Financial insecurity affects many young Australians, with less than half saying they’re unable to regularly save for the future. Even those with stable employment are struggling to enter the housing market or build long-term security, finding that traditional financial institutions haven't adapted fast enough to meet their needs.
Young Australians are also increasingly relying on and trusting social media for financial advice. Compounding this issue, leaving them with unqualified advice and without the support networks that previous generations relied on.
Pearler was established to bridge this gap between traditional financial services and the next generation of Australian investors. Nick Nicolaides and Hayden Smith, Co-Founders of Pearler, aimed to build a long-term investing app for everyday Australians who want to build financial independence without the noise, jargon, or hype.
We recently spoke with Nick about building a modern financial platform that helps tackle the biggest challenges facing the next generation of Australian investors. We also discuss how Pearler has partnered with Alpaca to enable their users to learn, plan, and invest for long-term goals.
Helping Young Australians Take Control of their Money
When Nick and Hayden saw their friends nearing their 30s and 40s with little financial guidance and confidence, often turning to short-term speculation rather than long-term strategies, they recognized a gap that needed to be solved.
Founded in 2018 with a mission to help people build financial independence for life, Pearler focuses on developing a trusted platform and educational resources for real-world financial challenges. This includes providing motivation and financial services for buying a first home, investing for kids, planning for retirement, and self-directed investing.
“We’re building an ecosystem where you can learn, plan, and act with meaningful support while on the journey to financial independence, blurring the lines between content, education, and participation,” explains Nick. “We believe that as you learn, you bring those around you along for the ride. The future of financial advice has little to do with telling people what to do.”
Pearler uses a passive, buy-and-hold model to help investors focus on long-term wealth building. Their approach combines educational tools, reward motivations, and community insights to help young Australians build a framework and set of habits that help support long-term financial independence.
“Banks have lost the high ground and the wallet. Rather than putting a fresh face on the same old products, we’re unashamedly building Pearler for the next generation,” added Nick.
Migrating to Alpaca for Global Market Access
A major part of Pearler’s vision is enabling everyday investors to diversify their portfolios beyond the Australian market. As such, they needed an infrastructure provider that would help them offer access to US stocks and ETFs to their customers, furthering their product offering.
“One of the key trends for younger Australians is unlearning a deeply embedded culture of Aussie-centric asset allocation. Pearler recently surpassed $1.5 billion USD in holdings. While the majority of this is from the Australian market, given it was our core product since our founding, in the last 12 months, US trading has grown at twice the rate of the Aussie market’s volumes,” says Nick. “The US is still a small percentage of Aussie volumes, but we anticipate it catching up or reaching parity in the next 3 to 5 years.”
With Alpaca’s Broker API, Pearler simplifies global investing for their customers by providing:
- One Platform with Global Reach: Users can manage their Australian and US portfolios through automations for investing and rebalancing across various time zones and currencies without switching tools or navigating complex transfer processes.
- Fractional Investing: Users can invest a specific dollar amount into US stocks and ETFs, making high-priced companies more accessible.
- Currency Conversion: Users can buy US assets using Australian dollars (AUD) when the market is open, removing the need to understand and calculate foreign exchange rates.
“Alpaca enables Pearler to offer streamlined and convenient trading hours to our community, who are rapidly becoming global investors. Together, we’re opening US markets to the next generation of investors, and we’re doing so in a way where those investors will be holding those same stocks 20-plus years from now.”
He continued, “The Alpaca team was highly responsive and collaborative. We worked through post-migration teething quickly and without any real customer issues. Integrating a new international brokerage layer can often be a painful, drawn-out process, but the transition was seamless.”
“Pearler is solving a real problem for the next generation of investors: making long-term, global investing simple and accessible. We’re excited to support their growth and help them deliver an exceptional experience to young Australian investors,” said Yoshi Yokokawa, Co-Founder and CEO of Alpaca. “Pearler’s mission aligns closely with our belief that investing should be open, borderless, and built for everyone.”
What’s Next for Pearler
Looking ahead, Pearler is interested in expanding its product suite beyond US stocks and ETFs, including crypto and tokenization.
“Alpaca stood out as an efficient and modern option, with future potential upside from their adjacent crypto build. We are also keen to keep learning about how tokenization will play a role in traditional financial markets,” explains Nick. “Whilst the regulatory landscape is not clear enough to dive in, we believe in being educated and ready to lead, and we see Alpaca as having a unique perspective on these trends. We look forward to solving future problems and opportunities together.”
Beyond digital assets, Pearler is looking to support its growing segment of high-net-worth individuals who invest via companies, trusts, and self-managed pension accounts. To accommodate these users, they are aiming to build tailored solutions that are expected to drive significant volume growth.
Finally, they will continue to develop their community and content. This includes their “Get Rich Slow Club" podcast, word-of-mouth growth through the Pearler Exchange and Pearler Profiles, and ‘Pearls' system, which gives users credits for being consistent, long-term investors.
Contact Alpaca
About Alpaca
Alpaca is a US-headquartered, self-clearing broker-dealer and a global leader in brokerage infrastructure APIs providing access to stocks, ETFs, options, fixed income, and crypto. Alpaca delivers embeddable finance solutions for tokenization, fully paid securities lending, high-yield cash, 24/5 trading, Shariah-compliant investing, and more. Today, Alpaca powers over 8 million brokerage accounts across hundreds of fintechs and institutions in 40+ countries with over $170M in funding.
- “Research shows most young Australians struggle with financial security”, Monash University News, 2025.
- “Australian banks lag in digital transformation and customer experience: Publicis Sapient,”Mi3, 2025.
- “More than half of Australians are only just making ends meet,” Pursuit (University of Melbourne), 2023
- “New ASFA research shows that under‑35s are more likely to listen to a ‘finfluencer’ than a qualified financial advisor, and increasingly trust what they hear,” Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA), 2024.
The content of this blog is for general informational purposes only. All examples are for illustrative purposes only.
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