Gifting shares is cheaper in the RSA than the USA!

Everyone knows that EasyEquities pioneered the concept of #easy investment in South Africa. With low costs, fractional share investing and instant access to all your favourite brands, we’ve made it fun and easy to invest on the JSE. You can even buy EasyEquities gift vouchers for your family and friends so that they, too, can invest in the brands they love.

Easy investing, fractional shares and gifting are also proving very popular in the USA, where you can now buy vouchers for shares in grocery stores. California-based online investment company Stockpile recently launched a gift card that’s sold at supermarket check-outs – similar to iTunes, Google Play and Woolies vouchers here at home.

The vouchers are available in $25, $50 and $100 denominations, and are specific to a particular share. So you can buy, say, a $50 card for Apple shares. The recipient would then enter the voucher number into their account (similar to an EasyEquities account) and $50’s worth of Apple shares would be added to their portfolio on a fractional ownership basis.

“It’s amazing to see the concept of easy investing spreading around the world,” says EasyEquities brand manager Romi Appel. “The Stockpile gift card concept is a clever way of making the investment process tangible. It’s something you can hold in your hand and pay for at the till point, which opens up a whole new market segment. But it also comes at a price.”

A card costs between $4.95 and $7.95, depending on the denomination. Virtual cards are also available, each one at a cost of $1.99 for values of less than $1 000. For higher-value cards, add on an extra 3% of the card’s value.

EasyEquities online gift vouchers only cost you 1% (plus VAT) of the voucher value. So if you are buying a R100 voucher it will cost you R1.14” says Romi. “You can also choose whatever amount you want to give and use your vouchers to invest in absolutely any shares or ETFs on the JSE. Our actual physical gift cards don't cost you anything to purchase, you just specify the voucher value and come and collect. You can order these from Romi directly via email. So from where we’re sitting, EasyEquities vouchers offer South Africans way more flexibility than their US counterparts do.

EasyEquities vouchers are available online and they’re really #easy to buy. So go on… buy your EasyEquities vouchers today and take the hassle out of Christmas shopping! (Double-bonus!)

Other innovations

Stockpile isn’t the only US investment innovation that we like. There’s also an app called Acorns that rounds up the cents on clients’ credit card transactions and invests them in a diversified portfolio. So if you buy something for $32.17, the app rounds your purchase up to $33.00 and invests the 83 cents “change” in your portfolio. It’s amazing how these small amounts add up over time.

“There is so much potential for innovation in the investment industry,” says Romi. “EasyEquities is renowned as a massive innovator in SA – having won the Accenture Innovation Award in 2014 – and we’re committed to keeping the innovation train rolling! Watch this space.”

Read more about the Stockpile gift card in this article in Business Insider.