At first no one could explain why business was picking up at Betterment, a robo adviser aimed at newbie investors. There were about 10,000 sign-ups in one day.
Then came the answer: a 25-year-old TikToker from Tennessee was posting videos describing how to retire as a millionaire by using the platform.
His name is Austin Hankwitz and he’s managed to land one of the hottest new gigs: full-time “finfluencer.”
“We were, like, where is this increased activity coming from?” Betterment’s director of communications, Arielle Sobel, says of the sudden increase in customer inquiries. “It was not sponsored by us, so we had no clue.”
Smash that like button, Wall Street: the teens and twentysomethings who steer online conversation – about life hacks, beauty products, Hollywood blockbusters, you name it − are now blazing their way into finance.
Influencers like Mr Hankwitz can translate concepts such as passive investing or tax harvesting into digestible social media videos using playful twists, music and colourful captions, making investment products and the like feel accessible to millennials and Generation Z.
For the finance industry, partnering with those influencers can be a no-brainer. There’s never been faster or more direct access to that demographic, particularly at a time when retail investing has soared.
The pandemic left some people with money and time to burn, pushing hours spent on finance apps up 90 per cent in the US compared with the previous year, while downloads of such apps jumped 20 per cent, according to data by analytics firm App Annie. Participation in the stock market through mobile phones also took off, with hours spent on trading and investing apps spiking 135 per cent.
Betterment saw the traction it was gaining through Mr Hankwitz’s posts, and hired him within a month to plug its services through social media.
Wealthfront, another robo adviser, has partnered with about 15 influencers including Haley Sacks – known on Instagram as Mrs Dow Jones − according to Kate Wauck, the company’s chief communications officer.
“Quite frankly, they’re just better at telling our story than we are,” she says.
Until last year, Mr Hankwitz was toiling away in old-fashioned finance, working on mergers and acquisitions for a healthcare company; making TikTok videos was his side hustle. Now, he’s a hot commodity to start-ups and finance companies eager to reach his 495,000 followers. Some of them have also hired him for marketing advice, had him sit in on chats with the chief executives, and have even invited him to sit on company boards.
Mr Hankwitz charges anywhere from $4,500 to $8,000 per post on his TikTok page. He says Fundrise, a property investment platform, pays him every month to post two videos on his TikTok, and also offers him a monthly bonus of as much as $2,000 based on how many people he pushes to the platform.
BlockFi, a cryptocurrency trading platform, offers him $25 per person pushed to the platform through his unique code. And stock-trading app Public.com offered him a monthly retainer and company equity for a contract that includes replacing the Yahoo Finance stock charts on his videos with theirs.
Mr Hankwitz estimates he’s funded more than 240 accounts for Fundrise, 1,653 for Public and tens of thousands for Betterment. His unique BlockFi code brought in $268,000 of crypto purchases in a month. In all, he’s representing six companies. And for anywhere between $4 and $17 per month, superfans can subscribe to his Patreon channel, where he offers deeper investing and financial analysis. Mr Hankwitz currently has more than 1,100 subscribers.
If you can understand the human relationship between two celebrities, then you can understand any financial concept
Haley Sacks, known on Instagram as Mrs Dow Jones
“I was able to quit my job about six months ago to do this full time,” he says.
Mr Hankwitz declines to say how much he brings in annually, but acknowledges that he makes more than $500,000. He also says he’s built a portfolio valued at about $1.3 million since March 2020, in part with the equity received from the brands he represents.
Social media can be a lucrative business for those with big follower counts and the prowess to push customers towards financial products. Creators can be paid anywhere from $100 to $1,500 for a swipe-up advertisement on their Instagram stories to $1,000 to $10,000 for a single post on their feed, according to figures from Brian Hanly, chief executive of Bullish Studio, a talent agency for influencers. On TikTok, the cost of one post can range from $2,500 to $20,000 depending on the video’s virality and the creator’s follower count.
To get there, creators have to develop a certain persona – and on FinTok and its Instagram counterpart, there’s enough variety for everyone. Creators from a variety of ages, backgrounds and ethnicities offer advice about how to open a Roth individual retirement account, how to invest in property, how trading options make more sense if you compare it to buying make-up, or how to use astrology to predict the price of Bitcoin.
