Mogo enters into the Canadian wealth management industry with acquisition of Moka

By Pavithra R

Mogo, a FinTech company, offering customers solutions to manage and control their finances through its mobile app, has announced entering into a binding letter of intent to acquire 100% of Moka Financial Technologies, Canada’s leading saving and investing apps.

The proposed acquisition will increase Mogo’s member base by over 40% to more than 1.7 mn and expand Mogo’s wealth offering to include saving and investing products. The deal will accelerate Mogo’s plan to launch a free stock trading solution for Canadians which will further solidify Mogo’s position as the most comprehensive digital wallet in Canada.

“This acquisition represents another significant milestone for Mogo on our journey to building the leading digital wallet for Canadians. Like Mogo, Moka is driven to help users improve their financial health, and they have built an innovative solution to enable consumers to easily save and invest money. By adding these digital saving and investing products – along with Moka’s technology platform and experienced fintech team – we will dramatically enhance what is already one of the most compelling and differentiated value propositions in Canadian finance. Moka will complement our existing MogoCrypto account and form the core of MogoWealth, making Mogo’s digital wallet the most comprehensive solution in Canada,” said David Feller, Mogo’s Founder and CEO.

Launched in 2017, Moka is a personal finance app that automatically rounds up daily purchases and invests the spare change in portfolios of low-cost Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs). Customers are required to link their existing debit and credit card to the app for starting savings and investments. Members can invest through a TFSA, RRSP or non-registered account. There is no financial knowledge, minimum investment or lifestyle change required to use Moka.

“We’re very excited to join Mogo, a fintech pioneer and one of Canada’s leading fintech companies. Moka has built a robust customer-centric technology platform and, as part of a larger, more diversified and well-capitalized digital platform, we enhance the opportunity to grow our business and, importantly, to give our members access to even more digital products and tools to improve their financial well-being. We look forward to bringing these two companies together,” said Philip Barrar, Founder & CEO of Moka.

Moka currently has more than 500,000 active members and over 100,000 monthly subscription members, and the company generated approximately $6.5 mn of revenue in 2020. Its key investors include Desjardins Capital, NAventures, and Ferst Capital Partners. Following completion of the acquisition Philip Barrar, Founder & CEO of Moka, will join Mogo’s leadership team in a newly created role of Chief Innovation Officer. Dr. Liam Cheung, Chairman of Moka and partner at Moka shareholder Tactico, is expected to join Mogo’s board of directors.