July 15, 2025 • 15 mins
Interested in the idea of investing regularly, but don’t have tons of cash to contribute? Micro-investing could be the solution.
This week on the Friends With Money podcast, Money’s Tom Watson is joined by Kylie Purcell, investments analyst at Finder, to run through the ins and outs of micro-investing.
They discuss:
- How micro-investing differs from traditional investing
- The major micro-investing apps and platforms in Australia
- Which assets investors can trade on micro-investing platforms
- Some of the benefits and downsides of micro-investing
- Micro-investing fees and the impact on returns
#friendswithmoney #tomwatson #kyliepurcell #microinvesting
Email Us: podcast@moneymag.com.au
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Friends with Money podcast, brought to you
by Money Magazine, creating financial freedom for Australians since nineteen
ninety nine.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hello and thanks for joining us for another episode of
Friends with Money, Money Magazines podcast to help you earn, save,
and achieve your financial goals. My name is Tom Watson,
a senior journalist here at Money Magazine, and as always
it is a pleasure to be with you. Today. We
are finally going to do it. We are going to
put investing under the microscope. I know what you're thinking,
(00:35):
dear listen, now, what on earth are you talking about? Tom? Well,
and I've just realized that the title of the episode
totally gives away any mystery here. But we are taking
a closer look at the world of micro investing. What
is it, How is it different from other forms of investing,
What are the benefits and what other limitations. We will
(00:57):
be discussing those questions and men more, and a very
pleased to say that I will not be alone in
tackling those today because we are joined by investments analyst
at Finder, Kylie Purcell. Kylie, a very warm welcome to you,
Thank you so much for joining us on Friends with Money.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Hi, Tom, Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
It's good to be here, so excited to get into
this topic. So let's get things started, Kylie, can you,
I guess, to kick us off, give us a brief
overview of what micro investing actually means and importantly here
how it differs from traditional investing methods that I'm sure
a lot of our listeners may be a little bit
(01:38):
more familiar with.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Yeah, sure, thinks so.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
Broadly speaking, micro investing is when you invest really small
amounts into the stock market, and I'm talking amounts like
a few cents or a few dollars, and that's usually
on a regular basis, so small amounts over time, maybe
every week, every month, even every day. So it's a
strategy essentially where you're dollar cost averaging into the market
(02:04):
rather than in the traditional sense, with traditional investing, you'd
invest a really big lump sum all at once. So
instead of that, you're investing small amounts more frequently.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Yeah. So it might be good for people with relatively
small amounts of money at their disposal to invest rather
than than you know, thousands of dollars at a time.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Yeah, exactly right.
Speaker 4 (02:27):
Yeah, if you don't have a lot of money, or
if even if you don't have a lot of knowledge,
it's just a lot less intimidating to invest those small amounts,
maybe amounts that you wouldn't even notice and missing into
the stock market, just to get your foot in the
door and really get started.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
I like it testing the waters a little bit, so Kylie, Yeah,
that's the kind of I guess that the major platforms
that come to mind when we're talking about micro investing
in Australia. You know, who are the big fish in
the micro investing pond so to speak.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
Yeah, so when you're talking about micro investment platform the
two big players that most people would think of immediately
would be Rais and Spaceship. They've probably been around for
the longest time in Australia. And then we've got kind
of newer players that have come along like comsect Pocket,
which is not really a traditional micro investment platform and
(03:17):
that you've got a fifty dollar minimum, so that's not
super small, but we still kind of throw concept pocket
in there just because it's a smaller amount than you
traditionally invest. And now we're also seeing players like share
trading platforms that are adding micro investment features into the mix.
So that would be like Peerla, share zas, and we've
(03:38):
got Siphe as well, huan Finders Best micro Investment Platform Award.
More recently, they'd be at least I could keep naming them,
but they'd be at least fifteen or so micro investment
platforms out there these days.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
So yeah, okay, so it's quite a development market that
I got to say. I do remember when acorns now
raise first launch in and that came with a fair
defin fare, So I'm sure people might be, as you said,
familiar with with them, either their form name or or
their current name. Yeah, Coyle, Absolutely, this will obviously differ
(04:12):
from platform to platform. But what kind of assets can
investors actually get exposed you to through these micro investment
apps and platforms?
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Yeah, anything and everything.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
These days, anything and everything, any of the major asset
classes are pretty much covered by micro investment platforms. So typically,
like with Rais and Spaceship, the original micro investment platforms,
you're investing into a portfolio of stocks that's the most common,
or a portfolio of ETFs which are made up of stocks.
