangeably). He thinks Stashaway Malaysia is cheating by giving excuses that the hidden transaction fees are forex losses and ETF price drop from the time he hit SELL & REDEEM to the moment the sale price of the ETFs was locked in. Furthermore, he advised investors like you to Stay-away from Stashaway.

And you know what, Jay Ng is Right….NOT!

He was so wrong in so many places that I don’t even know where to start.

Firstly, any fund, whether mutual fund (unit trust) or ETF works on forward pricing method.

Forward pricing is the widely adopted pricing method within the industry. Investors would redeem (or purchase) the fund as of the net asset value on the next valuation point, which is usually the next market close.

Thus, investors should note that they will not know the exact number of units (or valuation/price) of the fund they redeem or purchase at the moment they transact.

At the end of each business day, via third party platforms like Stashaway or FSMOne (Fundsupermart), a fund manager receives all the orders (purchase or redemption) for his fund.

Fund manager then calculates the value of the fund and its price per unit, after the market has closed for the day. An investor then receives the appropriate number of units of the fund being redeemed (or purchased), based on this calculated price.

As such, investors who have placed their orders before the cut off time on a business day will be redeeming (or purchasing) units of the fund based on its price on the closing price on the end of that particular day.

However, investors would NOT be aware of this price, until it is made known 1 or 2 business days later. There is nothing not transparent about this – it is just how things work anywhere in the world. This also explains why it is foolish to ‘time the market’ when it comes to buying or selling/withdrawing/redeeming a fund.

But investing into platform like Stashaway Malaysia (which, in turn is actually investing in USD-denominated ETFs) throws an extra spanner in the works – you feel the forex gain (or loss in Jay Ng’s case) first hand. This is my second point to educate you.

See if Jay Ng actually experienced a forex gain between the time he hit SELL & REDEEM and the time he gotten his money back in his bank account, trust me, he would have given Stashaway Malaysia a 5 Star reviews. Nobody ask questions when they make money, but everybody loses their minds when they LOST MONEY! It’s just human nature.

Anyway I digress. The point is – currency fluctuation risk is another investment risk you must contend with when you are investing overseas. Foreign currency exchange can works in your favour or it can work against you.

To be fair, even if you invest your money into foreign stocks like Facebook/Tesla/Alphabet/Netflix via Malaysia-domiciled funds like Principal Global Titans, you are still subject to forex gain or loss, UNLESS the fund itself is MYR-Hedged. But this forex gain or loss is actually taken into the fund overall return (or loss), so it is ‘invisible’ to you.

Watch below: How the Best Stocks Picker can Outperform ETFs and Index Funds

For example, a MYR fund with mandate to invest in US stock market may have garnered 12% annual returns in the form of capital gains and dividends reinvested. However, its final reported annual return would be, say, 15% because that extra 3% is due to forex gain when Ringgit weakened against US Dollar during that year. In the fund factsheet though, you just see 15% not 12% so you think FX gain/loss does not affect you, but in reality, it does.

So Stashaway Malaysia response to Jay Ng is absolutely correct but I think I explained in a way 10 times better than what Stashaway did. Nobody, not even robo-adviser like Stashaway, MyTheo or Wahed can predict and control stock market or FX movement.

But saying something like “we require clients to acknowledge or tick a box that the final amount they get might differ from the amount they see when they request for the withdrawal” is tantamount to a half-arsed reply that serves to infuriate investors more than helping. Comment below if you agree?

Fact is – it is something Stashaway need to implement in its self-serving app / platform to ensure you can’t legally sue or ‘cari-pasal’ with them due to your own ignorance and misunderstanding or oversight…

Like I said, if you are naive or stupid or both, even AI-powered robo adviser won’t be able to help to overcome your stupidity. (So don’t be stupid, and get all 101% super informed first before investing into anything or make any major financial decision – Click OVER HERE)

This also proves a point how impersonal a robo-adviser is – it fails to explain to or educate investors adequately on what to expect. To be fair, even lazy or inexperienced unit trust agents or bankers will also make investors feel the same. However, as independent, licensed financial adviser like us, this rarely occurs.

It takes TOO LONG to get back my money from Stashaway! WTF lah

Just like Jay Ng, Vin Yap was annoyed with Stashaway Malaysia due to the losses he suffered (in which he claimed, at the time he click SELL + REDEEM, his Stashaway investment portfolio were in black.

And he also probably thinks Stashaway purposely delayed him getting his money back to his bank account.

Make no mistake, the explanation provided by Stashaway Malaysia is absolutely on-point on this matter. Can’t get 9 women to deliver a baby in 1 month, can we?

