When it comes to investing, it is difficult to decide first and then, difficult not to overdo it. Along with this difficulty, there is another: to whom to entrust money, since new technologies have increased the range of options. They are no longer just traditional banks, mobile applications also proliferate, which have been adding followers.Just as it is easy to be tempted to want to buy a lot when the market is "bullish" (bullish), a prisoner of "Warren Buffett syndrome", it becomes difficult not to join the stampede when everyone is selling frantically, as happened on Monday with 38% collapses in the stock market and up to 32% in the case of dollar bonds.
The proliferation of apps has a raison d'être: in Argentina of the dollar under the mattress, only 0.9% of the population invests in the stock market, against more than 50% that, for example, is registered in countries of the so-called first world , like the United States.
The platforms aim to capture this audience and for this they appeal to simple tools to understand and use. The level of advice varies: from an almost permanent accompaniment to phones that nobody ever answers. Of course, in no case is it close to the personalized follow-up intended by the person who disburses significant amounts.
Days of panic occur - like those after the STEP - in which the saver can feel alone, beyond the effort of many applications that, even overflowed, have done their best to contain a true avalanche of frightened people."It's crazy days," says Ramiro Marra of Bull Market, one of the heavyweight players in this segment. "On Monday, for example, revenue to the portal increased dramatically. The number of orders, as well as the opening of accounts, quadrupled," he tells iProUP.
"It was chaotic and there was a huge workload. One tends to think that these days there are more accounts that close than those that open, but it is not. Many see the opportunity to buy cheap," explains the executive.
"In addition, the questions were triggered. So many that at times it was impossible to answer. The phone exploded. It is that in situations of this type, savers usually do not listen but act. Either based on fear or ambition," add Marra.
Nicolás Galarza, founder of Quiena, a platform that allows us to operate in US portfolios, provides his impressions on how crises are going on like these days.
"The weather is very tense and there is no supply to answer questions. We have two types of users. Those who trade without advice or self-managed and those who have accounts managed by us," he tells iProUP. And he adds: "In the first case, they did not hide their great fright when, for example, in the New York Stock Exchange the price of Argentine companies was suspended at the opening given the magnitude of the fall.Galarza points out that users were able to verify in practice the importance of having a balanced portfolio, in which some assets fall but those declines are compensated with that of others that rise.
"We left early to communicate this. That our investment plan is diversified and that it contemplates stressful situations, with which the recommendation was to remain firm," he shares.Where to start
Augusto Fernández Villa, co-founder of Poincenot, an innovation company in financial products and services and executive director of b.trader, underlines: "When we talk about applications, the first major division is between those that offer professional advice and those that don't," he says. to iProUP.
For now, b.trader, a development with the Rofex, is what is called a "white label" platform, because it can be adapted to the identity of the company and the business process of the managers and brokerage firms.Fernández Villa marks without limits the limits of many of these apps and even warns about some "little serious" platforms.
"An app that does not provide a personalized service is limited to defining your investor profile and, in any case, warns you if the assets you chose fit. There are signatures, even, that directly adopt as a policy not to have customer service channels or not attend phone. You only have one chat or one bot. And for each advisor, 200 people, "he completes.
Anyway, nobody is in this business to lose customers or money. Mechanisms are often used, such as "stop loss", which in plain terms establishes in advance how much the saver is willing to lose.
"On the other hand, personalized advice is a service that can only be provided from certain investment floors. What there is is general assistance, which is what many platforms offer," he says.Full color players
Bull Market and InvertirOnline (acquired by Supervielle) are two of the heavyweights that together concentrate 80% of the market. Strong and prestigious players (although some recent and others with a long history) are also Personal Portfolio, Prack or Plus (from Consultatio).There are also several platforms such as Goonder, Quiena or ibillionaire, although in these cases an account is required abroad to invest, which in turn means being under the orbit of another regulator.
Goonder is the app that reproduces the aesthetics of Tinder, while ibillionaire proposes to replicate portfolios of the "financial celebrities" type.