(04:45):
But we've also now got property like rais invest now
has a property fund you can invest in cryptocurrency, even
through rays. There are gold platforms now, and even bond
platforms like Blossom. I think you've spoken about Blossom before.
So anything and everything, although traditionally and most of the time,
you're going to be micro investing into a diversified portfolio
(05:07):
of stocks and often even a portfolio of ETFs like
what Rais offers for instance.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
So basically anything that you might light the sound of
in traditional investing, but in a micropersion.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Yeah, that's right. Yeah, you've got everything covered these days.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
I think you've given us like a great kind of
you know, set of foundations here, Kylie. But it'd be
great to dig into I guess some of the pros
and cons associated with with micro investing now, So to
start off with the former, what are some of the
potential benefits for someone who might like the idea of
micro investing.
Speaker 4 (05:47):
Yeah, we touched on it a bit before, but it's
really great for those just getting started in the investing world.
You know, you don't have to be rich, you don't
have to be knowledgeable. These platforms make it really easy
to get your foot in the door. They do the
heavy lifting for you. They typically provide you with a
portfolio of stocks that's professionally managed, so you don't even
have to know which stocks to pick. And it's also
(06:09):
a set and forget strategy, so you know, without even
noticing your spare change going missing, you could be investing
that into a pretty substantial portfolio over the next couple
of decades.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
So I've even got a little example here that I'll share.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
Please, Let's say, yeah, let's say you were to give
up your daily coffee. And I know how horrible that sounds,
but say you give up having a daily coffee out
at a coffee shop.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
That's for dollars fifty well, modestly speaking, by.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
Yeah, well, let's just say it's for dollars fifty if
you instead cut out that coffee and you invested that
into an ETF every day, and say, historically the stock
market has returned about ten percent perannum. That's historically speaking,
and let's say it continues to do that over the
next twenty years, you'd have invested over eighty six thousand
(07:05):
dollars into your stock portfolio, fifty six thousand dollars of
which is your investment returns. So if you just saved
that cash, that four dollars fifty and put it under
your bed in a box, you would have saved, you know,
thirty thousand dollars in cash. But just by having invested
that money and not put it into a pash account
and not put it under your bed in a box,
(07:27):
you've earned an extra fifty six thousand dollars. And that's
probably without even noticing, depending on how much you missed
that coffee. But like these tiny amounts that you would
probably not even notice have gone missing can build you
up a really significant portfolio. And that's really I'd say
that that's the biggest benefit to these micro investment platforms,
(07:48):
the biggest bit of magic there of compound interest as that.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
As someone who's very much addicted to his his daily
takeaway coffee, I'm not sure if I'd gives that up,
but then put it in I mean, that's that's a
big amount of money over over the years, so maybe
maybe I would start to rethink it at that point.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
Yeah, Yeah, it's definitely a big sacrifice to make, but
the rewards are huge.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Gyle, let's get into the flip side of the coin. Then,
what about any downsigence to micro investing.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
Yeah, so what I didn't touch on before was and
then that example that I shared was the fees. Those
returns that I mentioned don't include fees, and that is
absolutely the biggest downside to these micro investment platforms. Because
you're investing smaller amounts, the fee to investment ratio is
usually much higher than if you're investing larger amounts like
(08:43):
the traditional method of investing, and with these micro investing apps,
there also does to tend to be these ongoing fees. So,
for instance, Rais charges four dollars fifty a month. So
let's say you were just using their round up feature.
They have a spare change round up fe which I love,
But if you were just using that feature, you'd be investing,
(09:04):
say maybe twenty dollars a month into the stock market
into your portfolio, then your four dollar fifty fee per
month is going to be like twenty five percent of
your investment almost yeah, which is huge. And of course
the more that you build up your portfolio, the smaller
that fee is going to get as a ratio to
your investment. But starting off, it's a massive, massive fee.
(09:28):
And if you were to compare that to say, investing
into an ETF just through a regular share trading platform
like say instead of investing into a micro investment platform,
you were to invest two thousand dollars into an ETF
through say Tiger Brokers, with them a three dollar brokerage fee,
a one off three dollar brokerage fee, and no ongoing fees.
