The Rise of Stock Investors, EMTrade to Transform into Robo Advisory

EMTrade is a digital portal with mission to help new investors learn about stocks. Founded by influencer and stock practitioner Ellen May, the platform is currently transforming from an edu-fintech based application to a robo-advisory platform.

As a Founder & CEO, Ellen said to DailySocial, in the latest EMTrade application update, some automation features have been implemented. For example, to speed up the work process of Q&A services. In addition to the Q&A service, the EMTrade application has other features, including share purchase/sale recommendations, stock analysis, and educational channels.

"We are now recruiting for technology team, both for the back-end and front-end positions. In the future, EMTrade will transform into an end-to-end application to accompany [retail] stock investors in Indonesia," Ellen said.

He said, there is a fairly specific roadmap for this year development. In the second quarter, a premium content feature will be launched, as well as a virtual trading service in late June to help users do demo trading. Artificial intelligence and machine learning technology will be implemented for stock screening - providing analysis based on user behavior.

"Moreover, we will launch an online trading feature that allows users to transact shares in the application in the fourth quarter. The partners are still undisclosed because it's still in the finalizing process while waiting for license from OJK," Ellen added.

EMTrade development team / EMTrade

Quoting from Indonesia Stock Exchange, there will be an additional 1.3 million SID (Single Investor Identification) for new capital markets and 590 thousand new SID shares in 2020, an increase of 61% and 134% from the previous year - the highest in the history of the capital market in Indonesia. As of the end of 2021, there were a total of 3.88 SID for the capital market and 1.65 million SID for shares. Ne SID users are usually within the ages of 18 and 40.

Ellen said, this happened due to various factors, including public considerations during a pandemic - interest rates tend to be low, making people look for other alternatives to develop money. The investment mindset is getting popular, people find it easier to compare various application instruments as the medium is everywhere.

In Indonesia, there are several startups working on platforms to facilitate the stock investment process. The two most significant ones are Stockbit and Ajaib. Most recently, Ajaib announced to secure 1.3 trillion Rupiah investment. Both have sub-services to facilitate users to invest in mutual funds.

"Compared to gold, returns in stocks are more attractive. Gold has only risen in the last 1-2 years, previously it was stagnant. Meanwhile, people say the risk is smaller in mutual funds because it has a person to manage the product. However, in the recent cases, there are many problematic mutual funds, it certainly increase the risks. The smallest investment risk is in our control. However, you must willing to learn," Ellen explained.

However, the attractiveness in gold investment is quite high. There are many digital platforms to facilitate it, from Pluang, Treasury, Indogold, e-mas, etc. - some of them have been integrated with e-commerce applications and popular digital wallets in Indonesia. Other alternatives are emerging with technology media, such as investing in crypto assets, equity crowdfunding, or p2p lending.

–Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian