Discovery Bank has gone into bed with EasyEquities. File Image: IOL
Discovery Bank has gone into bed with EasyEquities.
According to the bank, Discovery clients can now “open a new EasyEquities account, or link an existing one, through the Discovery Bank app”.
Hylton Kallner, CEO of Discovery Bank, said “the platform is transparent, easy-to-use and makes equity trading cost-effective and intuitive for all kinds of investors, from first-timers all the way through to seasoned traders”.
“In collaboration with EasyEquities we’ve been able to make the journey to investing in equities simple and frictionless. This is all part of our focus on promoting a positive long-term savings and investment culture across our client base.”
SO HOW DOES IT WORK?
Discovery says that “clients can now buy, hold and sell shares on local and international stock exchanges and access a wide range of ETFs (exchange-traded funds), ETNs (exchange-traded notes), as well as cryptocurrency”.
More importantly the bank says that clients will now be able to transfer funds between their Discovery Bank accounts and their EasyEquities ZAR account in real time, at no cost and with no lock-up periods.
It should be noted that Discovery Bank’s banking model is enabled through Vitality Money, an AI-Powered programme on the Discovery Bank app.
The bank went on to add that the EasyEquities investment portfolios integrate directly into Discovery Bank’s Vitality Money programme, automatically counting towards the client’s Vitality Money status.
Discovery Bank argues that the process is seamless with several unique features and, according to their statement, the EasyEquities feature will have the following:
FRAUD AND SAFETY
With the uncertainty surrounding cryptocurrency it is always important to be safe when investing.
Business report reached out to EasyEquitues to discuss the safety around this new investment platform.
Nicola Comninos, the chief risk officer at EasyEquitues said that, “investing on the EasyEquities platform is safe. We have a two-factor (2FA) authentication and identification process to ensure secure login and we have a variety of other technology security measures in place to ensure platform security.”
“Furthermore, all clients’ investments and funds are held in the name of a regulator approved nominee company with you as the beneficial owner which ensures that all our clients’ assets and funds are kept separate from the assets and liabilities of EasyEquities.”
Fraudsters are always looking for an in or avenue and if fraud takes place what can be done from EasyEquities perspective?
EasyEquities has various safeguards in place to make it difficult or unattractive for fraud to be perpetrated on the platform, Comninos says.
“We make use of advanced machine learning algorithms for detecting suspicious and high-risk behaviour in real-time, enabling our EasyEquities risk and compliance teams to proactively be responsive.”
“We do not allow third party payments which means that EasyEquities will only ever pay funds out of your investment account into a bank account held in your name and electronically verified by EasyEquities as being in your name.”
“Ensuring you activate 2FA on your EasyEquities account will also make it difficult for fraudsters to gain access to your EasyEquities account. To the extent that fraud is conducted on your account, EasyEquities blocks these transactions, liaise with the relevant fraud departments at the banks as required, and secure your account,” she concludes.
A Fractional Share Right
We know that buying shares or being part of the stock market is daunting. How do you start? What is the process like? Can you just buy a few shares or half a share.?
Hopefully this will help!
Through EasyEquities you can invest in the stock market by purchasing a portion of a share. The company calls this Fractional Share Investing.
How does it work? Well, EasyEquities describes it as follows:
“Even though a share’s price might be, R1 000, you’re able to invest in and own R100 of that share. Because of Fractional Share Rights, even if you don’t have the amount needed to invest in one whole share, it doesn't mean that you can’t invest in it at all.”
How do you get paid out? Your dividends are paid to those that own whole shares and those that have the “fractional share rights of that share”.
“The dividend paid out on fractional share rights will be the dividend per share issued by the company in proportion to your fractional holding”, according to EasyEquities.
NOT THE FIRST OF ITS KIND
This is not EasyEquities’ first foray with a banking institution. The company has partnered with Capitec to allow their clients to purchase shares via the Capitec app. A simplified version of the EasyEquities platform is available as a widget on the Capitec app.
BUSINESS REPORT