OCBC Partners Asset Manager for New Fund

The co-branded solution to address investor needs during times of stress and uncertainty and has a built-in dollar-cost averaging feature. French asset manager Amundi and OCBC Bank on Wednesday announced the launch of the Amundi-OCBC Momentum Fund – a mixed-asset product that invests in global bonds and equity ETFs.

According to its prospectus, the Momentum Fund lets the portfolio manager initiate dollar-cost averaging for the investor. The fund leverages the cost-averaging effect when it systematically allocates assets from an initial pool of fixed income securities to equity ETFs, which helps to average out the costs of investing into equities and position the fund for a potential equity market recovery. Investors are also paid a quarterly dividend of up to 3 percent per annum.

The fund is the first co-branded tie-up between the two partners, though OCBC has been distributing four other products from Amundi, according to the bank’s website.

Investors should stay invested in the market and not wait for blue skies. They should manage risk by investing carefully and staying diversified across asset classes and by taking on risk gradually over time through regular investments – in other words – dollar-cost averaging. This can benefit investors by potentially lowering the average cost per unit of an investment, especially during times of volatility, Tan Siew Lee, OCBC’s head of wealth management, Singapore, said about the new fund.

The bank noted the benefits of a multi-asset strategy in an uncertain economic environment, as it provides relative stability over equities. The fund has a target allocation of 50 percent global bonds and 50 percent global equity ETFs, with a maximum of 25 percent into non-investment grade bonds.

DBS Bank also recently launched a multi-asset fund with Schroders that includes a unique decumulation share class targeted at retiree investors, with exposure to a range of investment growth themes across Asia.