StashAway MENA Reveals Insights Into The MENA Region’s Investors After Its First Trading Quarter

In just three months since launch, the award-winning digital wealth management firm StashAway MENA, has found that there is a rise of the female investor in the region and has identified the region’s top financial goals. In addition, the firm is thrilled by its first quarter of trading results where it grew three times faster than originally predicted, demonstrating the region’s appetite for digital wealth management firms and their services.

Since its launch in November 2020, StashAway has been monitoring investment habits and trends in the region. In the earlier stages of launch, the company found that two thirds of signups were men, however, it’s already seeing this edge downwards with the proportion of women starting to increase. Over time, similar to trends we have seen in Singapore and Malaysia, we will see women account for 50 percent of signups.

When it comes to an individual’s financial goals, 32 percent are focused on growing money for retirement purposes – primarily due to the lack of pension plans in MENA. In addition, people in the region aspire to invest and buy property with 19 percent making it their financial goal; thirdly there has been a significant increase in the number of people investing with the intention to start a business.

Ramzi Khleif, General Manager of StashAway MENA comments, “We are thrilled to report on our results and insights from the first quarter of operations, and how the company has excelled. The appetite from the market has been extremely strong for our easy to use, low cost, transparent investment platform. There is clearly enthusiasm for people to make their money work harder with the right providers.

“It’s also interesting for us to see how trends in the Far East are very much happening here, with the rise of female investors. We are driven to reach out to more women, empower and educate them on finance. Based on these trends we predict that women will make up half of our client base which is faster than how long it took us to achieve this in Singapore and Malaysia.

“We are also seeing how individuals are prioritising their financial goals, but again very much see the opportunity to educate more people in the region and for them to better understand the benefits of long-term investing. We are looking forward to the next quarter and how things will progress.”

As a response, StashAway will be further enhancing its already sophisticated and free to access Financial Wellness Programme and dial up the webinar sessions, especially for women in order to provide them with the right tools and information to make the most informed decisions. In the GCC the life expectancy of women is around 78.35 years, longer than a man which is 75.8 years; which means women should not consider taking a back seat when it comes to financial decision making and their financial future.

StashAway sources its date and information from its extensive database. When signing up customers are asked to fill in certain criteria such as financial goals, profession, age, etc. which is how the digital wealth management firm is able to identify trends.