I was very motivated to invest after Seedly's PFF Finance 2019 but have yet to make stock buys yet. CDP registration and trading acc wait is such a big hassle! How did you guys overcome this barrier?

Yes as Gabriel said its really not as hard as it seems! I think brokerages help smoothen the process quite abit!

As a beginner before I can relate with your experience. I know work life is extremely busy and it can really be difficult to find time on top of that to focus on trading. When you do get the motivation(before you get all this admin setup), its really daunting and this is before you even do the research(which is the core part).

Here's what I recommend:

1. Stay calm- dont rush into the market as much as time value of money is a factor.

2. Talk to friends, colleagues if they own stocks and their experience of trading(be cynical though of how true their beliefs and practices work though).

3. Read up on news and find out about companies- you can really start anywhere on this

4. Add companies you might be interested to buying into your watchlist + I also recommend using following some stock news websites and opting for notifications for the particular stock(I do this on seeking alpha for US stocks- not sure their exact coverage of stock exchanges)

5. Decide on your expected returns which is directly proportional to how much risk you are willing to be exposed to

6. Buy in when you feel ready! (shall not go into quantitative aspects for this- I think for LT dividend play with DCA this shouldnt matter as much!)

They have to make sure that you can afford and know how to invest. If people dont get checked properly and lost money on investing, im pretty sure a lot people will blame government again.