Take Ms Sacks, aka Mrs Dow Jones – the influencer with 215,000 Instagram followers. She explains compound interest by comparing it to Billie Eilish’s fame, or Bitcoin to Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck’s rekindled romance.
Ms Sacks, 30, began her career in comedy, working for TV host David Letterman and Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels. She found learning about money a struggle, but one way to make it simpler was to compare it to pop culture and celebrity gossip. On that premise, she launched Mrs Dow Jones in 2017 and her following has since flourished.
“I created what I needed and other people needed it, too. If you’re following me, you like pop culture, so we have that shared language,” Ms Sacks says. “If you can understand the human relationship between two celebrities, then you can understand any financial concept.”
Four years after launching Mrs Dow Jones, Ms Sacks has signed with a talent agency and has built a team of people, including an assistant and a manager, to help her negotiate six-figure deals with brands. She started working with Wealthfront two years ago.
“She’s a financial pop star. When have you heard that take on anything?” says Ms Wauck of Wealthfront. “The way that she relates everything to pop culture is just so genius.”
Ms Sacks is also taking advantage of the recent demand for personal finance content by providing a course on her website, Finance is Cool. Her followers will be able to purchase a $115 course designed to teach them how to manage their money. Among other pop culture references in the course, Ms Sacks used the characters from the TV show Friends to guide her followers through building an emergency fund.
While social media is allowing companies to reach young customers faster than ever, they need to ensure against working with internet stars who are fast and loose with information.
“There’s so much room for growth,” says Mr Hanly. “There’s not enough financial creators out there to basically take on the amount of opportunity that’s coming in, and there’s not nearly enough high-quality, preaching-the-good-word financial creators.”
Personal finance content on social media has gone viral for offering questionable or even flat-out wrong advice, while get-rich-quick schemes have tried to lure novice investors.
That’s taken many forms, including videos on how to become a millionaire by selling dog beds on Amazon through drop-shipping, how using a debit card makes you financially irresponsible, how to “make a lot of money” day-trading foreign exchange or what stocks to buy and when to buy them.
That’s why TikTok tightened its rules. In May, the social media company said it would take action against content creators who post sponsored videos for financial services and products without clear labels. Companies can still pay financial influencers for posts, but the new restrictions are meant to ensure that creators are transparent when disclosing commercial links.
Since then, Betterment says it has moved all of the content from its TikTok influencers over to Instagram and Instagram Reels. Mr Hankwitz has not re-entered an agreement with Betterment for TikTok videos since. Wealthfront says it is optimising other channels, including YouTube and Instagram, and instead is mostly relying on TikTok’s paid advertising platform rather than posts through influencers.
As fraudulent content and misinformation run rampant and unchecked, financial corporations looking for high-quality creators are bringing in hefty vetting processes.
Betterment’s compliance and legal teams perform detailed reviews of their social media partners’ scripts. Influencers will then shoot the video and send it back to compliance for a second review. Wealthfront says it does extensive background checks on the influencers that are selected to partner with it before signing any contracts. It also includes stipulations in the contract that allow Wealthfront to cancel if creators contravene certain terms.
In the US, the main law that governs financial influencers is the Investment Advisers Act of 1940. It specifies what qualifies as investment advice and who must register with state and federal regulators to provide it.
Vivian Tu, founder of YourRichBFF and a former stocks trader at JP Morgan, has more than half a million followers on TikTok and is paid anywhere from $3,000 to $4,000 per post. Photo: Bloomberg
The prevalence of personal misinformation that exists on TikTok and the demand for solid finance advice are what Vivian Tu, 27, a former stocks trader at JP Morgan, believes made her account YourRichBFF blow up as soon as she launched it. She published her first video on January 1, telling TikTokers that if they were looking for an account that would help them learn honest finance literacy tips, hers was it. Overnight, her video had a million views, and within a week she had amassed 170,000 followers.
