Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Pricing

• What is the fee charged by QuietGrowth for its service?
• Is the QuietGrowth fee tax deductible?
• How are QuietGrowth fees calculated?
• When does QuietGrowth charge its fee?
• Do I earn interest on the cash in my cash account?
• What will stop me from investing $50,000 with you, and then replicate the trades for my remaining $250,000 portfolio at a broker?
• What are the details of the QuietGrowth Invite Program?
• Do I have to manually pay the ETF provider the underlying fund fee?
• Do you charge for the new Statement of Advice that is generated as per my changed Personal Circumstances?
• Does a client of QuietGrowth has to pay trading fees separately to the brokerage firm?
• Does a client of QuietGrowth has to pay custodial fees separately?
• Does a client of QuietGrowth has to pay fees separately to Amplus Global?
• Will I be charged exit fees if I close my QuietGrowth account?
• Do you receive any compensation from ETF issuers for selecting their ETFs in your portfolios?

Questionnaire to determine risk tolerance score

• How did you design the questionnaire to determine my risk tolerance score?
• If my Personal Circumstances change, can I get a new Statement of Advice?

Your Investment Plan

• Where can I access my investment plan?
• What is the purpose of Statement of Advice (SOA)?
• Do you factor in my outside investments, such as existing ownership of certain stocks and bonds, when you create my QuietGrowth portfolio?
• Can I replace any of the ETFs in the QuietGrowth Portfolios with own choices?
• Do you invest my deposits all at once, or you do dollar cost averaging?
• Will QuietGrowth hold my individual stocks or bonds in addition to the QuietGrowth Portfolio it suggests?
• What is the time frame you refer to when you suggest to invest for the long term?
• When will my first portfolio have exposure to all the asset classes mentioned in my investment plan?
• When do you rebalance my portfolios?
• Do you rebalance a portfolio whose value is less than $10,000?
• Do you rebalance a portfolio that is not a fully-diversified portfolio?
• Can I choose what to do with the dividends that get paid out? What are my options with dividends?
• Do you offer a distribution reinvestment plan?
• How can I invest my superannuation through QuietGrowth?
• Can I use a QuietGrowth portfolio as the core of my core-satellite approach of investing?
• Do you buy or sell fractional shares?
• Can I change the risk score of a portfolio?
• What will be the risk score of my portfolio when you create it?

Portfolio construction

• Why do you have ETFs only (apart from a nominal amount of cash) and no other financial instruments in your portfolios?
• Why do you use ETFs in your portfolio instead of individual stocks and bonds?
• Why do all your portfolios have the same ETFs?
• How do you select the ETFs in your portfolios?
• Is a QuietGrowth portfolio a 'fund of funds'?
• Why the target mix of asset classes in my portfolio is constant irrespective of how much I invest and the frequency I invest?
• Do you offer a balanced portfolio?
• Can I do socially responsible investing through QuietGrowth?
• Can I do thematic investing or sector-investing through QuietGrowth Portfolios?
• Do you use your own investment products in QuietGrowth portfolios?
• Why have you chosen an unhedged security instead of hedged security for the Natural Resources asset class?
• Do you include leveraged securities in QuietGrowth Portfolios?
• Do you include target-date funds in QuietGrowth Portfolios?
• Do you include hedge funds in QuietGrowth Portfolios?
• Do you include private equity funds in QuietGrowth Portfolios?
• Do you include cryptocurrencies in QuietGrowth Portfolios?
• Do you offer direct indexing?
• Can I modify my QuietGrowth portfolio as per my religious preferences?
• Who constructs your portfolios — humans, algorithms or artificial intelligence?

Your account

• Where is my money held?
• Where are my securities held?
• Is there a need for me to login to my brokerage account that you would create when my QuietGrowth account is created?
• Is there a need for me to contact directly the support team at the brokerage firm, during or after my brokerage account creation process?
• Who should I contact if I have any account-related question, problem or suggestion?
• Can I execute the buy and sell trades myself for the money I deposit in QuietGrowth portfolios?
• Why am I not able to execute buy or sell trades myself after I login to my brokerage account?
• Can I change the account type of my QuietGrowth account - from individual to joint, or from joint to individual?
• My current residential address has changed. How can I change the address in my account details?
• While I close my QuietGrowth account, can I retain the brokerage account?
• If I pass away, what happens to my individual account at QuietGrowth?

Creating an account

• Can I open multiple accounts with QuietGrowth?
• Why has my online ID verification failed?
• When do you ask for a certified copy of my identification document?
• How can I certify a copy of my identification document?
• Do you conduct online ID verification of all clients?
• You requested a certified copy of my identification document. Can I send you my 100 point check document instead?
• What are the documents you provide to me before my account is created?
• Why is a brokerage account created when my QuietGrowth account is created?
• I already have an individual HIN. Can I use it for my QuietGrowth account?
• Can I use my existing broker account instead of you creating a new one?
• Can I use my existing cash account instead of you creating a new one?
• Is it mandatory to submit the W-8BEN or W-8BEN-E form?
• What is the relevance of W-8BEN or W-8BEN-E forms?
• Apart from the W-8BEN or W-8BEN-E form, do I need to consider anything else regarding US taxation rules?

Creating an account — SMSF and Trust account types

• Do I need to certify all the pages of my Trust deed?

