CALIFORNIA-based investment mobile application Abra has launched a new feature allowing users in over 150 countries, including the Philippines, to invest in fractional shares of popular stocks and Exchange Traded Funds in the United States (US) using bitcoins.
Abra started here and in the US three years ago. Initially, it’s an app for investing in cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Etherium, Ripple, etc.), and now in stocks listed in Nasdaq.
“We just rolled up the stock investing feature a couple of weeks ago. This is the first time that an app like this has made it super easy for anyone in the Philippines to be able to invest in the US shares, and also invest in what we call ‘fractions of shares’ at the same time,” Abra CEO and Founder Bill Barhydt told reporters during their recent news briefing in Makati City.
He cited that the micro-investment they offer works in such a way that if the share price of Apple, for instance, is $200 apiece, Abra users can actually purchase it for $5 each, the minimum amount of investment per stock.
“[This is] what we call ‘fractional share’ investing because it enables people to not actually have to buy a whole share. They can actually just buy a piece of a share. That’s something our early users in the Philippines are taking advantage of,” he explained.
From the app’s current 600,000 registered users globally, about 20 percent or 120,000 of them are from the Philippines. Half of them are depositing traditional currencies, like pesos, and the other half are depositing Bitcoins.
“It’s by far the biggest market for Abra outside of the United States,” Barhydt said. “That is because of the functionality we built that’s specific to the Philippines.” While most of the Abra users here have been investing in crytocurrencies—being the app’s first offering—the top executive bared that stock trading is “already starting to take off, as well.”
In fact, he cited that Tesla is the most popular stock among local traders in the app at present. Volume-wise, he noted that they buy shares at $50 to $100 on the average.
Abra users can get dividends payable in dollars though the app’s cash balance. They can encash it through Tambunting pawnshop and Unionbank.
Bullish on their business prospects here, Barhydt expects that their userbase in the country will double sooner and 80 percent of them will be trading stocks using their app.
“The size of cryptocurrency community here has really grown significantly in the last two years. We’re just amazed how steadily the crypto investing community using Abra in the Philippines keeps growing,” he said.
“What’s interesting is we’re also getting a halo effect from people who are finding out about the stocks and are now using Abra using cryptocurrencies, as well,” he added. While at the moment Abra just offers US stocks, the company is also keen to open it to other four big equity markets in Europe, the United Kingdom, China and Hong Kong.
“We have to cover those first and then, we will start adding others over time,” the CEO and founder said, while noting their openness to also offer Philippine-listed stocks if the demand warrants.
“A lot of our users are interested in investing in things that other people don’t have access to because they can get upsize investment returns. That’s why they’re rich in Bitcoin, Ripple and Etherium because they’re not looking at Abra as a place to make 2 percent of their money. They’re looking to make bigger bets,” he stressed.