In an industry where joining buyside firms has been regarded as a level-up for many bankers, co-founders Alex Ypsilanti and Ross Milward, made a different call to set up their own digital wealth management company, Quantifeed, in 2013. To Ypsilanti, leaving the investment banking industry was never a difficult decision after witnessing the proliferation of technology.

 

“We realized the power of providing wealth management through a very simple and engaging customer experience, or all of which was online and digital from sort of end to end.” says Ypsilanti.

 

The wealth management industry in Asia, long dominated by banks, has seen the rise of robo-advisors over the past few years due to the lack of wealth management services to mass market customers.

 

“We recognize that this was certainly the future of wealth management, particularly for the masses, the majority of which had zero exposure to any decent wealth management.”

 

Targeting at the B2B2C market, Quantifeed’s robo technology platform – QEngine was launched to empower banks, brokers and wealth planners to deliver personalized financial planning and wealth management services at scale. Currently, DBS, Cathay United Bank, China Citic Bank International, Legg Mason and Everbright Sun Hung Kai are using Quantifeed as their robo service provider.

 

In the partnership with DBS, the robo-advice platform manages each customer’s portfolio individually despite the low minimum investment amount, bringing personalized wealth management services to its retail customers. With ongoing portfolio monitoring, rebalancing and automated notifications, DBS is able to satisfy retail customers’ needs for expert wealth management effortlessly.

 

Meanwhile, as banks’ customer data, such as credit card payment, is shared with Quantifeed, the robo-advisor will have a deeper understanding of the customers in terms of their financial capability.

 

Quantifeed is also offering a thematic investment engine that supports speculative investors and a goal-based approach that gives investment advice when the clients’ existing portfolio is unable to match the goal.

 

Quantifeed continued to lure venture capital and private equity investors. In 2018, Quantifeed raised US$10 million Series B Funding from Cathay Financial Holdings and Legg Mason.

 

“The market began maturing partly on account of what we were doing. But also as it happens, the robots will sort of growing in size and popularity.” says Ypsilanti.