Residents of other countries

• I am an Australian citizen who is not a resident of Australia. Can I open an account?
• I am not a citizen nor a resident of Australia. I live outside of Australia. Can I open an account?
• Can a US citizen who is not a US resident open an account with QuietGrowth?
• Can US residents open an account with QuietGrowth?
• I am a US citizen who is not a US resident. Is it required of me to submit the W-9 form?
• Can a resident of any country open an account with QuietGrowth?
• How do you conduct ID verification of clients residing outside Australia?
• I do not have a bank account in Australia. Can I transfer money from my bank account outside Australia?
• I have now become a resident of a country other than Australia. Should I inform you?

Performance

• How do you calculate the return on investments?
• What is the historical performance of your portfolios?
• Why don’t you display 1-year and 3-year portfolio returns, in addition to 10-year returns?
• How do you calculate the historical performance of QuietGrowth Portfolios?

Adding funds

• What is the minimum amount required to be deposited initially in a QuietGrowth portfolio?
• How do I deposit money for investment through QuietGrowth?
• May I transfer my existing securities portfolio to my QuietGrowth account?
• How do you determine the cash component in my portfolios?
• Is there a minimum amount that I should deposit as a top-up before you invest the cash in the portfolio in the market?
• Can I make automatic monthly contributions to QuietGrowth?
• If my portfolio loses its value and falls below the minimum amount required to invest initially, do I need to deposit more cash?
• Is there any minimum amount for subsequent deposits, after the minimum initial deposit?
• Do I have to wait for any periodic trading cycle, such as quarterly trading cycle, for you to invest the cash that I deposit?
• Do I need to inform QuietGrowth before I add funds, or can I directly transfer the amount without informing?
• What to do if the character limit of the reference message allowed by my bank is too low?
• What do you mean by a 'fully-diversified portfolio'?
• What is the difference between depositing money, depositing funds, transferring funds, and contribution to QuietGrowth from the bank account of the client?
• I live outside Australia. Do you accept a remittance through a Money Changer?

Multiple portfolios

• Can I invest in multiple portfolios?
• Do you provide goals-based investing?
• When will my second or subsequent portfolios have exposure to all the asset classes mentioned in my investment plan?
• Can I merge one portfolio into another portfolio?
• My investment goal for a portfolio got cancelled. What are my options for the portfolio now?
• Can I delete a portfolio before I would have gone ahead to invest in it?

Taxes

• What sort of tax information or documents do you provide your clients during tax time each year?
• If I close my account before the end of the financial year, will I still get documents for tax filing?
• Do you pay any tax on my behalf?

Annual Review

• Why must I complete the Annual Review?
• What is the deadline to complete the Annual Review each year?
• What is the anniversary day?
• Will my anniversary day change if I restart my MDA?
• I am an administration-only client now. How to restart my MDA?
• Do you provide the Fee Disclosure Statement (FDS)?

Administration-only

• What is an administration-only client?
• I am an administration-only client now. Can I add funds?

QuietGrowth Kids

• Can I invest for my kids through QuietGrowth?

Withdrawals

• What is the withdrawal process?
• How much can I withdraw?
• Can I transfer-out securities to my other broker account at the time of account closure?
• How does QuietGrowth choose which ETFs to sell when I place a withdraw request?
• Is there a lock in period?
• Can I log in to my cash account and withdraw cash without informing you?
• Can I retain my cash account while closing my QuietGrowth account?

Account reopen

• I have closed my account. How can I restart investing?
• The MDA service is stopped, but the account is not closed. How can I restart investing?

Security

• Does QuietGrowth provide fingerprint security?
• Does QuietGrowth provide two-factor authentication?
• I have set up fingerprint security as well as two-factor authentication for my QuietGrowth mobile app. Will both of them work simultaneously?
• Where are the servers located?
• What components of client data does the brokerage firm has access to?
• What components of client data does the cash account provider has access to?
• Do you sell my data?
• Will you delete my data after I close my account?

Structure of QuietGrowth MDA

• Through what structure does QuietGrowth offer its service to me?
• Do you provide financial advice or investment advice?
• Do you provide general financial advice or personal financial advice?
• Is the financial advice that you provide separate from your MDA service?
• Why QuietGrowth does not have its own Product Disclosure Statement (PDS)?
• Is QuietGrowth a financial adviser?
• Is QuietGrowth an online discretionary investment manager (ODIM)?
• Is QuietGrowth a do-it-yourself (DIY) service or a do-it-for-me (DIFM) service?
• Is QuietGrowth a digital-only roboadviser or a hybrid roboadviser?
• Is QuietGrowth an independent robo adviser?
• Is QuietGrowth a standalone robo adviser?
• What are the advantages of Managed Discretionary Account (MDA) structure through which you offer your service?
• Is my QuietGrowth account a managed account or a managed fund?
• Do each of my QuietGrowth portfolios constitute separate instances of Managed Discretionary Accounts?
• Can I invest in QuietGrowth portfolios directly without signing the Managed Discretionary Account contract?
• Is my QuietGrowth account a Separately Managed Account (SMA)?
• Is my QuietGrowth account a managed fund?
• Are the QuietGrowth portfolios available anywhere else such as WRAP or SMA platforms?
• Is there a HIN for my investments in securities?
• Do you earn commissions from product issuers?

Financial tools

• I am not your client. Can I use QuietGrowth retirement planner?
• Can I link my various financial accounts to the QuietGrowth Net Worth Calculator?

SMSF set up

• Can I call you for the 'SMSF set-up' and 'ongoing SMSF administration' services?
• Which software you use for 'ongoing SMSF administration' service?

Technology

• Can I use Brave web browser to access QuietGrowth website?