It wasn’t long before financial institutions took notice. Wealthfront, Credit Karma, FinTron Invest, Insurify and Tastyworks are among her approximately 10 sponsors. She has more than half a million followers on TikTok and is paid anywhere from $3,000 to $4,000 per post. For someone with a full-time job, it’s a huge commitment, she says. Outside her current day job, she spends anywhere from 10 to 15 hours per week managing her account.
“It was very out of the norm. Some people make videos for months and don’t have this kind of scale,” Ms Tu says. “It was around the time folks were getting stimulus cheques. People were thinking about money more so than usual and I think people were also very sick of seeing a lot of misinformation.”
Still, on her TikTok bio page, she cautions that her videos are “not financial advice”.
“Nothing I say should be taken as prescriptive direction,” Ms Tu says. “Personal finance is never one size fits all for everyone.”
1. Domestic VAT refund amendments: request your refund within five years
If a business does not apply for the refund on time, they lose their credit.
2. E-invoicing in the UAE
Businesses should continue preparing for the implementation of e-invoicing in the UAE, with 2026 a preparation and transition period ahead of phased mandatory adoption.
3. More tax audits
Tax authorities are increasingly using data already available across multiple filings to identify audit risks.
4. More beneficial VAT and excise tax penalty regime
Tax disputes are expected to become more frequent and more structured, with clearer administrative objection and appeal processes. The UAE has adopted a new penalty regime for VAT and excise disputes, which now mirrors the penalty regime for corporate tax.
5. Greater emphasis on statutory audit
There is a greater need for the accuracy of financial statements. The International Financial Reporting Standards standards need to be strictly adhered to and, as a result, the quality of the audits will need to increase.
6. Further transfer pricing enforcement
Transfer pricing enforcement, which refers to the practice of establishing prices for internal transactions between related entities, is expected to broaden in scope. The UAE will shortly open the possibility to negotiate advance pricing agreements, or essentially rulings for transfer pricing purposes.
7. Limited time periods for audits
Recent amendments also introduce a default five-year limitation period for tax audits and assessments, subject to specific statutory exceptions. While the standard audit and assessment period is five years, this may be extended to up to 15 years in cases involving fraud or tax evasion.
8. Pillar 2 implementation
Many multinational groups will begin to feel the practical effect of the Domestic Minimum Top-Up Tax (DMTT), the UAE's implementation of the OECD’s global minimum tax under Pillar 2. While the rules apply for financial years starting on or after January 1, 2025, it is 2026 that marks the transition to an operational phase.
9. Reduced compliance obligations for imported goods and services
Businesses that apply the reverse-charge mechanism for VAT purposes in the UAE may benefit from reduced compliance obligations.
10. Substance and CbC reporting focus
Tax authorities are expected to continue strengthening the enforcement of economic substance and Country-by-Country (CbC) reporting frameworks. In the UAE, these regimes are increasingly being used as risk-assessment tools, providing tax authorities with a comprehensive view of multinational groups’ global footprints and enabling them to assess whether profits are aligned with real economic activity.
Contributed by Thomas Vanhee and Hend Rashwan, Aurifer
Tenants also require a letter of no objection from their landlord before being allowed to list the property.
There is a cost of Dh1,590 before starting the process, with an additional licence fee of Dh300 per bedroom being rented in your home for the duration of the rental, which ranges from three months to a year.
Anyone hoping to list a property for rental must also provide a copy of their title deeds and Ejari, as well as their Emirates ID.
Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan
Star rating: 2/5
Living in...
This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.
Bookshops: A Reader's History by Jorge Carrión (translated from the Spanish by Peter Bush),
Biblioasis
TWISTERS
Director: Lee Isaac Chung
Starring: Glen Powell, Daisy Edgar-Jones, Anthony Ramos
1: Commit to countering all types of terrorism and extremism in all their manifestations
2: Denounce violence and the rhetoric of hatred
3: Adhere to the full compliance with the Riyadh accord of 2014 and the subsequent meeting and executive procedures approved in 2014 by the GCC
4: Comply with all recommendations of the Summit between the US and Muslim countries held in May 2017 in Saudi Arabia.
5: Refrain from interfering in the internal affairs of countries and of supporting rogue entities.
