Spare Change Investment App Acorns Coming To Australia; Joins Hands With A Local Company

Australia is all set to welcome an U.S.-based change investment app Acorns, which allows its users to summarise their daily purchases free of cost. Using the app, one can invest spare change automatically from everyday purchases into a diversified portfolio.

Australia is the first country outside North America to get the app, which is now being developed in the country in a joint venture between the U.S. based Acorns Grow Inc. and an Australian independent investment firm Instreet Investments Limited.

Meanwhile, the joint venture’s Australian arm has created a new company for the app called Acorns Grow Australia Limited, which has hired a dedicated Chief Operating Officer, Brendan Malone, former CAO for RBS’ APAC investment banking presence. The app has already made a mark in the U.S., with helping users save a total estimated $US25 million in less than an year.

"It's like putting all your gold coins in a jar,” Instreet Investments managing director George Lucas told Technology Spectator. “Some people have a lot of trouble with savings and investing. There are often minimum balances involved, and those minimum balances aren't small, and there are all these questions to think about like how much do you save or invest every month? "This app does it automatically in the background, in a very natural way with a great user experience as well."

The Important Features Of The App

Mr. Lucas said that as soon as a user downloads the app, he/she is asked to furnish certain details such as name, date of birth and address, along with the bank account details.

As the user starts spending, the app rounds up the amount either automatically or manually after evaluating the details of the transaction.

For example, when a user purchases a coffee worth $3.50, the app pushes $.50 cents into his/her Acorns account to be invested. Additionally, one can instruct the app to invest $5 or $10 on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, with five variety conservative to aggressive options to choose from. Mr. Lucas added that Instreet was chosen to help Acorns navigate the systems around Australia's regulatory policies and would share in 50 percent of any profits.

So, if you are an android user, check out the app here, and for iPhone users, find the app here.

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