Singapore-based Stashaway has launched in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) after receiving an asset management licence from the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) with retail endorsement.
“We’re launching out of the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) DIFC to service clients not just in the UAE, but the broader Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region,” a Singapore-based spokeswoman said.
The move comes after the firm completed a $16m (£12.1m, €13.5m) fundraising round in July from three main investors.
At the time, Stashaway said the latest round will enable the firm to support new market entry. In total, Stashaway has raised $36.4m in four funding rounds, according to the firm.
UAE business
“Following the success of Stashaway in southeast Asia, it was a natural path to expand the firm into a thriving region such as the Mena, using the UAE as a gateway to our services,” Ramzi Khleif, Stashaway’s Mena general manager, said.
“The UAE has a large mass affluent segment that has had to rely on traditional investment products that are often expensive and generic,” he added.
The firm is looking at a few more markets in Asia-Pacific to launch its digital wealth service, the spokeswoman said, but declined to elaborate as the firm is still under talks with different regulators.
Stashaway will be targeting both retail and professional investors in the UAE, according to the spokeswoman.
“We expect significant retail adoption as these investors see the value of a sophisticated investment offering traditionally available only to high net worth individuals (HNWIs) and now available to everyone at a much lower cost.
“We are also targeting the mass affluent and HNWI segments with more tailored offerings in the pipeline,” she added.
‘Paper-less’ financial planning
In other news within the UAE advisory sector, Zurich Middle East has unveiled a solution that digitises the entire financial planning process.
ZurichPro was created in collaboration with data business 360F and it creates an “almost paperless transaction that minimises the time it takes to acquire insurance” as well as allow the insurer to integrate an “omni-channel distribution” of its products.
Walter Jopp, chief executive of Zurich Middle East, said: “With ZurichPro, we have digitally transformed the entire financial planning process, from product recommendation, to authentication and processing, making it easy to work and very efficient for partners to work with Zurich Middle East.
“ZurichPro minimises the time it takes to obtain and process insurance products, and virtually eliminates paper consumption. And now, adhering to compliance, ZurichPro enables us to seamlessly distribute product sales online.”
Michael Gerber, chief executive of 360F, added that the tool meets BOD49 requirements.
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