LatinaLista — In 2013, when Pew Research surveyed how many Americans invest in the stock market, they discovered a telling fact — 81 percent of Latinos don’t own stock.
But it doesn’t stop at stocks.
Latinos are the first to cash out retirement accounts long before they actually retire. And in every analysis of which group will actually be financially ready to weather their golden years, Latinos consistently rank last.
There are several reasons why Latinos lag financially behind our peers but the two root reasons seem to be: We don’t save and we don’t invest.
A new bilingual investment mobile platform hopes to bring more Latinos off the sidelines of investing and get them into the habit as painlessly as possible.
Dvdendo is a micro-investing platform with a mission of promoting and fostering the practice of investing among Latinos, while at the same time helping clients build up their savings and learn how to financially plan for their future.
To get started, people create an account connecting a debit or credit card. Decide how aggressive an investor they want to be, make a minimum investment of $5, download the app and monitor their money’s (hopeful) growth.
By linking a credit or debit account, every time a purchase is made using the card the total purchase amount will be rounded up and the difference automatically deposited in the Dvdendo account to invest.
Investments will be made either into bonds or stocks. For investments under $5,000, a monthly fee of $1 is assessed but according to the company there are no other fees usually found at other brokerage firms. For example, no paying trading commissions.
Gabriel Montoya, CEO and co-founder of Dvdendo, says, “Our hope is that by creating awareness, promoting financial education, and giving Hispanics access to an easy-to-use investment platform, we may foster the habit of saving and planning for the future, so the next generation will not face the same issues affecting the current one.”
