Grab’s financial arm — Grab Financial Group (GFG) — announced yesterday (August 4) a suite of financial products and services, including its first micro-investment solution offered by GrabInvest.
The three new offerings will be launched under a ‘Thrive with Grab’ strategy, which aims to empower individuals to grow their personal wealth, manage their finances and protect what they value.
With its Bento acquisition earlier this year, GFG aims to democratise wealth management through micro-investments that make investments accessible to everyone.
Called AutoInvest, it allows Singapore users to invest small sums of money while spending in Grab’s ecosystem.
With AutoInvest, users can choose how much they want to invest per Grab transaction, from as low as S$1. This will earn them returns of an estimated 1.8 per cent per annum that can be cashed out directly to their GrabPay wallet.
AutoInvest sets GrabPay apart from other e-wallets by allowing users to invest their wallet balance easily. The invested sum can then be withdrawn at any time, with no penalties, to spend on Grab services or at any merchant accepting the GrabPay Card.
AutoInvest monies are invested into high-quality, liquid fixed income funds offered by Fullerton Fund Management and UOB Asset Management.
AutoInvest charges a low all-inclusive fee, and will be available to eligible users in Singapore via the Invest tile managed by GrabInvest in the Grab app in early September.
“We are excited to launch AutoInvest, the first-of-its-kind micro-investment solution in Singapore that allows users to ‘invest as they spend’,” said Chandrima Das, Head of Wealth at GFG.
“AutoInvest is our commitment to bring value to our consumers and partners with innovative, accessible and easy-to-understand investment solutions. … We aim to better provide millions across SEA with the opportunity to invest in financial products traditionally limited to affluent individuals and institutional investors.”
Manage Your Finances
Demand for online consumer lending continues to grow as more Southeast Asians transact digitally.
According to Grab, external research has shown that more than one-third of consumers are willing to shift some banking activities, such as loans, to non-bank digital platforms.
To meet this emerging opportunity, GFG will launch a third-party consumer loan platform in Singapore first, before expanding to Malaysia and other countries.
With this platform, consumers will be able to discover personal loans offered by GFG’s licensed bank partners to service their everyday borrowing needs.
GFG is also expanding its ‘buy-now-pay-later’ line of offerings by launching PayLater Instalments and PayLater Postpaid on select e-commerce sites in Singapore and Malaysia in October.
This enables eligible users to better manage their cash flow by letting them shop online now and pay in interest-free instalments with leading furniture, beauty fashion retailers.
Eligible users can choose to split their purchase into monthly instalments (PayLater Instalments), or defer their payment to the following month (PayLater Postpaid).
“As a leading fintech company in Southeast Asia, our ‘Thrive with Grab’ strategy will enable users to build their wealth, manage their finances and protect what they value during this uncertain period,” said Reuben Lai, Senior Managing Director of GFG.
“By offering innovative micro-transaction-based financial services, convenient financial management tools and access to products from leading global financial institutions, we hope to unlock the tremendous potential in financial services in the region in ways that serve all Southeast Asians.”
Featured Image Credit: Grab