(09:52):
Whereas if you'd split that two thousand dollars up into
small increments, as you would worth say, raise, you'd end
up paying fife dollars a year in fees, which is
obviously a lot higher than paying say three dollars for
that larger sum as just a regular brokerage fee. So
that's definitely one thing to think about, because of course
(10:13):
you're not just paying extra fees. That's also taking from
what you could be investing into the stock market, which
would also be a compounding factor. The other side of
it is also when you're investing through these platforms, you're
using the dollar cost averaging strategy. But there have been
(10:34):
some studies that show that the dolo cost averaging strategy
actually returns a bit less over the long run than
just investing larger amounts less frequently. Yeah, I thought that
was interesting. There have been a few studies that have
done I've seen morning Star have covered it for instance,
the idea behind dollar cost averaging is that by investing
(10:55):
more frequently at regular intervals, you're balancing out any volatility
in the market.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
So, for instance, if you were to.
Speaker 4 (11:03):
Invest in Tesla stock and you wanted to invest, say
five thousand dollars, you might invest and then the next
day the Tesla stock price crashes, and just bringing out
Tesla because it's just all anyone's talking about in there,
you realize that yeah, yeah, yeah, and then the price crashes,
which happens all the time, you obviously lose quite a
lot of money in the short term. Whereas if you
(11:24):
were to balance out the amounts that you're investing, so
you split that five thousand dollars up into smaller amounts
over the year, the idea is that you'd probably average
out that initial loss because you're sometimes investing just before
the price goes up. So that's kind of the theory
behind it. But what these studies are showing is that
it actually pays just to have more in the market earlier,
(11:48):
regardless of at what point in the cycle you're investing.
So even if you're just investing just before a crash,
just due to the compounding nature of having money in
earlier rather than splitting it into smaller amounts. That being said,
you know, the difference is going to depend on one
scenario to another, and you know, I don't think the
(12:08):
difference is going to be huge. I still like to
dolock ourst average. I do both, but it's in my
mind really useful just to have a small amount going
in frequently into my portfolio. So yeah, I still rate it,
but it's an interesting point to think about.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Absolutely. Yeah, I'm quite surprised by that, but I'm interested
to breed up and obviously so relevant, as you said,
to micro investing platforms, which you know kind of rely
on that fundamentally. Yeah, exactly, Yeah, Kylie, A bit of
a broader question to finish on. What kind of impact
do you think these platforms have had and I guess
(12:44):
are having on the wider investing landscape or I guess
you know, frame in a different way. Do you think
that they have helped people who wouldn't have traditionally been
able to invest to actually get into the market.
Speaker 4 (12:58):
Yeah, absolutely, I think these platforms have been a game changer.
Like I remember when I was a kid, or even
you know, ten or fifteen years ago, it used to
be really expensive to invest in the stock market, Like
it was like five hundred dollars minimum to invest into
one company, any one company on the ASX, and you
(13:18):
might be doing that through Consec. That was the big
player back in the day and still is. But there
weren't that many other options. And if you wanted to
build up, say a diversified portfolio of a modest number
of stocks, say ten stocks, you know, that's five thousand
dollars just to kind of get your foot in the
door and not to take on too much risk. And
that was such a huge amount to have to think
(13:40):
about when say, you don't really even understand how the
stock market works, you're not sure which companies depict, and
you don't have a lot of money, not even just
for kids just getting started, teenagers just getting started, but
even for families that don't have a lot of spare change.
You know, they've got to pay the bills. This has
all changed really in the last few years because of
(14:04):
these micro investment platforms, and my view, it basically means
that anybody can get involved with any tiny amount. I'm
talking a few cents, and it's not just about getting
your foot in the door to get started to build
up for your future. It's also just about educating yourself
and understanding how the stock market works, understanding how compound
(14:24):
interest works. Because even if you're not actively investing in
the stock market, you've still got your superinnomation portfolio. So
it really helps us to understand where your money is
going and why it's so important, and why it might
be important to add more, even just to your super account.
So yeah, I think they've had a really substantial impact
on the investment landscape, and a really really positive one.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
I love that the education piece at the end that
you mentioned that, Kylie, I think that's so important, so
useful for so many people as well, beyond the end
the returns themselves. So anyway, Kelly, it has been an
absolute pleasure having you on the show, and thank you
so much for running us through all things micro investing.
