Futu's «moomoo» has experienced rapid growth in Singapore since its launch in March, thanks to generous incentives, but also a more nuanced understanding of young investors today.
Competition is fierce in the commission-free trading space, but Futu Singapore, a wholly owned subsidiary of Nasdaq-listed and Tencent-backed Futu Holdings, has experienced rapid growth in Singapore, with its investment platform «moomoo» onboarding over 300,000 users in the city-state since its launch in March 2021.
Futu also decided to base its regional headquarters in Singapore – a «strategic decision to serve as a bridge into the rest of Southeast Asia» and plans to scale the business going forward.
«This has exceeded our expectations and we are very encouraged, and think the broader Southeast Asia market will offer a long runway for growth,» Gavin Chia, managing director, Futu Singapore, told finews.asia in an interview.
Young User Base
Close to 80 percent of its users are between the ages of 18–41, comprising millennials and Gen Zs. As such, moomoo has adopted numerous innovative approaches to reach out to the young investor community, including their investing habits and how they consume financial information.
«They want investing to be made easily digestible, less dry and intimidating, incorporate a social element, and they’re hungry for tools and resources that help them “level up”» Chia said.
The moomoo app has a wealth of educational features and tools to help users gain investing insights, including a stock screener to filter stocks according to a user's investing strategies, stock compare feature, «Star Institutions» to glean insights from institutional investing strategies, and an AI monitor that captures market movements and unusual trading activities.
Rewards-Based Learning
The platform is also known for its generous sign-up and referral bonuses, which have included shares in Apple, Nokia, Twitter and more. Moomoo also makes use of rewards-based learning, offering users incentives in the form of stocks or stock vouchers to complete tutorials on the stock market and trading basics, as well as points for participating in its social features.
According to Chia, this has allowed users to get familiarized with the platform quicker and encourages them to learn how to buy and sell, and teach other users in the process.
«A lot of people are sharing information to their networks, what they read, their portfolios, their gains and losses. The ones who understand financial markets better also share their strategies and processes using our social features,» he added.
Growth Plans
With its new regional headquarters in Singapore, Chia said Futu wants to start sinking roots across markets in Southeast Asia and establish more partnership with key stock exchanges, while continuing to improve the user experience and features on its platform.
«Singapore has proven to be a fantastic platform for our first foray into the region. And the response we're getting is guiding the improvements we are making,» he said.
