OCBC is launching a robo investment service aimed at millennials. The Singaporean bank aims to make money management as appealing as putting together a Spotify playlist.
Singapore-based OCBC said it is launching OCBC RoboInvest, which clients can invest in with as little as S$3,500 ($2,561). Fees on the service is 1.5 percent on the first S$50,000, and drop to 1 percent above that threshold.
The product, developed together with Singapore fintech WeInvest, is meant to be as seamless as picking a digital music playlist. While services such as Spotify allow users to add or remove individual tracks, RoboInvest is slightly more fidgety: customers cannot swap in individual instruments, only portfolios.
Pilot With Millennials
For OCBC, the tie-up is a bid to «democratize» wealth management by offering products to a wider group of potential clients in a more efficient, convenient, and more personal way, Aditya Gupta (pictured below), the bank's head of e-business in Singapore, said.
OCBC said the launch follows a nine-month pilot program last year with potential clients between 25 and 40 years of age. The pilot showed that investors have no problem with «self-service» investing, as long as portfolios align with their preferences and match up to their risk profiles, OCBC said.
U.K. Ties
The product range is 28 portfolios of equities and exchange-traded funds on themes including technology, real estate, consumer goods, healthcare and food and beverage in Singapore, Australia, the U.K. and Europe, and Hong Kong. RoboInvest uses algorithms for portfolio monitoring and re-balancing, alerting clients via email for approval.
«This partnership reinforces the need for innovation and new models, where marquee financial institutions can implement customer-focused digital solutions with a faster time to market», WeInvest CEO Bhaskar Prabhakara said. The start-up, in which U.K. asset manager Schroders is a minority shareholder, recently raised $12 million in funding.
