I see that Kristal.AI ask for a 1.5% difference, which is very painful. Do they earn from spreads when purchasing ETFs?

Thanks for raising this question Lincoln. I would like to clarify that the 1.5% cash buffer we ask you to maintain in your account is to ensure the market orders are fulfilled. The price at which you buy the ETF shall be the market price and buffer comes to use only in case of price fluctuations so that the buy orders dont fail. On forex conversion, we get the interbank conversion rate + 0.05% from Saxo which mean you actually are better off by 0.70% from your typical rate that you are charged on account of our preferential pricing. In fact we have had a lot of pushback from our custodians on giving such aggresive pricing to clients and we may look to revise this to 0.18% very soon. Even at 0.18% it would be more than 0.55% better than what you emntion you get otherwise. Hope this helps. Thanks Asheesh