The Registered Investment Adviser (RIA) license from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will enable Douugh’s wealth business to offer services through its ‘Wealth Jars’ range, including robo-advice and trading.

Douugh announced that it is on track to launch its wealth solution in the next few months, following the recent rollout of Autopilot, an automated money management feature and instant provisioning of virtual Mastercard cards.

The Wealth Jars product is advertised as helping customers accelerate their savings by investing money in purpose-built managed portfolios.

The company plans to expand its offering in retirement investing through a dedicated "Retirement Jar," as well as fractional single shares through the "Share Jar" and crypto trading through the aptly named "Crypto Jar."

Douugh will aim to capture some of the market share in the mobile investment platform space, founder and CEO Andy Taylor signaled.

"With this feature, we can target customers in the investment space who currently use platforms like Betterment, Acorns and Stash with a holistic money management solution focused on automated long-term wealth growth," said Mr Taylor.

"This should lead to higher average deposit balances and ultimately higher payday customer penetration, which is our north star metric."

Douugh recently acquired ethical investment platform Goodments, which has an Australian financial services licence, for $1.5 million. The purchase also positions neobank to launch an integrated banking and wealth platform in Australia, with plans to expand into other markets.

Goodments founder and former CEO Tom Culver became head of Douugh's wealth management division in the acquisition.

Mr Taylor added that the company plans to develop other new features to enhance the value proposition of the banking platform and accelerate customer growth.

"Total card deposits and spending continue to grow strongly in the US, and the company expects to provide a quarterly update on platform metrics in due course," Mr Taylor said.

Sarah Simpkins

Sarah Simpkins is a journalist at Momentum Media, reporting mainly on banking, financial services and wealth.

Prior to joining the team in 2018, Sarah worked in commercial media and produced stories for a current affairs program on public radio.

You can contact her at [email protected].