As I said, we'll have to get you back on
to to give us part two at some point in
(15:06):
the future.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
I love that. Thanks so much for having me. Tom.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
That's it for this episode of the Friends of Money podcast,
But don't forget to jump on our website moneymag dot
com dot au for your daily dose of financial news
or you can go grab yourself a copy of the
allegedition of Money Magazine in all good newsagents. As always,
Friends of Money will be all right back in your
podcast feeds next week. So until then, my name is
Tom Watson.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Goodbye for now, thanks for listening to the Friends with
Money podcast. For credible, independent and easy to understand financial commentary,
visit moneymag dot com dot au. Please remember that the
views and opinions expressed in this podcast are general in nature,
and further independent advice and research based on your personal
(15:51):
circumstances should be sought before making an investment decision
Welcome to the Friends with Money podcast, brought to you
by Money Magazine, creating financial freedom for Australians since nineteen
ninety nine.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hello and thanks for joining us for another episode of
Friends with Money, Money Magazines podcast to help you earn, save,
and achieve your financial goals. My name is Tom Watson,
a senior journalist here at Money Magazine, and as always
it is a pleasure to be with you. Today. We
are finally going to do it. We are going to
put investing under the microscope. I know what you're thinking,
(00:35):
dear listen, now, what on earth are you talking about? Tom? Well,
and I've just realized that the title of the episode
totally gives away any mystery here. But we are taking
a closer look at the world of micro investing. What
is it, How is it different from other forms of investing,
What are the benefits and what other limitations. We will
(00:57):
be discussing those questions and men more, and a very
pleased to say that I will not be alone in
tackling those today because we are joined by investments analyst
at Finder, Kylie Purcell. Kylie, a very warm welcome to you,
Thank you so much for joining us on Friends with Money.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Hi, Tom, Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
It's good to be here, so excited to get into
this topic. So let's get things started, Kylie, can you,
I guess, to kick us off, give us a brief
overview of what micro investing actually means and importantly here
how it differs from traditional investing methods that I'm sure
a lot of our listeners may be a little bit
(01:38):
more familiar with.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Yeah, sure, thinks so.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
Broadly speaking, micro investing is when you invest really small
amounts into the stock market, and I'm talking amounts like
a few cents or a few dollars, and that's usually
on a regular basis, so small amounts over time, maybe
every week, every month, even every day. So it's a
strategy essentially where you're dollar cost averaging into the market
(02:04):
rather than in the traditional sense, with traditional investing, you'd
invest a really big lump sum all at once. So
instead of that, you're investing small amounts more frequently.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Yeah. So it might be good for people with relatively
small amounts of money at their disposal to invest rather
than than you know, thousands of dollars at a time.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Yeah, exactly right.
Speaker 4 (02:27):
Yeah, if you don't have a lot of money, or
if even if you don't have a lot of knowledge,
it's just a lot less intimidating to invest those small amounts,
maybe amounts that you wouldn't even notice and missing into
the stock market, just to get your foot in the
door and really get started.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
I like it testing the waters a little bit, so Kylie, Yeah,
that's the kind of I guess that the major platforms
that come to mind when we're talking about micro investing
in Australia. You know, who are the big fish in
the micro investing pond so to speak.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
Yeah, so when you're talking about micro investment platform the
two big players that most people would think of immediately
would be Rais and Spaceship. They've probably been around for
the longest time in Australia. And then we've got kind
of newer players that have come along like comsect Pocket,
which is not really a traditional micro investment platform and
(03:17):
that you've got a fifty dollar minimum, so that's not
super small, but we still kind of throw concept pocket
in there just because it's a smaller amount than you
traditionally invest. And now we're also seeing players like share
trading platforms that are adding micro investment features into the mix.
So that would be like Peerla, share zas, and we've
(03:38):
got Siphe as well, huan Finders Best micro Investment Platform Award.
More recently, they'd be at least I could keep naming them,
but they'd be at least fifteen or so micro investment
platforms out there these days.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
So yeah, okay, so it's quite a development market that
I got to say. I do remember when acorns now
raise first launch in and that came with a fair
defin fare, So I'm sure people might be, as you said,
familiar with with them, either their form name or or
their current name. Yeah, Coyle, Absolutely, this will obviously differ
(04:12):
from platform to platform. But what kind of assets can
investors actually get exposed you to through these micro investment
apps and platforms?
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Yeah, anything and everything.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
These days, anything and everything, any of the major asset
classes are pretty much covered by micro investment platforms. So typically,
like with Rais and Spaceship, the original micro investment platforms,
you're investing into a portfolio of stocks that's the most common,
or a portfolio of ETFs which are made up of stocks.
(04:45):
But we've also now got property like rais invest now
has a property fund you can invest in cryptocurrency, even
through rays. There are gold platforms now, and even bond
platforms like Blossom. I think you've spoken about Blossom before.
