I am thinking of starting some low risk investments, more for purpose of getting long run dividends. What's the first step? Is it just going to a bank and say I wanna open a trading account?

Yeap, a good start would be via regular savings plan or robo advisor first. Meanwhile, you can read up online and research more about investing and build up your knowledge.

Hi!

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I think the first step, if you are new to investing should be to learn a little more about it before you take the plunge. You need to understand your financial objectives as well as you risk appetite. Then you need to have a good asset allocation that aligns with your financial goals.

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A good option till then would be to explore a robo-advisor, which will create an optimal portfolio for youbased on your investment objective and risk appetite. This will ensure that the funds are not lying idle till you are able to learn more and make your calls. You can use what the algorithm suggests or take your decisions via the platform.

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I work at kristal.AI, and it's my passion to evaluate various upcoming investment opportunities.

Open a trading account with a brokerage, not a bank. Unless it's scb.

Stocks aren't exactly low risk to be honest. There's the chance of losing quite a fair bit of your portfolio if you are not careful. For low risk instruments, you can look into bonds like the Singapore savings bonds or the abf Singapore bond index fund which you can dca into via posb. Back to your query, firstly you will need a cdp account to hold your stock purchases. Unless you are using a custodian account where a financial institution holds the stock for you. As you are new to investing, do take some time to read up on investment books first to get a better understanding. Maybe you can also consider buying into a stock or the STI ETF on a monthly basis for a start. You can do this via posb's invest saver or maybank ke's monthly investment plan. Or start a portfolio with a robo advisory like stashaway. Whatever you do, don't walk into a bank and say you want to open a trading account. You may be whisked to a side and be talked into signing up for an endowment or ilp or annuity plan instead. Which is not what you wanna get into, as a large portion of what you are paying goes to the commissions and the bank / insurer. Hope this helps