Is Motif Available in Canada?

Motif is a northern California-based platform that simultaneously serves as an online brokerage and an automated financial advisor. Find out if Motif is available in Canada below.

What is Motif and is it available in Canada?

Motif offers investors a series of investment portfolios to choose from and then helps them manage it, robo-advisor-style. But instead of just organizing those portfolios based on customers’ risk levels or long-term financial goals, Motif offers portfolios structured around certain themes or trends.

Some offerings include cyber security, social media networks, environmentally-friendly energy, and one called “Millennials #IRL.” Users are also able to build and trade their own “motifs,” essentially building their own portfolios of stocks and ETFs around a certain theme or idea.

Motif was founded in 2010 in California, and has since added real-time fractional trading, IPO access to individual investors, and a wider array of portfolios including so-called “impact portfolios,” which is an automated investing service for socially or environmentally conscious companies or industries. Since it also functions as an online broker, the company lets investors make same-day trades of stocks and ETFs for $4.95. Traders who want more flexibility can also sign up for Motif’s membership program, Motif Blue, which costs $19.95 a month and gives investors three monthly commission-free real-time trades and real-time quotes.

Investors who want to trade and build “themed” portfolios themselves can choose up to 30 stocks or ETFs for $9.95 at the next market open or $19.95 in real time. Motif doesn’t require an account minimum, but because it is a platform aimed at investors with a bit more experience, it doesn’t offer as many investing tools as many of its competitors.

Unfortunately, Motif currently only accepts customers based in the United States who have a permanent U.S. address and a valid tax ID.

An alternative investment manager in Canada

Motif isn’t currently available in Canada, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t similar investment services Canadians can choose. There are many automated investing services available in Canada, some may even have more features than Motif.

Wealthsimple is an investment management service that combines smart technology with expert financial advice. We allow you to put your money in a managed portfolio (Wealthsimple Invest), do self-directed trading (Wealthsimple Trade) or put your money in a high-interest savings product (Wealthsimple Save).

Wealthsimple is anything but a fly-by-night startup; it’s Canada’s largest automated investing service. It’s received $265 million in investment from some of the world’s largest financial institutions in Canada and Europe. Wealthsimple boasts more than 150,000 clients and $5 billion of assets under management. Wealthsimple’s brokerage Wealthsimple Investments Inc., which handles all client trades, is a member of the Canadian Investor Protection Fund (CIPF). CIPF is a program that insures all accounts up to one million dollars against member firms bankruptcy.

And Wealthsimple offers some cool products that other robo-advisors might not have. Wealthsimple’s Roundup feature allows you to invest your space change every time you use your debt card. Transactions are rounded up to the nearest dollar and the difference can be saved or invested. Wealthsimple Overflow allows you to invest or save any money over a certain amount in your current account.

We offer a variety of accounts including TFSAs, RRSPs, RESPs and more. Even if you’re not quite ready to start investing, anyone with five spare minutes can go to our two-time Webby-winning website and sign up for a Wealthsimple account to check our what we’re like.

Looking for a great place to invest? Get started with Wealthsimple. Regardless of their account balances, all Wealthsimple Invest clients receive state-of-the-art technology and unlimited human support for a remarkably reasonable management fee.