Hello Grasshoppa,
Everyone wants to earn extra money & everyone wants to invest but many will say that they don’t know how to or that they do not have enough capital to invest. From our grandparents to our generation, everyone kept giving the same answer. I’m just joking. Maybe from my parents’ generation onwards. Investment has changed so much since the old times to now & it is making our lives so much easier. As long as you want to invest, you just need a bit of time out of your busy schedule to set up your choice of investment & you are good to go.
I have been investing since I was 20 years & in recent years, I’ve been investing actively in various platforms to diversify my portfolio. Based on my conversation with many people, some of them find investment to be risky therefore they are not willing to try. Some mentioned that they have no knowledge and they do not have the time to learn about investment. The question is, who doesn’t like to make extra money or have extra money during their retirement? This also made me think, what is the easiest investment that I have made so far?
I narrowed it down to various investment platforms that I am investing in from Mutual Fund, P2P Financing, Stocks, Robo-Advisor, Gold to Private Equity Investment. Stocks are the one that requires a lot of time to learn from scratch. Mutual Fund may also be an easy option but with over one thousand mutual funds out there, it will take a lot of time narrowing down & picking the right ones unless you have your agent to help you with that. Your agent service will come with a fee. Gold investment is pretty straight forward with a platform like HelloGold but a common question that I am getting from people is when to buy or sell? With the long list of questions that I am getting over the years, I find that Robo-Advisor is the best investment platform for people with zero investment knowledge.
How Easy Is It To Invest With Robo-Advisor?
1. Fill Up The Questionnaire
They will have a list of questions for you to answer such as your investment goals, age, income & many other questions to determine the right investment for you. Total time that is needed to fill up may take up to 15 minutes.
2. Setting Up Auto Debit
You may skip the auto-debit part if you are looking to invest one-off but I don’t recommend you to do so as an investment is a long term habit. Market volatility may cause your investment to drop if you are investing at the wrong time. Auto debit will help to minimise the risk with dollar-cost averaging.
3. You Are Good To Go
It is that simple. No investment knowledge needed. All you have to do is to take 15 minutes off your busy time to answer the questionnaire.
Which Robo-Advisor Platform Should You Invest In?
StashAway
They have the Lowest Management Fee (0.2-0.8%) among other Robo-Advisor in Malaysia. They also invest in global market ETF which will help for your portfolio diversification. You may also check out their latest Cash Management investment called StashAway Simple which is Shariah-compliant. To invest with StashAway, all you need is RM10 to start.
Raiz
They are charging RM1.50/month for portfolio less than RM6000 & 0.3% above RM6000. Raiz only has 3 investment risks where they invest in Amanah Saham Nasional Berhad (ASNB) unit trust. They have the lowest initial investment at RM5 onwards.
MyTHEO
They also invest in global market ETF with management fee range from 0.5-1%. With ETF investment, you may able to enjoy lower fee comparing to Robo-Advisor that invest in Mutual Fund. Initial investment amount starts at RM100.
Wahed Invest
They are the first Shariah-compliant Robo-Advisor in Malaysia where they are investing in both ETF & Mutual Fund. With the mixture of both ETF & Mutual Fund investment, they charge a reasonable annual fee between 0.39-0.79%. Initial investment amount starts at RM100.
BEST Invest
This is the newest edition for Robo-Advisor platform in Malaysia. They are also a Shariah-compliant Robo-Advisor that are investing only in Mutual Fund. Among all Robo-Advisor platform in Malaysia, they are charging the highest annual fee between 0.5-1.8% similar to Fundsupermart. Their minimum amount starts at RM10.
Conclusion :
Personally speaking, I am using both StashAway & Raiz. I have been investing with StashAway since 2018 & my overall experience is them is always good. PS: They are the first Robo-Advisor in Malaysia that is approved by the Securities Commission of Malaysia. In terms of investment return, it has been a volatile year with the pandemic but I am still profitable with them. They sent me a notification requesting me to adjust my risk level as part of their Rebalancing & Re-optimisation triggered by their system. This not only helps to protect my capital, but it also helps me to be profitable during the pandemic. As for Raiz, I have been investing with them for almost 2 months & it is too early for me to review their investment return. What I like about Raiz is they are investing my spare change with my Maybank debit card spending. To try it out, I am shifting some of my spendings from BigPay card to Maybank debit card such as my house utilities, petrol & my McDonalds meal (my random cheat meals). I will review again on Raiz somewhere next year on the investment return & how much I can save with those random spending with my Maybank debit card.
OSS!
