Just the other day I was stupefied by the fact that my otherwise financially savvy boyfriend didn’t have Raiz (ASX: RZI) on his phone.
“YOU DON’T KNOW ABOUT RAIZ?!” I blurted out, mouth full of pancakes that he’d made (side note: this one is definitely a keeper).
“Who doesn’t know about Raiz? Give me your phone.”
I promptly downloaded the app, sent him my referral code (free money for both of us!) and hey presto, the boy’s an investor.
If you’re one of the uninitiated I’ll explain: Raiz is (in my books at least) a millennial essential. It was the app where I first learned about investing and ultimately, led me to working in this space.
I am an OG user, having been rounding up my lattes since before it was even called Raiz. I’ve watched the platform grow and transform into this fantastic, feature packed app that I still enjoy using to this day.
The Raiz philosophy is all about investing small amounts regularly. The app allows you to ‘round up’ your purchases to the nearest whole dollar amount and invest that spare change into an ETF portfolio of your choice. This approach obviously works with over 500,000 Australians using the platform to learn to save and invest.
2021 was a year of significant growth for the platform, most notably hitting over $1 billion in funds under management in November.
I’m unsure if that or my pancake fueled outburst is more of an endorsement and testament to the app’s palatability.
Despite Omicron woes, the month of December yielded a 1.9% increase in funds under management compared to November, a 70.8% increase on last December.
The platform also saw an increase in active users, especially overseas in Southeast Asia where Raiz is making headway in the market. Indonesia now boasts over 206,000 active customers (7.1% increase on last month), and Malaysia tailing at 97,079 active customers, 6.6% up from November.
The traction in Southeast Asia serves as a base from which Raiz plans to expand into Thailand and Vietnam.
Managing Director and Joint Group CEO George Lucas commented on the results, saying: “December witnessed a marked deterioration in business conditions with the new variant of the COVID virus proving extremely contagious. It sparked an unexpected significant increase in cases in the eastern states, catching people and governments off guard and interrupting the festive season.
“Despite this setback our FUM continued to increase and is now well over the $1 billion FUM target we set for the end of the calendar year. Over the past 12 months, FUM has grown an impressive +70.8%.
“In Southeast Asia, both Indonesia and Malaysia continue solid growth in Active Customers. We reached our milestone for Indonesia of 200,000 Active Customers by calendar year end. In Malaysia, we nearly reached our target of 100,000 Active Customers, with 97,079 Active Customers at 31 December 2021.”
The platform is no doubt set for further growth having recently received a $10 million investment from Australia’s largest diversified media business, Seven West Media, owner of Channel 7, Racing.com, The Sunday Times and the West Australian.
Still, it remains to be seen if the advertising reach of Channel 7 has anything on me and a mouth full of pancakes.
Samantha Freidin is a business journalist at Emerald Financial whilst also completing a Masters of Marketing and Digital Communications at Monash University.
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