‘Resistance to digital wealth management has almost disappeared in SEA’: Bambu CEO Ned Phillips

The acceptance of digital wealth is growing exponentially in Asia, with retail investors, high-net-worth individuals (HNIs) and even private banks starting to use robo-advisory tools for wealth management, according to Ned Phillips, Founder and CEO of Bambu, a robo-advisory platform for financial institutions.

“When we started Bambu in Singapore six years ago, many said people wouldn’t save digitally and that robo-advisors were only for first-time investors and wouldn’t catch on with mass affluent, high-net-worth individuals,” said Phillips. “But the high growth of companies like StashAway has proved them wrong. This means the resistance to wealth being digital has almost disappeared. Although digital wealth is still only a few per cent of the market, the speed at which it grows is exponential.”

He, however, added that Southeast Asia — particularly Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand — is still an immature market compared to Europe and North America when it comes to using tech solutions for wealth management. Singapore is an exception, where many HNIs, mass affluent, mass retail investors, have access to products and advice they never had before.

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“That being said, there is far greater adoption of digital advice by mass retail customers now, especially during and after COVID-19. We are seeing phenomenal growth, with more and more people wanting to save digitally,” he said.

Launched in 2016, Bambu provides digital wealth technology solutions for B2B businesses. It uses Machine Learning tools to enable companies to make saving and investing simple for their clients. The firm serves businesses of every size and industry, from finance to commercial or even new disruptors.

Bambu is present in 11 markets around the world, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, India, the UAE, and Germany, and is growing rapidly in the US and the MENA region. Its clients include Standard Chartered, Franklin Templeton, and CIMB (Malaysia).

The company recently partnered with True Global Ventures-backed German AI asset tech and portfolio management firm quantumrock to enhance its cloud-based robo-advisory solutions.

In Phillips’s view, the advent of digital-only banks bodes well for Bambu. They bring a lot of data. Digital banks, which start with savings accounts, lending and wealth trading, have great opportunities in wealth management as they grow.

“Over the years, many traditional banks have focused on what they traditionally do: holding people’s cash, opening savings accounts, and lending. Many started as product companies selling loans or funds, whereas digital banks are customer companies. For digital banks, the keyword is wealth automation. Robo-advisors can analyse customers’ data and tell how much their monthly leftover, credit card bills, etc. So digital banks need technology from companies like us. It is hard to build the wealth platform we’ve built.

Phillips also believes that the popularity of digital assets like crypto won’t make much impact on robo-advisory. “Crypto is just another asset class like a stock, ETF, and mutual fund. It makes no difference to robo-advisory, which is about helping people achieve their financial goals.”

In July 2021, Bambu acquired Singapore-based Tradesocio, a developer of wealth management software for advisors. Two years earlier, Bambu closed US$10 million in a Series B funding, co-led by Franklin Templeton and PEAK6 Strategic Capital.

“We are not raising more funds now as we are getting close to being profitable. That is our goal for now,” Phillips concluded.

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