So anything and everything, although traditionally and most of the time,
you're going to be micro investing into a diversified portfolio
(05:07):
of stocks and often even a portfolio of ETFs like
what Rais offers for instance.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
So basically anything that you might light the sound of
in traditional investing, but in a micropersion.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Yeah, that's right. Yeah, you've got everything covered these days.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
I think you've given us like a great kind of
you know, set of foundations here, Kylie. But it'd be
great to dig into I guess some of the pros
and cons associated with with micro investing now, So to
start off with the former, what are some of the
potential benefits for someone who might like the idea of
micro investing.
Speaker 4 (05:47):
Yeah, we touched on it a bit before, but it's
really great for those just getting started in the investing world.
You know, you don't have to be rich, you don't
have to be knowledgeable. These platforms make it really easy
to get your foot in the door. They do the
heavy lifting for you. They typically provide you with a
portfolio of stocks that's professionally managed, so you don't even
have to know which stocks to pick. And it's also
(06:09):
a set and forget strategy, so you know, without even
noticing your spare change going missing, you could be investing
that into a pretty substantial portfolio over the next couple
of decades.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
So I've even got a little example here that I'll share.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
Please, Let's say, yeah, let's say you were to give
up your daily coffee. And I know how horrible that sounds,
but say you give up having a daily coffee out
at a coffee shop.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
That's for dollars fifty well, modestly speaking, by.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
Yeah, well, let's just say it's for dollars fifty if
you instead cut out that coffee and you invested that
into an ETF every day, and say, historically the stock
market has returned about ten percent perannum. That's historically speaking,
and let's say it continues to do that over the
next twenty years, you'd have invested over eighty six thousand
(07:05):
dollars into your stock portfolio, fifty six thousand dollars of
which is your investment returns. So if you just saved
that cash, that four dollars fifty and put it under
your bed in a box, you would have saved, you know,
thirty thousand dollars in cash. But just by having invested
that money and not put it into a pash account
and not put it under your bed in a box,
(07:27):
you've earned an extra fifty six thousand dollars. And that's
probably without even noticing, depending on how much you missed
that coffee. But like these tiny amounts that you would
probably not even notice have gone missing can build you
up a really significant portfolio. And that's really I'd say
that that's the biggest benefit to these micro investment platforms,
(07:48):
the biggest bit of magic there of compound interest as that.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
As someone who's very much addicted to his his daily
takeaway coffee, I'm not sure if I'd gives that up,
but then put it in I mean, that's that's a
big amount of money over over the years, so maybe
maybe I would start to rethink it at that point.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
Yeah, Yeah, it's definitely a big sacrifice to make, but
the rewards are huge.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Gyle, let's get into the flip side of the coin. Then,
what about any downsigence to micro investing.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
Yeah, so what I didn't touch on before was and
then that example that I shared was the fees. Those
returns that I mentioned don't include fees, and that is
absolutely the biggest downside to these micro investment platforms. Because
you're investing smaller amounts, the fee to investment ratio is
usually much higher than if you're investing larger amounts like
(08:43):
the traditional method of investing, and with these micro investing apps,
there also does to tend to be these ongoing fees. So,
for instance, Rais charges four dollars fifty a month. So
let's say you were just using their round up feature.
They have a spare change round up fe which I love,
But if you were just using that feature, you'd be investing,
(09:04):
say maybe twenty dollars a month into the stock market
into your portfolio, then your four dollar fifty fee per
month is going to be like twenty five percent of
your investment almost yeah, which is huge. And of course
the more that you build up your portfolio, the smaller
that fee is going to get as a ratio to
your investment. But starting off, it's a massive, massive fee.
(09:28):
And if you were to compare that to say, investing
into an ETF just through a regular share trading platform
like say instead of investing into a micro investment platform,
you were to invest two thousand dollars into an ETF
through say Tiger Brokers, with them a three dollar brokerage fee,
a one off three dollar brokerage fee, and no ongoing fees.
(09:52):
Whereas if you'd split that two thousand dollars up into
small increments, as you would worth say, raise, you'd end
up paying fife dollars a year in fees, which is
obviously a lot higher than paying say three dollars for
that larger sum as just a regular brokerage fee. So
that's definitely one thing to think about, because of course
(10:13):
you're not just paying extra fees. That's also taking from
what you could be investing into the stock market, which
would also be a compounding factor. The other side of
it is also when you're investing through these platforms, you're
using the dollar cost averaging strategy. But there have been
(10:34):
some studies that show that the dolo cost averaging strategy
actually returns a bit less over the long run than
just investing larger amounts less frequently. Yeah, I thought that
was interesting. There have been a few studies that have
done I've seen morning Star have covered it for instance,
the idea behind dollar cost averaging is that by investing
(10:55):
more frequently at regular intervals, you're balancing out any volatility
in the market.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
So, for instance, if you were to.