Feel sorry for Vin Yap because he should have asked for proper clarification before leaving a 1 star review for Stashaway Malaysia. It is unfair for the robo-adviser. That’s the norm if you invest your money overseas, what, go to US from Malaysia using teleportation machine in Star Trek ah? Even if you invest directly into US stocks using a US-based brokerage still subject to the funds transfer time.

Fact#1: Even Malaysia-domiciled unit trust funds investing in stocks overseas have T + 5 to T + 8 days redemption processing time.

Fact#2: Even local stocks brokerage account used to buy/hold your KLSE stocks have T + 2 days before the monies are back into your bank account

But the second part of Stashaway is just a rehashed, template-like response which you can observe it’s similar to its reply to Jay Ng above. It does not provide enough context to investors so they can compare and realize “oh, I see that’s how things work all around, not only Stashaway”.

Stashaway EMPTIED MY BANK ACCOUNT!!??

Yes, this is not fake news. It actually happened on end of July 2020.

TL,DR: StashAway had run into some technical problems which caused investors to lose money from their linked bank accounts. The technical glitch had affected users with scheduled recurring deposit which typically debits a specified amount on a monthly or quarterly basis.

Apparently, the root cause can be traced back to its Direct Debit service provider; apparently such critical system is not built in-house and has to rely on third party services. While fintench is great progress, recall when we mentioned about how robo-advisor is essentially a ‘black box‘?

More details here at SoyaCincau and VulcanPost while full post-mortem details (no longer) available here.

Conclusion: Stashaway Malaysia

To quote from WokeSalaryman – We hate to say it but you’re probably using your roboadvisor wrongly

Roboadvisors might be simple to invest with, but they’re NOT low-risk

It’s simple to use a knife, but it’s not safe for a 5 years old to use it.

When you’re investing through a Robo advisor, you’re still invested in the stock market, and therefore are exposed to all the risks and volatility of the market.

For higher risk portfolio within Stashaway or any robo adviser, yes, you can absolutely lose money. Otherwise, newbie Stashaway investors should opt for Stashaway income portfolio – which is more stable

Robo advisors are not genius tools that allow you to outperform the market in the short term

Poop! Did I just hear your reality bubble burst?

The ‘A.I.’ automation in robo advisor, the likes of Stashaway Malaysia, MyTheo or Wahed, like other automation tools, save the common high costs associated with going through conventional retail banking or agency channels.

The A.I. however, won’t guarantee, in any form or way, investors, the capability to beat the market day after day after day.

You will have to contend with the fact that your market-correlated investments will experience ups and down. There are no two ways about it.

For that reason, you must NOT put money you’d need in the next 5 years into robo advisors. But most robo advisors platform don’t tell you this prominently, so many investors had the wrong expectations. See below when some disgruntled investors took it to social media.

Know that this isn’t a bad review of Stashaway; it is just a very honest and fair review of all robo advisors.

13 thoughts on “Stashaway Malaysia Review: 23 Secrets Exposed! (2024)”

Joshua Sair 03/01/2023 at 12:49 pm

Thanks and really appreciate what you’ve wrote about SA. I’ve been using the platform for a year now and have no idea how it works and why it didn’t do stuffs that I’d do it when there are profits (sell off profits, wait for dips, top up again), and why they didn’t just let go of poor performing assets (probably didn’t care because I just dump monies to see where it goes anyways).

CF Lieu 03/01/2023 at 6:48 pm

most welcome, but curious though, Joshua – since you said ‘ have no idea how it works ‘, what made u put money into it in the first place?

Kingsley 17/07/2021 at 10:36 am

Great insight. I’m considering investing through Stashaway so this is super useful points to ponder over.

CF Lieu 17/07/2021 at 11:35 am

You bet! What’s your main takeaway from this?

Lucas 28/06/2021 at 1:54 pm

This is the most in-depth review I read about StashAway. Kudos CF Lieu!

CF Lieu 01/07/2021 at 12:33 pm

Glad you appreciate it, thanks for your feedback! So what’s your takeaway?

Badrul hisham 16/05/2021 at 11:35 am

Dear Mr Lieu

Thanks for your deep insights on stashaway,does wahed has trust account to protect investor fund?

Regards
Badrul

CF Lieu 18/05/2021 at 8:37 am

welcome Badrul. do you mean trustee?

Syafiq 09/01/2021 at 9:48 am

Awesome deep review cf lieu. Keep it up. Hope u Can deep review for wahed invest robo advisor also. Its because wahed is the only one shariah compliance platform for muslim friend.

CF Lieu 09/01/2021 at 7:08 pm

thank you for your kind compliment! WHat is it about Wahed review that you want to know about?

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