Raisin launches Savings Plan for German ETF investment platform

From saver to investor: building wealth, starting at €50 per month

Raisin, Europe’s leading marketplace for savings and investment products, is making investing easy for everyone. Starting on its German platform WeltSparen (www.WeltSparen.de), the Berlin-based fintech Raisin is introducing a savings plan for its line of ETF portfolios. With the new savings plan Raisin’s customers in Germany will be able to build their wealth starting at just €50 per month. The company is additionally lowering the one-time minimum required investment amount to start a WeltInvest portfolio to €500. WeltInvest is the result of WeltSparen’s cooperation with Vanguard as fund provider and DAB BNP Paribas. Vanguard is one of the largest providers of cost-efficient investment solutions worldwide.

 

Global investments without barriers: fair, transparent and cost-efficient

With WeltInvest, consumers invest in globally diversified stocks and bonds with investment grade rating. Based on their risk/return preference investors select one of four available WeltInvest portfolios and then enjoy the benefit of automatic reinvestment of their earnings, flexible deposits and payouts at no additional cost, as well as an annual rebalancing of the portfolio. The low all-in cost of 0.49 percent contrasts sharply with the German robo-advisor market average of 1.3 percent, and WeltInvest’s low minimum first investment of €500 even more so with the average German minimum of around €9,500.*

Through WeltInvest literally everyone can now participate in global capital markets. Just 12 months after launch, more than 5,000 customers have taken advantage of the WeltInvest offer, investing more than €100 million through the platform. Germany’s premiere consumer organization Stiftung Warentest concluded soon after WeltInvest’s start in April of 2018 that the WeltInvest ETF portfolios were “a convincing investment idea.”** Likewise, the German consumer portal Finanztip recently rated 32 robo-providers, recommending WeltInvest as the automated solution for self-directed investors.***

 

The WeltInvest Savings Plan: Building wealth and saving for retirement

Raisin’s savings plan offers investors full flexibility. WeltInvest customers can set up a customized savings plan, online and from the comfort of home, with no additional cost and starting from €50 per month. With no minimum term, they are free to end their plan whenever they want. Dr. Til Rochow, Head of Investment Products at Raisin/WeltSparen said:

“With this new savings plan and the lowered minimum investment, we are able to give even more investors a simple way to access a professional portfolio. Even small monthly contributions will grow over time with the WeltInvest savings plan. We want to offer our customers the perfect solution to build their wealth and prepare for retirement.”

 

Vanguard’s Head of Germany and Austria Sebastian Külps added,

“Through our partners at Raisin, investors are empowered to start growing their wealth even by putting very small amounts into a globally diversified portfolio consisting of Vanguard ETFs and index funds. We’re thus joining forces with Raisin to pursue the vision of Vanguard founder (and the inventor of index funds) John Bogle, to democratize investing for everyone: ‘when there are multiple solutions to a problem, choose the simplest one and keep cost in mind.’”

 

* The average minimum investment required by German robo-advisors is €9,537, while the average total cost is 1.27 percent: 0.91 percent service fee plus 0.36 percent product costs. As of February 2019; analysis of 26 German robo-advisors whose minimum investment is set at under €20,000. Source: providers’ websites.

** Stiftung Warentest from April 5, 2018, “WeltInvest: Fonds-Portfolios für vier Anlegertypen – eine gute Idee?” (WeltInvest: funds portfolios for four types of investors – a good idea?),

https://www.test.de/Weltinvest-Fonds-Portfolios-fuer-vier-Anlegertypen-eine-gute-Idee-5307297-0/

*** Finanztip from March 27, 2019. “Robo-Advisor: Digitale Anlagehilfe gegen Aufpreis” (Robo-advisors: digital investment help at a premium), https://www.finanztip.de/robo-advisor/

 

About Raisin

A trailblazer for open banking and the leading pan-European one-stop shop for online savings and investments, Berlin-based fintech Raisin was founded in 2012 by Dr. Tamaz Georgadze (CEO), Dr. Frank Freund (CFO) and Michael Stephan (COO). Raisin’s platforms — under the brand WeltSparen in the German-speaking world — are breaking down barriers to better savings for European consumers and SMEs: Raisin’s marketplace offers simple access at no charge to attractive and guaranteed deposit products from all over Europe, as well as globally diversified, cost-effective ETF portfolios (currently available in Germany). With one online registration, customers can choose from all available investments and subsequently manage their accounts. Since launch in 2013, Raisin has brokered €13 billion for more than 175,000 customers in 31 European countries and over 75 partner banks. Raisin was named to Europe’s top five fintechs by the renowned FinTech50 awards and is backed by prestigious European and American investors such as PayPal, Thrive Capital, Index Ventures and Ribbit Capital.

 

About Vanguard

Vanguard manages USD 5.4 trillion on behalf of more than 20 million investors worldwide, as of 31. March 2019. One of the world’s largest investment companies, Vanguard offers a large selection of low-cost mutual funds, ETFs and related services. Established in 1975, it is headquartered in Malvern, Pennsylvania.