Singapore’s OCBC Bank has rolled out its algorithm-based investment service, RoboInvest, to its retail customers, targeting young and tech-savvy investors aged between 25 and 40 years old.
OCBC RoboInvest, which requires a minimum investment of S$3,500, will offer users 28 portfolios of equities and exchange traded funds across six markets, and will be based on themes like technology, real estate investment trusts, fast-moving consumer goods companies, among others.
Algorithms monitor performance to re-balance investments and alert users to changing economic indicators.
OCBC says costs are a fraction of traditional investment management fees: 1.5% annually for assets under management of up to S$50,000, rising to one percent for portfolios above that.
Customers will have access to a dashboard to see how their investments are performing and can withdraw or add on to them at any point. It also provides e-mail alerts so that users can approve the rebalancing, cutting out the need for them to constantly keep track of their investments.
“With OCBC RoboInvest, we are empowering our customers to get started on their investment journeys and grow their wealth in a simple, smart and self-directed way. We are certain that our customers will find this new digital investment platform very attractive and that it will radically transform how customers engage with their investments,” OCBC Bank’s head of e-business Singapore, Aditya Gupta (pictured), said in a statement. It is the first bank in South-east Asia to offer such a service.
The launch follows a successful pilot run from March to December 2017 which confirmed OCBC Bank’s theory that investors between the ages of 25 to 40 years old have no reservations embracing “self-service” investing as long as the investment portfolios are in line with their investment preferences and match their risk profiles.
OCBC RoboInvest has been developed together with a Singapore Fintech start-up, WeInvest. OCBC Bank’s partnership with WeInvest was forged through its Fintech and Innovation unit, The Open Vault at OCBC.
