The importance of household wealth has become abundantly clear during the COVID-19 pandemic. Black households have a fraction of the wealth of white households, leaving them in a much more precarious financial situation when a crisis strikes and with fewer economic opportunities. However, the lack of financial security combined with disproportionate exposure to the deadly coronavirus has had especially disastrous results for the Black community.
The persistent Black-white wealth gap is not an accident but rather the result of centuries of federal and state policies that have systematically facilitated the deprivation of Blacks. From the brutal exploitation of Africans during slavery, to systematic oppression in the Jim Crow South, to today’s institutionalized racism—apparent in disparate access to and outcomes in education, health care, jobs, housing, and criminal justice—government policy has created or maintained hurdles for Africans who attempt to build, maintain, and pass on wealth.
Technology has made it easier to change your financial destiny than it has ever been in human history. Here are some Apps that help blacks build wealth exorbitantly.
1. Public App
Public is an app-based stock brokerage company that doesn’t charge commissions on trades. In the race to free trading and fractional shares, there are new companies popping up all the time. But Public isn't new - it's actually a rebrand of one of the first app-based investing products called Matador.
However, they have cleaned up their app, made it easier to use, and continue to focus on their social network features. Plus, they offer commission-free investing and fractional share investing. On February 17, 2021, Public announced that it had raised $220 million in a Series D round at a $1.2 billion valuation.
2. Coinbase App
Coinbase is a well-known cryptocurrency exchange that makes it easy to buy, sell, and exchange cryptocurrency. Coinbase makes buying Bitcoin as easy as buying a stock through an online brokerage but look out for the fees and poor customer service. Coinbase has over 89 million users and $278 billion in assets on the platform.
Coinbase was founded in 2012 as a place to send and receive Bitcoin. The company has grown to support dozens of unique cryptocurrencies and has more than 3,700 employees worldwide. Coinbase is a decentralized company with no main headquarters. Coinbase operates with users in more than 100 countries, and customers trade approximately $547 billion per quarter. Coinbase manages a robust cryptocurrency ecosystem supporting 11,000 financial institutions.
3. Titan App
Titan is a robo investing app that makes it easy to build Black wealth passively. Titan offers a distinctive strategy for investment management, but doesn't have some of the perks offered by other firms. Titan offers a low account minimum of $100, especially given the strategy, and charges a 1% annual fee on balances of $10,000 or more.
Titan's strategy is very different from most robo-advisors as they are not seeking to build well diversified portfolios. Even though Titan’s portfolios are made up of stocks, the company occasionally uses inverse ETFs as part of its hedging strategy. These ETFs carry expense ratios between 0.90% and 0.95%. Those fees are quite high compared to other robo-advisors that typically employ ETFs as the main part of their portfolio strategy.
4. Blockfi App
BlockFi is an easy-to-use and highly secure platform that lets clients open and manage a BlockFi Interest Account, borrow money against their crypto holdings, and transfer funds directly from their crypto wallet. It is the only app on this list that offers a Bitcoin Rewards Credit Card. That means you can shop with your bitcoin the same way that you use your normal bank credit or debit cards.
BlockFi also has an Interest Account (BIA) which provides market-leading yields to crypto investors who store their crypto at BlockFi. Clients can deposit crypto and they will be paid monthly compounding interest! Your interest begins accruing the day after you deposit, and Interest Payments go out by the first business day of each month.