A Swell farewell

Pacific Life has shut down its impact investing platform Swell on August 30, 2019 as it was not able to achieve the scale needed to sustain investment independent operations.

Launched in March of 2015, the new subsidiary-slash-robo advisor was looking to reach millennials who “typically are not interested in the investing market but who are interested in cause-driven brands.”

“Swell means growth and Swell means good – so the name perfectly captures the goal of our investment models. Also, since we’re a California brand with California origins, Swell is a great homage to our connection with Pacific Life.” – Liam Monaghan, ex-managing director, Swell.‍

My understanding is that in its active days, Swell offered a referral program – $50 to new U.S. customers who sign up and deposit $50 into the account and a $100 for every successful sign up referred to the company, and since some people took advantage of the program by signing up to later canceling immediately, Swell added a bit of a ‘fine print’ requiring users to stay invested for 60 days to get the bonus.

Bottom Line: John Hancock’s COIN comes to mind (a similar initiative launched earlier this year).