Saudi-based Derayah has announced the launch of the largest mutual fund supermarket in the Middle East region, which enables clients to invest in over 60 mutual funds managed by more than 7 banks and investment companies.

The only independent one-stop shop for individual investors in the Middle East, Derayah aims to empower individual investors to take control of their financial destiny on their own, said a company official.

The Derayah helps clients to invest in over 60 mutual funds managed by more than 7 banks and investment companies through its website: www.derayah.com.

Derayah recently obtained a licence from the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) to commence its operations. It is the first company that enables clients to conveniently access multiple mutual funds from multiple providers through a single account with no minimums or fees to open an account and with as little as a SR500 ($133.3) to invest.

Mohammad A. ElKuwaiz, managing director of Derayah, said the site is an “effective tool that empowers investors with access to the widest variety of investment products, along with transparent and independent information to make the right selection.”

'For many years, investors had to either spend long periods of time searching for relevant information to trade directly or to invest through mutual funds in a more institutionalized and professional manner.'

'The problem is that banks and investment companies only offer the funds that they manage themselves, which reduces the choices available to investors, while most experts recommend diversification across different markets and investment types”, ElKuwaiz added.

'This is why Derayah chose from the beginning to be aligned with the individual investor. As such, we don’t manage any mutual funds of our own, which assures that we have no conflict of interest or bias towards a particular fund or investment product.'

'Instead we focus on being independent by providing clients with access to all funds under one roof and supplement that with the necessary information they need to compare between these funds and choose wisely,' he added.

This fortifies the competitive advantage of Derayah, which positions itself as an independent company that doesn’t manage its own funds, ensuring that all its advisors are focused exclusively on helping individuals build diversified portfolios among various mutual funds to suit their unique circumstances.

As for investment funds as a strategic option, ElKuwaiz stresses that over the past years the average performance of Saudi equities funds was better than as the general market as a whole, which indicates the value that they add to investors.

However, there has been a wide variation in performance among individual and the best performing investment funds in one period is not always the best in another period. Also, fund performance varies depending on the country and market in which it invests.

This further demonstrates the value of Derayah’s ‘one-stop-shop’ concept, which enables individual investors to compare and diversify across multiple funds from multiple managers.-TradeArabia News Service