- MAS-licensed Wealth Platform and Singapore’s First CPF Digital Investment Advisor Endowus saw a 20x increase in their clients and a 7x increase in assets under advice (AUA) on their platform in the last 12 months, even in the midst of the pandemic
- During this time, the fintech has launched two new solutions (Cash Smart and Fund Smart) to give Singapore investors the ability to manage and grow their cash savings with higher yields and no lock ups, and build fully customisable portfolios at low cost, respectively
- CPF investments saw strong and steady growth in assets throughout the year, growing at over 30% month-on-month including during unprecedented Covid-19 market volatility
- Growth was also driven by the fintech’s strong focus on technology and security, including launching a mobile app in Q3 2020 to enable on-the-go investment planning
- Owing to its strong growth, Endowus has also doubled its headcount to 40, and plans to expand to its first market outside of Singapore in 2021
SINGAPORE, Dec. 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Today Endowus.com, one of Singapore’s leading MAS-licensed investment platforms and the first and only digital advisor for the Central Provident Fund (CPF), announced strong performance in the one year since its public launch in October 2019. According to the Endowus Wealth Insights 2020, the fintech has seen 20x growth in accounts and a 7x increase in Assets Under Advice (AUA) during this period.
On its journey to building a complete wealth platform that caters to all Singaporeans and their unique investment needs, Endowus launched two new solutions this year: Cash Smart on 30 June — an innovative cash management solution — and Fund Smart on 22 October — a solution that allows investors to build portfolios from a selection of institutional share-class and trailer-fee free funds curated by the Endowus Investment Office.
These new offerings were based on two surveys Endowus commissioned — the first to identify investors’ cash management preferences, and the second to understand investor portfolio customisation preferences — and both of the resulting offerings have seen success. Since Cash Smart’s launch, Endowus has seen an over 100% increase in funded individual clients over $100 million deployed into Cash Smart portfolios in a span of 3 months.
Gregory Van, Founding Partner of Endowus, said: “Endowus is focused on conveniently, securely, and holistically serving clients across all sources of wealth and investment goals. From flexible and very low risk alternatives to fixed deposits, to the most diversified equity funds in the world, it is our job to make sure clients have the highest probability of success with the best products at low cost.”
“We lead the fight for fair fees, where clients can directly access institutional share-class funds managed by the top fund managers in the world — such as Dimensional and PIMCO — and receive 100% trailer fee rebates if any sales commissions are paid out to us.”
“The success we’ve seen in Singapore this past year proves that our formula works, and we hope to grow our team further and expand our reach within Singapore and to more countries in the near future.”
Leveraging Technology For Better Investing During the Covid-19 Pandemic
As the first-and-only CPF digital advisor, Endowus places importance on offering clients a fully digital and seamless experience for CPF, SRS, and cash — from sign up to monitoring performance, to creating new goals and executing transactions.
This technology-driven approach was especially crucial during the circuit breaker period in the first half of the year, when investors had to rely only on digital channels to access financial thought leadership and investment insights. To address this, Endowus was quick to pivot to webinars that have garnered more than 72,000 views, with a total watch time of almost 18,700 hours.
Investors can now also choose between Endowus’ fully responsive web platform that works across all mobile devices and browsers, or the fintech’s newly launched mobile app. Available for download on both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, the long-awaited app allows clients to create goals on-the-go and monitor investment performance.
Responding To Changing Investor Needs
Despite huge fluctuations in the global stock market owing to the Covid-19 pandemic, Endowus has observed relatively little change in client activity and behaviour, suggesting that clients kept to their goals, and did not modify their risk allocation because of market volatility.
Further, the percentages of clients making investments versus redemptions, among all clients, showed only mild fluctuations through the market volatility. Investment inflows outpaced outflows by 3-4x in March and April, a good sign that clients were mostly unfazed and remained steadfast in their investment plans during Covid-19 induced market volatility.
Samuel Rhee, Chairman and Chief Investment Officer at Endowus, said: “The investment insights we’ve observed just in the first half of 2020 echoes our strategy that time in the market is more important than timing the market. Seeing our clients choosing to remain invested and not give in to fear or greed is a great win for us, because it shows they not only believe in our evidence-based investment philosophy, but have seen tangible results.“
“We are confident in growing even further in 2021 and beyond, as more investors realise the benefits of long-term investing.”
The full report can be found here.
About Endowus
Endowus is a MAS-licensed financial technology company and the first-and-only digital investment advisor for the Central Provident Fund (CPF), Supplementary Retirement Scheme (SRS), and cash.
Endowus offers access to superior investment products, personalised advice, and lower costs on a seamless digital investment platform for all investors. Partnered with UOB Kay Hian, Singapore’s largest broker, client assets and positions are safely held in the client’s own name.
For more info, please visit www.endowus.com/