StashAway Receives MAS License

StashAway, a robo-advisor, has received in-principle approval for its Capital Market Services License for Retail Fund Management. This allows StashAway to now prepare to launch its digital wealth management platform in the coming months. StashAway will provide individuals of any net worth with personalised, highly advanced portfolio management. The waiting list is currently open at www.stashaway.sg.

Baker McKenzie Wong & Leow, a leading law firm in Singapore, supported StashAway through the MAS approval process. Commenting on the in-principle approval, Stephanie Magnus, Principal at Baker McKenzie Wong & Leow, said: "After a thorough, fair and rigorous evaluation process, we are delighted that StashAway has achieved MAS approval for their Asia Wealth Platform, an important milestone in their journey. Having innovative wealth management providers such as StashAway based here helps to cement Singapore's place as a wealth management hub, today and into the future.”

Robo-advisors, or “robos,” are growing in prevalence in Europe and North America. Currently, robos in Singapore only serve accredited investors, and have yet to empower all investors.

StashAway will be the first to offer highly sophisticated, goal-oriented investment services to everyone, regardless of net worth. With no minimum balance, the ability to withdraw at any time, and low management fees that range from just 0.2% to only 0.8%, investors on StashAway’s intuitive platform can finally invest on their terms and reach their financial goals sooner.

“Since moving to Singapore a few years ago, I found that the financial industry has been focused on selling over-priced investment products that could not meet my personal financial needs. Being disappointed in these services that could not grow my personal wealth the way I knew was possible, I decided to found StashAway. At StashAway, we are completely shifting the investment paradigm by providing everyone highly sophisticated, unbiased investment advice for an incredibly low fee and no lock-in,” Michele Ferrario, Co-Founder and CEO says about why he started StashAway.

The technology behind the fully-digital platform creates personalised portfolios based on a customer’s salary, monthly savings capacity, risk preferences, and time horizon to reach a financial goal. Whether it’s a long-term goal, such as retirement, or a short-term goal, such as a wedding, the system will design an intelligent portfolio of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and a monthly investment strategy so that customers can achieve their personal financial objectives on their own terms. The technology also automatically manages the portfolio by rebalancing and re-optimising as market and economic conditions demand.

“We consider ourselves a tech-company at heart, and therefore have put a very strong focus on assembling a team of rockstar developers. Our in-house engineers work extremely hard to build a stable and secure platform upon a sophisticated tech-stack, always aiming to provide a superior experience for our customers,” explains Nino Ulsamer, Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder.

Behind the technology is a highly-advanced economic regime-based investment strategy, designed by Chief Investment Officer and Co-founder, Freddy Lim. “The next generation of robos cannot survive solely on being cost-effective; they must differentiate themselves by being intelligent,” shares Lim. As a result, Lim has put risk management at the very heart of the investment framework that is intrinsically designed to navigate the ups and downs of economic cycles, instead of sporadic market activity. “After in-depth stress-tests, such a strategy would have outperformed in risk-adjusted terms during the global financial crisis of 2008,” says Lim.

By providing personalised portfolios built with highly-advanced investment strategies and delivered completely digitally, StashAway has set out to redefine the investment experience, from start to finish. The development team is in its final stages of preparing both the user-interface and trading platform, and expects to be able to launch in the coming months.