Raiz Invest review (previously Acorns Australia)

Raiz Invest (previously trading as Acorns Australia) is a financial service provider that offers you a chance to get into the stock market for less by allocating your spare change, a recurring payment or a percentage of total spend with select retailers into your Raiz account.

The micro-investing app will invest your money into an investment portfolio of your choosing, primarily of exchange-traded funds (ETFs), helping you to get in the market for just a few dollars.

While micro-investing is a way to get into the market sooner, it is not for everyone. Read on to find out if it's right for you.

What are the benefits of using Raiz?

There are many companies that make it possible to start investing without a big lump sum, but it's not every day that you find a product that does this by saving and investing your spare change. Raiz will automatically save and invest your spare change into the mix of ETFs quoted on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX). Not only will the app invest your spare change, but it can also invest lump sums and recurring weekly or monthly amounts that you select.

4 investing methods

You can use 4 different methods to invest money when using Raiz:

1. Round-ups from your daily purchases. Say you buy a coffee for $4.50. Raiz will round up the purchase cost by 50 cents, which will then be invested into your Raiz account.
2. Recurring approach. You can choose to add money to your Raiz account daily, weekly or monthly.
3. Lump-sum approach. You can make a bigger one-off capital amount should you have money lying around.
4. Raiz rewards. This gives you cash rewards invested in your Raiz account for shopping online with various brands. While spending money to get a fraction back might sound counterintuitive, getting cash back on money you are going to spend anyway can help grow your nest egg.

Personalised portfolio

You can choose from 9 portfolios constructed by industry experts with inspiration from Nobel-prize-winning economist, Dr Harry Markowitz. These portfolios primarily consist of a mix of ETFs quoted on the ASX and are designed to reach targets related to different financial goals and circumstances.

The first 5 portfolios are a pre-set mix of ETFs based on your risk profile. These risk profiles are Conservative, Moderately Conservative, Moderate, Moderately Aggressive and Aggressive.

Three more portfolio options let investors hone in on an asset class. For instance, the Emerald portfolio lets you choose ESG-themed ETFs.

The Sapphire portfolio offers a 5% allocation of Bitcoin and the Property portfolio allocates 30% into a property fund.

Its newest customisable portfolio option 'Plus' (prev. called Custom) allows users to build their own portfolios by selecting from a list of ETFs, 50 major ASX stocks, Bitcoin or the property fund.

It’s a micro-investing platform

This type of platform makes it easy for everyday people to turn their purchases into an investment tool. One of the most powerful benefits of Raiz Invest is that you can allocate fractional interests in ETF units to individual investors.

Security

Raiz stores all your information on a remote server with bank-level security and data encryption. Your information won't be stored on your device and your funds are insured against fraudulent and criminal activity including cyber-crimes. Online accounts are protected by SSL encryption and multi-factor account authentication processes.

What are Raiz's fees?

The fees you pay depend on which portfolio option you select.

• Standard portfolios: $4.50 per month for active account balances of less than $20,000, or 0.275% per year for balances over $20,000.
• Plus portfolio: $5.50 per month for active accounts below $25,000. Balances over $25,000 will be charged 0.275% of their total balance per year.
• Sapphire portfolio: $4.50 for active account balances, plus 0.275% of your total balance per year.
• Property portfolio: $4.50 for active account balances, plus 0.275% per year.

You don't need to pay a brokerage fee to buy and sell shares through the Plus portfolio - you get unlimited trades covered by your regular monthly Plus account fee.

As with any financial service, it is advised you study the fee structure. There is a comprehensive overview of the Raiz website in its product disclosure statement. That way you'll know the fees you can expect, such as a dishonour fee.

You can withdraw and deposit money as you wish

There are no limits to the number of withdrawals and deposits you can make, and no fees for making them.

Invest for your children with Raiz Kids

You can use the Raiz Kids feature within the app to allocate money to an investment account for your kid/s aged under 18. Raiz Kids isn't an entirely separate account; it sits within your own Raiz account. You can select what percentage of your top-ups you'd like to be allocated to this account, or you can split your contributions evenly between several kids.

Hands-on video review of Raiz Invest

How does it work?

As mentioned above, Raiz is a micro-investing tool. Its process is comprehensively explained on its website, but below is a simplified explanation:

1. Allocate money

You will need to allocate money to your account using 1 of the 3 methods we mentioned above. The unique benefit of Raiz is that you can allocate your change from daily purchases to your account and it will be invested automatically. Round-ups mean that your transactions are rounded up to the nearest dollar. The change you would've had is now allocated to your account and will be invested.

2. Choose your portfolio

There are 6 diversified portfolios available that consist of a mix of ETFs quoted on the ASX, plus 1 (Sapphire) that offers an allocation of Bitcoin along with the usual ETFs. These portfolios are based on your appetite towards risk: Conservative, Moderately Conservative, Moderate, Moderately Aggressive, Aggressive, Emerald and Sapphire. The Emerald portfolio is Raiz's ethical investment option.

3. Invest your spare change

Raiz has a unique algorithm that works to keep the funds in your account within the specified range allocated to the portfolio you choose. It balances the ETFs despite market fluctuations but requires you to agree to the automated procedure of rebalancing your account by re-investing the ETFs automatically. Any activity within your account, like withdrawals or deposits, will start corresponding transactions that work to automatically rebalance your account so that it stays within the target range of your chosen portfolio.

4. Withdraw or deposit at will

You can set your methods for investing money and withdraw or deposit money into your account at any time.

Is Raiz worth it?

Whether or not Raiz is worth it all depends on how you use the service and your experience with investing.

If you're just getting started, Raiz is a micro-investing app that allows you to get into the market sooner, offers decent returns over the long run and can even give you some cash back on your purchases. For example, you make just 2 purchases a day and you get a round-up of 50 cents per purchase. You would save $365 prior to interest that you would make per year without really noticing the money coming out of your account. As such, if you fit into these categories using Raiz might be worth it.

But on the flip side, if your balance is low, say under $100, the fees for the service are pretty high. After all at $4.50 a month, on a $100 you would be paying 4.5% in fees. You might also be paying for a service you don't really need if you're already investing in the market. Plus, all investing carries some form of risk. If you were to invest some money and the market falls when you need to take out the funds, you could be selling for a loss.

Will you pay taxes if you use Raiz

Like other forms of investing, your gains and losses will realise a capital gains event. This means any gains you make will trigger a tax liability once you sell, while if you sell for a loss you can use it to offset the tax you pay. As always, you should speak to an industry professional if in doubt.

What support can you expect from Raiz?

The financial service offers dedicated support through email and will get back to you within 1–2 business days. You can also contact the team through Twitter.

How to get started

1. Visit the Raiz website or download the Raiz app and register for the service.
2. Fill out your basic personal details and create a password.
3. Link your debit or credit card for the Round-up feature.
4. Connect or create the funding account that will invest your allocated money.
5. Tell the financial service more about yourself for a better user experience.

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