InvestNow customers vote with their cash

InvestNow customers vote with their cash, to the tune of over $50 million

In June, a little over 3 months since public launch, InvestNow rocketed to having more than $50 million being directly managed by clients using the new online investment service.

“Clearly customers are voting with their cash – and what better endorsement is there?” said Anthony Edmonds, founder of InvestNow. “Savvy Kiwis promptly grasped the benefits of our unique investment service, and joined up in big numbers to use InvestNow to manage their investment portfolios. We always expected InvestNow to be popular, and seeing this level of investment through InvestNow is the obvious proofpoint.”

Edmonds says there are a range of factors driving the popularity of InvestNow. “Firstly, investors love that they only pay the fees of the funds they select, and there is really strong interest in the Vanguard global share fund that has a management fee of just 0.20% per annum. Being able to invest as little as $250 is popular, as many funds on InvestNow were only previously accessible to large investors” says Edmonds.

Former RaboDirect General Manager, Mike Heath, works alongside Edmonds at InvestNow and says he loves seeing the different ways clients are using InvestNow. “We have retired CEOs, grandparents setting up portfolios for their grandchildren’s education, young people saving to buy first homes, and large established family trusts with significant assets, all using InvestNow’s online investment platform” says Heath. “I get as much as a buzz seeing someone set up their portfolio with $250, as I do when someone invests $1 million – InvestNow meets the needs of so many different types of investors, which is what I love about it”.

Edmonds is quick to highlight that people can open an account on InvestNow without any obligation to contribute money. “We get lots of people who initially open and account just to look around InvestNow. They then invest $250 to see how InvestNow works, and after that they will ramp up their investment and start building their portfolio.”

InvestNow is a non-advice online investment service targeting financially savvy investors, and currently offers 33 different investment options from managers such as Vanguard, AMP Capital and Fisher Funds, spanning all the major investment sectors.

“There are key points of friction for investors which InvestNow solves for our customers – such as removing the need to have their identities verified each and every time they establish a relationship with a fund manager, plus being able to access all their fund investments in one place”, said Edmonds.

InvestNow offers accounts for individuals, joint investors, family trusts and New Zealand businesses – all of which can have their accounts established online without the need to post in any paperwork.

“Individual accounts, which have proved to be the most popular to date, literally take two or three minutes to set up” said Heath. “Once customers have transferred money into InvestNow from their nominated bank account, they can start building their portfolios.

We have also numerous requests from customers to transfer their investments from another service provider or channel – something which are more than happy to facilitate”.

When pushed about what the future might hold for InvestNow, Edmonds is uncharacteristically playing his cards close to his chest. “We have some fantastic growth opportunities that we are keeping to ourselves for commercial reasons” he says. “Our focus moving forward will always be on empowering Kiwi investors to have the freedom to invest in what they want.”

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