24 October 2019
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Two more robo-advisers are expected to enter Malaysia's emerging fintech sector next year, after the Australian-based firm Raiz Invest obtained the Securities Commission Malaysia's (SC) approval for operation.
There are currently three robo-advisers, or digital investment management companies, operating in Malaysia: Singapore's StashAway, New York-based Wahed Inc, and MyTheo, a Malaysian-Japanese joint venture.
SC executive chairman Datuk Syed Zaid Syed Jaffar Albar said the companies which were granted approval-in-principle, would join the three fully operational robo-advisers in the country.
We continue to see strong interest in this space and will pursue to facilitate its growth"
"Today, Malaysia has three licensed and fully operational robo-advisors — namely StashAway, MyTHEO and Wahed Inc. We continue to see strong interest in this space and will pursue to facilitate its growth," he said in his opening address at the SCxSC Fintech Conference 2019 in Kuala Lumpur.
Raiz Invest, which launched in Australia in 2016, had over 190,000 active customers and $219m of funds under management as of end-April 2019.
Robo-advisers emerged in the market following the introduction of SC framework on Digital Investment Management in 2017.
In the budget, the Finance Ministry has allocated RM50 million to the Malaysia Co-Investment Fund (MyCIF) to help finance start-ups and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) by co-investing on a one-to-four basis in campaigns listed on equity crowdfunding (ECF) and peer-to-peer (P2P) financing platforms.
"We expect this injection to further spur the growth of our ECF and P2P financing industry, which in turn could catalyse growth in Malaysian SMEs by providing access to alternative sources of financing," he told local media.
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