Raiz has reported a slight fall in Australian funds under management (FUM) during the third quarter of its financial year, down 1.5 per cent on the previous quarter to $1.019 billion.
The firm said the quarterly decline was partly attributable to the market volatility during the first half of the quarter including a 6.4 per cent drop in the S&P/ASX 200 in January.
However, Raiz’s Australian-based FUM remained up 46.7 per cent on the year as at the end of March.
“We were pleased with Raiz’s performance over its Q3 FY22, particularly in the context of geopolitical uncertainties, weather, the pandemic and increases in cost-of-living expenses,” said Raiz MD and group CEO George Lucas.
“Just as the drag on sentiment caused by the pandemic started to wane, it was replaced by another bout of geopolitical concerns, notably the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Other layers of uncertainty have been created by the increase in cost-of-living expenses coupled with rising expectations of higher interest rates in Australia and major overseas countries.”
Raiz said that the drag caused by slightly lower average balances per customer was cushioned by continued growth in paying customers, with FUM holding above $1 billion.
Superannuation FUM managed to move 0.6 per cent higher on a quarterly basis with growth of 108.0 per cent over the past year to $192.4 million.
The firm said it had 292,561 paying customers in Australia as of the end of the quarter, up 10.9 per cent on a year ago, and the number of active customers globally rose 49.6 per cent to 627,821.
Meanwhile, total normalised revenue for the Raiz platform rose 43.4 per cent year-over-year to $4.4 million while its annual recurring revenue run rate was up 54.1 per cent to $14.7 million.
“Q3 FY22 saw a unique combination of significant geopolitical and macroeconomic events. We were very pleased to see that despite these external factors our customers continue to stay with us through these periods of market uncertainty,” said Raiz Invest Australia CEO Brendan Malone.
“We were especially pleased by the growth evident in the superannuation component of our headline FUM number over the final part of the quarter. With FUM in superannuation now close to $200 million, it is evident more customers are trusting us to be the custodians of their future retirement incomes in addition to their micro-investing.”
Additionally, the firm also provided an update on its Southeast Asia operations including a 129.4 per cent surge in active customers in Indonesia over the past year to 230,824 as well as a 89.2 per cent rise in active customers in Malaysia to 104,436.
“Looking to the future, we expect recent investments to deliver ongoing organic growth in both Australia and our target South-east Asian markets,” said Mr Lucas.
“We also continue to examine several growth-by-acquisition opportunities that could potentially broaden our product range and geographic footprint.”
Jon Bragg
Jon Bragg is a journalist for Momentum Media's Investor Daily, nestegg and ifa. He enjoys writing about a wide variety of financial topics and issues and exploring the many implications they have on all aspects of life.