Speaker 4 (11:03):
Invest in Tesla stock and you wanted to invest, say
five thousand dollars, you might invest and then the next
day the Tesla stock price crashes, and just bringing out
Tesla because it's just all anyone's talking about in there,
you realize that yeah, yeah, yeah, and then the price crashes,
which happens all the time, you obviously lose quite a
lot of money in the short term. Whereas if you
(11:24):
were to balance out the amounts that you're investing, so
you split that five thousand dollars up into smaller amounts
over the year, the idea is that you'd probably average
out that initial loss because you're sometimes investing just before
the price goes up. So that's kind of the theory
behind it. But what these studies are showing is that
it actually pays just to have more in the market earlier,
(11:48):
regardless of at what point in the cycle you're investing.
So even if you're just investing just before a crash,
just due to the compounding nature of having money in
earlier rather than splitting it into smaller amounts. That being said,
you know, the difference is going to depend on one
scenario to another, and you know, I don't think the
(12:08):
difference is going to be huge. I still like to
dolock ourst average. I do both, but it's in my
mind really useful just to have a small amount going
in frequently into my portfolio. So yeah, I still rate it,
but it's an interesting point to think about.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Absolutely. Yeah, I'm quite surprised by that, but I'm interested
to breed up and obviously so relevant, as you said,
to micro investing platforms, which you know kind of rely
on that fundamentally. Yeah, exactly, Yeah, Kylie, A bit of
a broader question to finish on. What kind of impact
do you think these platforms have had and I guess
(12:44):
are having on the wider investing landscape or I guess
you know, frame in a different way. Do you think
that they have helped people who wouldn't have traditionally been
able to invest to actually get into the market.
Speaker 4 (12:58):
Yeah, absolutely, I think these platforms have been a game changer.
Like I remember when I was a kid, or even
you know, ten or fifteen years ago, it used to
be really expensive to invest in the stock market, Like
it was like five hundred dollars minimum to invest into
one company, any one company on the ASX, and you
(13:18):
might be doing that through Consec. That was the big
player back in the day and still is. But there
weren't that many other options. And if you wanted to
build up, say a diversified portfolio of a modest number
of stocks, say ten stocks, you know, that's five thousand
dollars just to kind of get your foot in the
door and not to take on too much risk. And
that was such a huge amount to have to think
(13:40):
about when say, you don't really even understand how the
stock market works, you're not sure which companies depict, and
you don't have a lot of money, not even just
for kids just getting started, teenagers just getting started, but
even for families that don't have a lot of spare change.
You know, they've got to pay the bills. This has
all changed really in the last few years because of
(14:04):
these micro investment platforms, and my view, it basically means
that anybody can get involved with any tiny amount. I'm
talking a few cents, and it's not just about getting
your foot in the door to get started to build
up for your future. It's also just about educating yourself
and understanding how the stock market works, understanding how compound
(14:24):
interest works. Because even if you're not actively investing in
the stock market, you've still got your superinnomation portfolio. So
it really helps us to understand where your money is
going and why it's so important, and why it might
be important to add more, even just to your super account.
So yeah, I think they've had a really substantial impact
on the investment landscape, and a really really positive one.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
I love that the education piece at the end that
you mentioned that, Kylie, I think that's so important, so
useful for so many people as well, beyond the end
the returns themselves. So anyway, Kelly, it has been an
absolute pleasure having you on the show, and thank you
so much for running us through all things micro investing.
As I said, we'll have to get you back on
to to give us part two at some point in
(15:06):
the future.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
I love that. Thanks so much for having me. Tom.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
That's it for this episode of the Friends of Money podcast,
But don't forget to jump on our website moneymag dot
com dot au for your daily dose of financial news
or you can go grab yourself a copy of the
allegedition of Money Magazine in all good newsagents. As always,
Friends of Money will be all right back in your
podcast feeds next week. So until then, my name is
Tom Watson.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Goodbye for now, thanks for listening to the Friends with
Money podcast. For credible, independent and easy to understand financial commentary,
visit moneymag dot com dot au. Please remember that the
views and opinions expressed in this podcast are general in nature,
and further independent advice and research based on your personal
(15:51):
circumstances should be sought before making an investment decision
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