6: Carry out the responsibility of all the countries with the international community to counter all manifestations of extremism and terrorism that threaten international peace and security
Cast: Loujain Adada, Zeina Khoury, Farhana Bodi, Ebraheem Al Samadi, Mona Kattan, and couples Safa & Fahad Siddiqui and DJ Bliss & Danya Mohammed
Rating: 1/5
Profile Box
Company/date started: 2015
Founder/CEO: Mohammed Toraif
Based: Manama, Bahrain
Sector: Sales, Technology, Conservation
Size: (employees/revenue) 4/ 5,000 downloads
Stage: 1 ($100,000)
Investors: Two first-round investors including, 500 Startups, Fawaz Al Gosaibi Holding (Saudi Arabia)
GOLF’S RAHMBO
- 5 wins in 22 months as pro
- Three wins in past 10 starts
- 45 pro starts worldwide: 5 wins, 17 top 5s
- Ranked 551th in world on debut, now No 4 (was No 2 earlier this year)
- 5th player in last 30 years to win 3 European Tour and 2 PGA Tour titles before age 24 (Woods, Garcia, McIlroy, Spieth)
Stars: Rosa Salazar, Christoph Waltz, Keean Johnson
Four stars
Who's who in Yemen conflict
Houthis: Iran-backed rebels who occupy Sanaa and run unrecognised government
Yemeni government: Exiled government in Aden led by eight-member Presidential Leadership Council
Southern Transitional Council: Faction in Yemeni government that seeks autonomy for the south
Habrish 'rebels': Tribal-backed forces feuding with STC over control of oil in government territory
FIXTURES
Saturday
5.30pm: Shabab Al Ahli v Al Wahda
5.30pm: Khorfakkan v Baniyas
8.15pm: Hatta v Ajman
8.15pm: Sharjah v Al Ain Sunday
5.30pm: Kalba v Al Jazira
5.30pm: Fujairah v Al Dhafra
8.15pm: Al Nasr v Al Wasl
The specs: 2018 Jaguar F-Type Convertible
Price, base / as tested: Dh283,080 / Dh318,465
Engine: 2.0-litre inline four-cylinder
Transmission: Eight-speed automatic
Power: 295hp @ 5,500rpm
Torque: 400Nm @ 1,500rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 7.2L / 100km
THE SPECS
Engine: 2.0-litre 4-cylinder turbo
Power: 275hp at 6,600rpm
Torque: 353Nm from 1,450-4,700rpm
Transmission: 8-speed dual-clutch auto
Top speed: 250kph
Fuel consumption: 6.8L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: Dh146,999
Other ways to buy used products in the UAE
UAE insurance firm Al Wathba National Insurance Company (AWNIC) last year launched an e-commerce website with a facility enabling users to buy car wrecks.
Bidders and potential buyers register on the online salvage car auction portal to view vehicles, review condition reports, or arrange physical surveys, and then start bidding for motors they plan to restore or harvest for parts.
Physical salvage car auctions are a common method for insurers around the world to move on heavily damaged vehicles, but AWNIC is one of the few UAE insurers to offer such services online.
For cars and less sizeable items such as bicycles and furniture, Dubizzle is arguably the best-known marketplace for pre-loved.
Founded in 2005, in recent years it has been joined by a plethora of Facebook community pages for shifting used goods, including Abu Dhabi Marketplace, Flea Market UAE and Arabian Ranches Souq Market while sites such as The Luxury Closet and Riot deal largely in second-hand fashion.
At the high-end of the pre-used spectrum, resellers such as Timepiece360.ae, WatchBox Middle East and Watches Market Dubai deal in authenticated second-hand luxury timepieces from brands such as Rolex, Hublot and Tag Heuer, with a warranty.
