Quantifeed partners with Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities to launch investment app in Japan

Quantifeed, Asia’s leading provider of digital wealth management solutions, with offices in Australia and Hong Kong, has partnered with Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities Co., Ltd (MUMSS) to launch Mirai Value, a smartphone-based discretionary investment service. Powered by Quantifeed’s robo-technology, the Mirai Value app enables retail customers of MUFG Bank, Japan’s largest bank, to invest in globally diversified portfolios. The launch of Mirai Value marks another milestone in bringing wealth management to Japan’s mass affluent investors by providing discretionary investment services typically only available to high-net-worth individuals.

The app matches novice investors to portfolios based on their risk profile. It enables them to diversify across equity and bond funds with domestic and international exposure. MUMSS’s investment advisory team manages the portfolios and, using Quantifeed’s technology, ensures that a customer’s investments follow their recommendation, even as market conditions change.

Alex Ypsilanti, Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder of Quantifeed, said, “We are delighted to have partnered with Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities on the development of this groundbreaking app. We believe Mirai Value will enable young people, who typically maintain most of their savings in their bank account, to begin investing and growing their wealth towards a better retirement.”

Naoaki Fujitani, Deputy General Manager, Structured Products Division at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities, commented, “Making the Japanese public shift their savings into investments has historically been a difficult task, despite government and industry-wide efforts. Japanese customers are becoming more anxious about their retirement amid a falling birthrate, a rapidly aging population and a constantly low-interest rate, low yield environment. Mirai Value responds to those who want to resolve this issue but are not sure where to start. Leveraging Quantifeed’s technology, Mirai Value will give investors with limited financial knowledge a professionally managed, well-diversified portfolio. We have positioned Mirai Value’s ‘wealth advice supported by leading technology’ as one of our core services, as we would like to support the younger generation’s financial future.”

Quantifeed entered the Japanese market as part of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s ‘Global Financial City: Tokyo’ Vision in 2019. Following the rollout of Mirai Value, Quantifeed is primed for further expansion in the country. The firm will continue to collaborate closely with Franklin Templeton, one of its investors, to provide more wealthtech propositions to financial institutions in Japan.

James Verner, Vice President, Digital Strategy and Wealth Management at Franklin Templeton, commented, “Quantifeed continues to go from strength to strength as it digitizes wealth propositions for financial institutions across Asia. We are delighted to be partnering with them in Japan. Core to our distribution strategy is leveraging wealth technology to help our clients scale their wealth businesses whilst delivering a best-in-class customer experience. By combining this approach with our market leading investment platform, we are able to deliver more value to our clients, and in turn, the end-customer.”

Mirai Value is designed to be understandable and accessible to investors who do not have much time to invest. Its value proposition is to enable novice investors to invest in a diversified portfolio that reflects their risk appetite and is managed by an expert investment team. The app offers five portfolios of funds investing in stocks, bonds and REITs. Investors only need an initial investment of JPY 100,000 to start, and can set up a regular savings plan that automatically takes as little as JPY 10,000 out of a customer’s savings account per month and puts it into their portfolio.

Available only on smartphones, customers can view the performance of their portfolio, their holdings and top-up or withdraw funds at any time. Given the continued importance of offline banking in the Japanese market, the app also enables customers to fund their portfolios from ATM machines, facilitating crucial offline-to-online interaction.

Quantifeed has developed customized digital wealth propositions for banks, brokers, insurers and wealth planners across Asia. These include DBS’s ‘digiPortfolio’ in Singapore, Cathay United Bank’s ‘CathayRobo’ in Taiwan, China CITIC Bank International’s Robo 360 and Everbright Sun Hung Kai’s ‘EBSHK Direct AI-Portfolio Investing’ in Hong Kong and Kiatnakin Phatra Securities’ ‘Phatra Mandate Service’ in Thailand.