St.Gallen/Zurich – Kaspar& and acrevis Bank have created an investment and savings app. This gives St.Gallen Bank customers direct access to the option of automatically rounding up purchase amounts when making card payments and investing the difference in a portfolio of ETFs and index funds.
St.Gallen-based acrevis Bank and the fintech company Kaspar&, which is based in St.Gallen and Technopark Zurich, have entered into a strategic cooperation, according to a press release. As part of this, they launched the joint investment and savings app Kaspar&acrevis. Customers of the regional bank have been able to link their existing bank account and their acrevis Debit Mastercard to the app since mid-March 2024.
Depending on your personal preferences, the purchase amount will then be automatically rounded up to the next franc or higher with every card payment. The resulting difference is automatically and continuously invested in a portfolio of ETFs and index funds in the app. Bank customers can also use the app to open additional savings and investment plans themselves.
"By making it possible to invest with 'digital change' and thus from the smallest amounts, the app opens up a simple, low-threshold and playful introduction for customers who have not yet dealt with the topic of investing," Kornelius Birrer, Head of Strategy and Sales Management at acrevis, is quoted as saying.
The Open Finance platform bLink from the Swiss stock exchange SIX provides the technological basis for the collaboration. It allows for simplified data exchange between banks and fintech companies. "With the bLink platform, we will be able to connect other banks in addition to acrevis very easily and without great effort in the future," explains Kaspar& co-founder Jan-Philip Schade. This brings the spin-off from the University of St.Gallen and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, which was founded in 2020, closer to its vision of democratizing investing. ce/mm