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Hi J,

1. You have to fill in 2 documents at the branch. One for Standard Bank and one for the South African Reserve Bank. Its relatively straightforward, but you give the account number where the funds are held as well as the reference (ie your webtrader acc number). Standard Bank buy the dollars for you (at the current spot rate) and then transfer it to the account in the States.
2. Yes very easy, you type in the code, ie SCHD as I did, and execute the trade.
3. Good question, I haven't looked at what other info the account provides, I use Google to do international research. The webtrader platform is not in same league (wrt to research) as the JSE version that Standard Bank offers. The Webtrader webinars are really good I find.
4. Minimum trade value is $20. I haven't bought enough shares to see whether it becomes % based (That ZAR/USD  )
5. Its deducted from the webtrader account every month. The platform is totally independent from SA. You only get charged on the amounts invested. So if you have $10,000 in cash, you incur $0 in fees. If that $10,000 is invested in my case SCHD, its 0.005% of $10,000.

Webtrader announced on Thursday that they are launching EUR and British Pound accounts on 1 September so then you will be able to have multiple currency accounts. I wish this was the case last year when I started, because of the EUR/USD rate, im losing significant money on a specific share.

The other lesson I'll impart is that before you buy shares that yield dividends, you need to register the GlobeTax people that will recover tax between SA and USA (30% divi tax in the states) for you. They do not recover dividends that you have already received after registering with them. They also only recover tax from US based companies. They do recover from EU/British shares but the costs are INSANE (It was something like $300 for 3 years).

Hope this helps
C

Quote from: JohnnyH on August 03, 2015, 07:55:03 am

Hi Conrad

Thank you for the feedback, much appreciated. And thank you for the heads up on the EUR and GBP accounts, I will definitely take that into account as well.

I have one more question though if you don't mind, did you ever consider just buying one of the DBX etfs available before going the WebTrader route? It seems to give me pretty much the same thing, investing in the US/WD via etf, but quite a bit less effort from my side.

Thanks again
J

We have been invested 100% in South Africa for 8 years (and a very good 8 that is) and decided to move some money offshore and invest it. The other reason was after a holiday in the states we realised how worthless the Rand has become which motivated us to move even more money overseas. You take the exchange rate knock really hard but you have to start somewhere. My mentor at work also advised having money offshore is never a bad thing. So the reasoning was to invest in ETF's not dependent on the Rand at all. So at the moment my dividends cover the fees and now to grow it, which is proving very challenging. SCHD has grown by appx 0%, my other shares are up 5% on EUR rate, excluding a 20% drop in EUR/USD exchange rate (this is the biggest lesson i've learnt...)

Ask as many questions as you like, I'm very keen to share what I know, even the little... 

C

I don't want to burst your bubble now but have you people thought this through? Has the $ gained in strength against all major currencies? If so, then the ZAR is not weakening as much as it looks on paper and will correct back down again. It might just be at the peak now and you will be buying the $ at a high.

When I last looked, the ZAR was depreciating at -3% pa and this is insignificant when you take into consideration that SA market as an emerging market by far outperforms developed markets.

Perhaps your view is politically motivated but SA has a very strict and solid financial system in place to the extent that the UK and USA sent representatives to study SA's SARS and SARB system after the 2008 fiasco.

You might have forgotten the 2008 bank implosion that never affected SA banks due to the strict regulations FSB has in place.

I could quite easily withdraw all my money with a simple email but I see SA as a more lucrative market to be in.