"You can open an account in 90 seconds. Photo of the DNI, two or three data and voila. In addition, we are the first to offer a supermarket of funds (fundsonline.com) and we are having a growth of between 50% and 100% of customers per year, "says Ramiro Marra of Bull Market, which is also a currency exchange office.
In the company they have a clear segmentation for the management of a central issue: advice. "There is wealth management, which deals with providing a personalized service to investors of higher assets. The rest receives recommendations from advisors and has an area of attention for administrative issues," describes iProUP."He who says he wants to sell technology and personalized advice lies," he emphasizes. And he adds: "We have no minimum and we offer an investor profile and user type service: we measure how often you enter and, based on that, we establish the periodicity of the shipments."Who has my money
Alejandro Bianchi, investment manager of Invertironline.com is responsible for remembering that the first thing that any saver should look at is the reliability of the company that operates the app: "You have to make sure that they are entities regulated by the CNV. Otherwise, it could be someone who disappears with money the next day. "
"Then there are issues that have to do with data management and the security of the site itself, since we are introducing monetary, confidential values," he says in dialogue with iProUP.
From Personal Portfolio they add to that warning. Matías Clark Liftenegger, IT director, is categorical at that point. "You have to understand the regulation to which they are subject and where and what type of custody they have. What would happen if for any reason the company stopped operating?" He asks.
"You also have to pay attention to the robustness of the platform and the company behind it. The reality is that many end up demonstrating how good they are in the days of euphoria or panic, since at that time it is when you can really measure its capacity, "he says.In complicated moments, investment psychology then comes into play and if one is only in front of a screen, decision making is not so simple.
"When you have a very bullish cycle, suddenly everyone believes that they can win easily and that anything can be bought since everything will go up. Instead, the big investors will find them when everything goes down. There they begin to see the well-armed portfolios, according to each profile, "Bianchi clarifies to iProUP.
And he advises: "Professionals with experience in the market must be contacted. The focus is erroneously on profitability, but trust is more important. The first risk assumed is who is entrusted with capital."Algorithms and risk
Nicolás Galarza, creator of Quiena, is categorical: "Those who invest on their own lose, and this has been statistically proven. Our advice is to build a user profile based on an algorithm. We are convinced that the most important thing is to identify clearly the type of risk the person is willing to assume. ""In our case, we use many concrete examples of real losses to test the magnitude that the investor can tolerate," says the executive. "Once we do that, the other point is fluid communication. Basically, we remember when it is convenient to adjust the investment portfolio and when not."
80% of Quiena users are between 35 and 45 years old and are mostly men, something that does not go unnoticed by Galarza. "We have made efforts to attract women but they are much more risk adverse."
"We have the project of adding the option of investing in local common funds, through agreements with several administrators, for the most conservative profiles," he summarizes. In return, the firm has Quiena Trading, a product for those who like to "fly alone" or have more experience.
Agustín Arguissain is Chief Operating Officer of Plus, the investment app of Consultatio. Despite the brand association that one can do with the consultant led by the real estate entrepreneur Eduardo Costantini, the application is not aimed at a sophisticated saver.
"After the digital registration, each test is different, but they have a lot in common because we are governed by slogans of the CNV regarding what we should know about the user of our product. And so a score emerges," he adds to iProUP.
Plus is responsible for sending strategy reports to its customers every week and updating the portfolios according to three profiles already identified. "With the crisis, it must be said, the priority became to take care of them," he tells iProUP.
Consultatio implemented the "panic button" and says it worked. "We offered options to dollarize and escape Argentine risk. Basically, our Latin American dollar fund." He proposes this alternative because he considers it the most suitable instrument for savers.
With limitations and some deficiencies, the truth is that apps are a great way to encourage you to take money from the mattress. Some even offer virtual essays before "investing seriously."
Matías Clark Liftenegger, from Portfolio Personal, concludes by realizing some advantages of the tool: "It prevents you from being at any time looking at a screen. For example, it counts on sending alerts to the cell phone if sudden price variations occur."