In his book “Only the Paranoid Survive“, semiconductor industry legend and Intel’s founder, Andrew S. Grove gives an in-depth idea about Strategic Inflection Point (SIP). Describing it as a critical transformation in an industry, Andrew justifies how an SIP affects a company and forces it to change itself in terms of process, systems, products and at times, identity. The field of finance, even though remaining same in its motive of saving and finding better ways to invest money, has come a long way from Banks to Mutual Funds, Stocks and Bonds. No longer a rocket science, finance has been taken to new dimensions of investments and managing expenses, courtesy the evolution because of strategic inflection point theory. The next chapter of finances has already been ushered via mobile applications that enable easy investments. Getting an insight of these fintech investment applications, we explore five of the world’s most promising investment oriented fin tech startups, which are exclusively mobile based.
1. Inuit Mint: Mint is a personal banking cum investment advising application, designed in an easy access interface. It keeps a track of your income, savings, investments and based on these creates a budget and recommends custom spending. With Mint, you don’t need to worry to check your account statements or check on any bills that are pending. Further, you can find ways to keep your credit score up and consistent. This one touch financial manager automates your expenses to your income to make you reach your financial goals in a reasonable amount of time.
2. Stash: Bringing investment threshold to something as small as $5, Stash creates a different niche for potential investors. Stash is a beginner level investment platform that promotes around 30 different investment opportunities from which one can chose as per his preference and goals. These investment options are curated through intense technical and market performance reports. Further, when you start investing via Stash, it provides you custom recommendations and investment opportunities to make you get better returns. How does Stash manage to start investment with something as low as 5$? Well, these little amounts are used to subscribe to those investments in fractions.
3. Learn and Invest by Rubicoin: “Learning by Doing”, when you surf the website of Rubicoin, you find their motive at the very sight. They have come out with two apps: Learn and Invest, whose ultimate aim are crystal clear in their name itself. Via Learn, you get access to some valuable micro lessons over investing, which are posted in layman language and can be easily understood by all. It aims to create understanding over investing needs and usher confidence into you while investing. Updated and enriched all the time, Learn gives access to video, text and even audio lessons over investing. Adding to that is the blog shared by CFO Invest, on the other hand, is a stock investment interface app that helps in creating and managing an investment portfolio. It has partnered with some of best online brokerages and Currently available only for iOS users, Learn and Invest by Rubicoin are expected to hit the Play Store late in 2016.
4. Acorns: By far, one of the most innovative idea to automate your savings and take care of your change is Acorn. Acorn is a start-up about Micro Investing. This idea of micro investing is not related to startups, but to small amount of money that is being invested. In order to use Acorn, you have to first connect all your accounts and cards to this app. Then, whenever you make a purchase via those accounts, and the spare change you get in those spendings is invested.
5. FinoZen: FinoZen believes in a philosophy of investing in short term liquid mutual funds than keeping your money in lower interest reaping savings account. An Indian startup, Finozen has attracted a lot of interns and young employed who want ease of having funds at disposal without trading off the benefit of higher returns on their investments. This Android fintech app can be used for as low as $2 and reaps up around 7-8%. FinoZen facilitates everyday updation of the investment returns and easy transactions from your savings account to your FinoZen account and vice versa. It is interesting how the financial advising and investment scenario has evolved to suit advising for every purse and purpose.
The five mobile apps mentioned above have dawned the era of digital investments, adding mobility, comfort and always active technical support to the customer at almost zero pricing. Yes, it would be worth to see how promising they turn out to be for their customers and whether they could eventually replicate the human comfort factor in the world of finances.