The no-cost, no-paperwork, tax-free investing app from Liberty
We all know that we should be putting money away for our future from our first pay cheque, but just trying to select an investment or open an account often seems like more hassle than it’s worth. What if there was an investment that saved you tax, required no paperwork, debit orders or transfers and came at no cost?
That’s the creative thinking behind the launch of Stash, an app designed to break through all the complicated investment jargon, processes, tedious forms and cashing-out difficulties. The average user takes just 49 seconds to set up their Stash. All you need is your first name and phone number.
How do you get started? Download the Stash app from the Play Store. You get R50 up-front to kick-start your investment journey. You then add the card you swipe the most (your debit, credit or cheque card). Each time you swipe that card, the app rounds up the amount spent to the nearest R10, R20 or R50 and stashes the spare change. When you buy a coffee for R24, Stash rounds this up to R30 and invests R6. If you select to round up to R20, then it stashes R16.
All this spare change accumulates without interfering with your day-to-day life. Stash checks your daily bank balance and never transfers more than you can afford, so you don’t have to worry about going into overdraft.
Before you know it, you’ll have a significant Stash balance. Your Stash grows as fast as South Africa’s biggest companies do because your spare change is invested in South Africa’s top 40 listed companies.
As it’s a tax-free savings account, you pay no investment tax. You can invest up to R33 000 a year, up to R500 000 over your lifetime, into your tax-free investment. These limits go across all the tax-free savings accounts you may have.
There are no fees to invest with Stash so you’re not penalised when you cash-out and you can deposit or withdraw money whenever you like.
Stash comes with interactive features to encourage more investing. One example, called Sunny Money, stashes R5 every day that it’s sunny in your area.
Now there really is no excuse to delay saving – download the Stash app today and you’ll be R50 richer immediately!
What you need to know:
- Anyone over the age of 18 can open a Stash account.
- As this is a tax-free savings account, it’s only available to South Africans with a valid ID.
- We’re using smartphone technology to verify our customers, so all you need is your name and cellphone number to open the account.
- Liberty is using the current FICA exemptions for investments of less than R2 000 per month to avoid the cumbersome paperwork that’s normally required for investing. Only when you want to withdraw the funds or exceed the R2 000 per month limit will you need to send us a picture of your ID document and proof of residence – it’s that simple.
- There are no fees, but the data collected on the spending patterns is valuable to Liberty to better understand the South African consumer. The information remains private at a user level, as it’s anonymised before it’s analysed, but the behaviour patterns are utilised to improve information.
- The information will not be used to generate leads, so you won’t suddenly receive cold calls.
- The banking technology is managed by the same team behind SnapScan, a wholly owned subsidiary of Standard Bank, so your banking details are safe and always encrypted.
- The SMS notifications from your bank are used to calculate the amount to be paid into your Stash account, which is processed at 1pm each day. You can cancel the transfer at any time before then.
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