Crowd investments is a unique feature to OUTvest which allows you to create a personalised webpage where friends and family can donate money directly to your savings goal. With Crowdvest friends and family can help you reach a goal faster and turn your few hundred rands a month in contributions into a meaningful amount of money over time.
As an example, if you save R100 per month towards a savings goal for your newborn (increasing this amount with 6% every year) and invest it in a fund that provides a return of inflation plus 5% per year, you can expect to have over R140 000 when your child turns 21. Now, if you get grandparents and aunts and uncles to also contribute to this savings goal, that amount increases significantly.
If you assume there is an extra four contributions of R200 each on the child’s birthday and on Christmas (R1 600 extra each year) that grows by 6% per year, the amount available for the child when they reach 21 suddenly becomes more than R300 000, or three times as much as the amount you would have saved on your own.
“Ask friends and family to help you save for important goals like your child’s education or a wedding,” says Gareth van Deventer, a certified financial planner and head of OUTvest’s advice contact centre.
“Think about all the broken or discarded birthday toys lying around. Rather give your child the gift of an education or even a once-in-a-lifetime trip to see the world.”
In the age of social media, everybody shares everything with everyone – from pictures of their vacation and food on Facebook to videos of their kids and pets on Instagram. So why not also share a savings and investing goal with friends and family?
Crowdvest is a social version of investing, says Grant Locke, head of OUTvest.
“We’ve made it easy to invite friends and family to collectively invest towards making a meaningful financial goal become reality,” says Locke.
“For instance, grandparents will easily be able to contribute towards a tertiary education savings goal for grandchildren or friends will be able to collectively save towards a trip or sports tour, and invite others to support them.”
You can share your personalised Crowdvest page with friends and family on Facebook, Twitter or send a link via e-mail, SMS or WhatsApp.
Friends and family can contribute via EFT or credit card and help you reach that goal faster.
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Create a new savings goal
Before you can Crowdvest and get others to help you save, you first need to create a savings goal.
This could be saving towards a holiday, for a wedding, your children’s education or any other goal you might have.
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Crowdvest your new savings goal
Once your new goal has been approved, simply log in, select the new goal you want to Crowdvest and get started. If you already have an existing goal with OUTvest you can Crowdvest this too.
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Make it personal
Set up your Crowdvest page with a customized message and photo and tell your friends and family how their support can help you reach your financial goal sooner.
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Share your Crowdvest Page
Once approved, you will receive a SMS and e-mail from OUTvest with the link to your Crowdvest page. You can send this link to whoever you like to help you save towards your goal. You can also share your page via Facebook or Twitter.
- You can start a goal from as little as R100 per month
- Crowdvest is only available for the OUTvest Voluntary Plan and not the OUTvest Tax-Free Plan. This is foryour protection. You can only invest R33 000 per year in a tax-free account and will be penalised by the South African Revenue Services if this is exceeded, which may be the case when friends and family contributes to the goal.
- Crowdvest contributions can be made via credit card or EFT and the minimum contribution is R100.
- An additional service fee of 2.5% will be levied per contribution, excluding VAT. These fees are purely used to pay the service providers that help us provide this service and OUTvest does not expect to profit from this. They are similar to normal transaction fees you would pay on typical banking transactions.
- Once you have invited someone to contribute to your goal, the goal and progress towards that goal is visible to you on your portal and your public Crowdvest page.
For sophisticated and affordable investment advice, make use of our financial advisory services and speak to our financial advisors today.