1980 Ruwais Housing Complex built, located 10 kilometres away from industrial plants
1982 120,000 bpd capacity Ruwais refinery complex officially inaugurated by the founder of the UAE Sheikh Zayed
1984 Second phase of Ruwais Housing Complex built. Today the 7,000-unit complex houses some 24,000 people.
1985 The refinery is expanded with the commissioning of a 27,000 b/d hydro cracker complex
2009 Plans announced to build $1.2 billion fertilizer plant in Ruwais, producing urea
2010 Adnoc awards $10bn contracts for expansion of Ruwais refinery, to double capacity from 415,000 bpd
2014 Ruwais 261-outlet shopping mall opens
2014 Production starts at newly expanded Ruwais refinery, providing jet fuel and diesel and allowing the UAE to be self-sufficient for petrol supplies
2014 Etihad Rail begins transportation of sulphur from Shah and Habshan to Ruwais for export
2017 Aldar Academies to operate Adnoc’s schools including in Ruwais from September. Eight schools operate in total within the housing complex.
2018 Adnoc announces plans to invest $3.1 billion on upgrading its Ruwais refinery
2018 NMC Healthcare selected to manage operations of Ruwais Hospital
2018 Adnoc announces new downstream strategy at event in Abu Dhabi on May 13
Source: The National
The specs
Engine: 5.0-litre V8
Power: 480hp at 7,250rpm
Torque: 566Nm at 4,600rpm
Transmission: 10-speed auto
Fuel consumption: L/100km
Price: Dh306,495
On sale: now
At Eternity’s Gate
Director: Julian Schnabel
Starring: Willem Dafoe, Oscar Isaacs, Mads Mikkelsen
Three stars
Coming soon
Torno Subito by Massimo Bottura
When the W Dubai – The Palm hotel opens at the end of this year, one of the highlights will be Massimo Bottura’s new restaurant, Torno Subito, which promises “to take guests on a journey back to 1960s Italy”. It is the three Michelinstarred chef’s first venture in Dubai and should be every bit as ambitious as you would expect from the man whose restaurant in Italy, Osteria Francescana, was crowned number one in this year’s list of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants.
Akira Back Dubai
Another exciting opening at the W Dubai – The Palm hotel is South Korean chef Akira Back’s new restaurant, which will continue to showcase some of the finest Asian food in the world. Back, whose Seoul restaurant, Dosa, won a Michelin star last year, describes his menu as, “an innovative Japanese cuisine prepared with a Korean accent”.
Dinner by Heston Blumenthal
The highly experimental chef, whose dishes are as much about spectacle as taste, opens his first restaurant in Dubai next year. Housed at The Royal Atlantis Resort & Residences, Dinner by Heston Blumenthal will feature contemporary twists on recipes that date back to the 1300s, including goats’ milk cheesecake. Always remember with a Blumenthal dish: nothing is quite as it seems.
Petrarch: Everywhere a Wanderer
Christopher Celenza,
Reaktion Books
Labour dispute
The insured employee may still file an ILOE claim even if a labour dispute is ongoing post termination, but the insurer may suspend or reject payment, until the courts resolve the dispute, especially if the reason for termination is contested. The outcome of the labour court proceedings can directly affect eligibility.
Starring: Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Zoe Saldana
Rating: 4.5/5
Closing the loophole on sugary drinks
As The National reported last year, non-fizzy sugared drinks were not covered when the original tax was introduced in 2017. Sports drinks sold in supermarkets were found to contain, on average, 20 grams of sugar per 500ml bottle.
The non-fizzy drink AriZona Iced Tea contains 65 grams of sugar – about 16 teaspoons – per 680ml can. The average can costs about Dh6, which would rise to Dh9.
Drinks such as Starbucks Bottled Mocha Frappuccino contain 31g of sugar in 270ml, while Nescafe Mocha in a can contains 15.6g of sugar in a 240ml can.
Flavoured water, long-life fruit juice concentrates, pre-packaged sweetened coffee drinks fall under the ‘sweetened drink’ category
Not taxed:
Freshly squeezed fruit juices, ground coffee beans, tea leaves and pre-prepared flavoured milkshakes do not come under the ‘sweetened drink’ band.
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Mamo Year it started: 2019 Founders: Imad Gharazeddine, Asim Janjua Based: Dubai, UAE Number of employees: 28 Sector: Financial services Investment: $9.5m Funding stage: Pre-Series A Investors: Global Ventures, GFC, 4DX Ventures, AlRajhi Partners, Olive Tree Capital, and prominent Silicon Valley investors.
