The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA) share price is currently down by close to 1% despite revealing a new investment.
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What is CBA's latest investment?
The major big four bank has made an investment in a fast-growing Australian property management company called ":Different" which has thousands of owners, tenants and properties under management.
CBA is making this strategic move with its venture-scaling entity called x15ventures.
Some of x15ventures' other investments include Unloan, Payable, Doshii, CreditSavvy and Backr.
CBA will be taking a minority shareholding in :Different.
:Different was co-founded in 2017 by Mina Radhakrishnan and her husband Ruwin Perera. It was explained that they have experience at other tech companies including Google and Uber.
The idea of this business is to digitise many parts of property management to remove and reduce pain points, paperwork, admin and time consuming manual tasks faced by property owners, investors and renters. Some of the things that it does includes streamlining the process to report, quote and manage maintenance requests.
CBA said it planned to make :Different eventually available through the CommBank app to help people through the property buying process. This will work with one of CBA's other investments, Home-In, which is a digital home loan conveyancing platform. CBA customers will get exclusive discounts and benefits.
Management commentary
CBA Group Executive Retail Banking Services, Angus Sullivan, said:
As the country's biggest supporter of getting Aussies into homes, we aim to be the most trusted partner at the centre of our customer's lives and be there for them at moments that matter. Today's announcement to partner with such a disruptive business further differentiates and expands what we are able to deliver for our investor home loan customers.
Much like our recently announced investments in Amber and Little Birdie, this is an example of us carefully selecting a high-profile, high-growth tech enabled business and exclusively introducing them to CBA customers to offer an enhanced level of service. We see this partnership as an important part of our overall home buying strategy and one that will be core to the way we support our customers to manage their homes and grow their wealth.
So why might the CBA share price be falling?
It may be useful to think about today's CBA movement in the context of the whole market. There have been concerns about a Chinese property developer called Evergrande, which analysts worry could possibly lead to economic contagion to other areas.
The S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) fell around 1% in early trading, though it is now slightly up on yesterday. Other banks are also down – the National Australia Bank Ltd (ASX: NAB) share price is down around 1%, the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd (ASX: ANZ) share price is down 0.2% and the Westpac Banking Corp (ASX: WBC) share price is down around 0.6%.
However, the iron ore miners have seen a little rebound this morning. At the time of writing, the BHP Group Ltd (ASX: BHP) share price is up 1.6%, the Rio Tinto Limited (ASX: RIO) share price is up 1.7% and the Fortescue Metals Group Limited (ASX: FMG) share price is up 2.4%.
