Introducing Selfwealth Cash+

Introducing Selfwealth Cash+ 

Many Australians hold more cash than they realise, and most of it is working harder for the bank than for them. It sits in a transaction account earning close to nothing, or in a savings account paying a headline rate that only applies if you deposit a set amount, make five card purchases and don't withdraw. Miss a condition and the rate quietly drops.

Cash+ from Selfwealth is a lower risk, short-term portfolio designed to help you earn a return on your cash with flexibility, without locking your money away, and without asking you to pick and manage holdings yourself. It's managed day to day by our investment team, built from high-quality ETF building blocks from leading global asset managers, and it sits inside your Selfwealth account alongside everything else you own.

In this article

• What’s in Cash+

• Managed for you

• Understanding income and yield

• What it costs

• Investment Process: How Cash+ is built

• Why ETF building blocks

• What to know before you invest

• Getting started

• Disclaimer'

What's in Cash+

Cash+ holds two ETFs: iShares Core Cash ETF (BILL) and VanEck Australian Floating Rate ETF (FLOT). Both launched in 2017, both run by established global asset managers, and each manages well over a billion dollars. Scale and track record matter when the whole point of a portfolio is that you can get your money out quickly and predictably.

Cash+ is built to sit between a traditional cash account and a bond investment. BILL provides the cash-like foundation; FLOT adds income. Both hold high-quality, short-term investments, which is how Cash+ can aim for more than traditional cash without the larger interest-rate or credit risks that come with many bond and private-credit investments.

BILL: the cash anchor

BILL invests in very short-term, high-quality investments linked to Australian bank bills. With a yield over the past year of 4.05%, and at 0.07% p.a. expense it's one of the lowest-cost cash ETFs on the ASX¹. It does two jobs:

• Keeps the portfolio behaving like cash. The investments are so short-term that rate changes have little effect on their value, and the income adjusts quickly when cash rates move.

• Provides a high-quality base. Almost all of it is short-term lending to Australia's major banks and similar institutions.

FLOT: the yield enhancer

FLOT invests in investment-grade floating-rate securities, issued mainly by major Australian and international banks and other established lenders. These pay more than cash, because investors are compensated for taking on some credit risk.

Importantly, the income adjusts regularly as market interest rates change. This means the fund has limited sensitivity to movements in interest rates, helping to reduce the capital swings that can occur in traditional fixed-rate bond funds. So FLOT's job is to earn more than cash while keeping interest-rate risk contained.

What’s not in Cash+

Cash+ isn't reaching for yield through investments that are hard to understand or hard to get out of. Its additional return comes from investment-grade investments (lending to banks and companies considered likely to repay). Within investment grade, AAA signals higher credit quality than BBB. The Cash+ portfolio has a weighted average credit rating of AA+, made up of AAA for BILL and AA– for FLOT. Both ETFs are ASX-listed, so they can generally be bought and sold during trading hours, subject to normal market liquidity.

What isn't in the portfolio is private credit. Private credit can pay more, but investors are taking more risk for it, their money is typically locked away longer, and there are fewer chances to buy or sell. Some higher-yielding cash or accumulating alternatives get their extra return from exactly those places.

Cash+ aims to beat traditional cash without relying on lower-quality credit or tying your money up.

¹ As at August 31, 2026

Managed for you

Once you're invested, the day-to-day work is handled for you. 

• No minimum investment, and no entry, exit or transaction costs

• No bonus criteria, no minimum monthly deposits, and no rate that resets after an introductory period

• No lock-ups (withdraw anytime)

• Income paid monthly

• Any rebalancing handled for you

Your cash sits on your Selfwealth platform. When cash lives at a bank, moving it into the market means a transfer. In Cash+ it's already in your investing platform, so redeploying is a sell and a buy all in the same place.

Full transparency on cost, performance and every holding, in your Selfwealth dashboard

4.6% yield - what does this mean?

Income, yield and total return are often confused, but they are three different things.

• Income is the cash the portfolio pays out. In other words, the distributions from the underlying ETFs, paid monthly. Income from shares is often called dividends, income from bonds coupons, and income from funds distributions.

• Yield, or distribution yield, is that income as a percentage of what your investment is worth. It's a useful way to compare income across investments of different sizes and types.

• Total return is everything you end up with: the income paid out to you, plus or minus any change in the value of your investment.

The last two are the ones people often confuse. A yield tells you what you're likely to be paid. It doesn't tell you what your investment will be worth at the end of the year.

• Cash+ has a distribution yield of ~4.6%². It's based on the income currently being generated by the underlying ETFs, and it's an estimate, not a promise. For context, the RBA cash rate is 4.35% (as at 11 August 2026).

² Indicative distribution yield is calculated based on distributions from the portfolio's underlying investments over three most recent distributions annualised or current yield measures. It is not a forecast or guaranteed return. Yields reflect underlying ETF fees. Future distributions may vary. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.

For Cash+, the gap between yield and total return should be small. The holdings are so short-term and high-quality that their prices barely move, so over a normal year your total return should land close to the yield. FLOT can move a little more than BILL, since its value reflects what investors are charging banks to borrow, but the swings are small compared with a traditional bond fund.

The yield is also not the same as a bank interest rate. A savings rate is a promise the bank has made. A distribution yield is a description of what the underlying investments are currently paying. If they pay less next month, the yield falls, and there's no announcement.

What moves the yield

It moves with interest rates. If rates rise, the income generated by Cash+ will generally increase within weeks. If rates fall, the income will generally decrease. Unlike a term deposit, you are not locking in a fixed rate.

There's a second, smaller driver: what lenders are charging banks to borrow. When lenders demand more, the floating-rate part of the portfolio earns a little more, independent of what the RBA does.

The yield is not the same as a bank interest rate. It represents the income the underlying ETFs are distributing, rather than a guaranteed rate of

What it costs

The Selfwealth management fee for Cash+ is 0.05% to 0.25% p.a., depending on how much you have invested.

Investment Process: How Cash+ is built

Researching cash and credit ETFs, deciding how much to hold of each, and keeping that mix on track is real work. We do it for you, and we watch the portfolio every day.

Selfwealth's investment team built Cash+ around one objective: earn more than traditional cash, without much movement in value and without tying your money up.

We start with a shortlist of high-quality investments we'd be comfortable holding, ones that are easy to buy and sell, and where we can see exactly what's inside. We then look at each fund's holdings, cost, credit quality and the income it's currently paying before deciding how much of it belongs in the portfolio.

The portfolio is built around two complementary roles. BILL does the steady work: very short-term, high-quality lending that keeps the portfolio's value stable and its income responsive to interest rate changes. FLOT does the earning with high quality, floating-rate investments that pay more than cash while keeping interest-rate risk relatively low.

The team watches the mix and rebalances it back to target as needed, so you're not deciding when to adjust it. The result sits between a cash account and a bond fund: more income than cash, without reaching for lower-quality credit, private investments or lock-ups.

Why ETF building blocks

We build from ETFs because they give you diversified, transparent, low-cost exposure, the qualities that matter most when you're investing for the long term.

• Best-in-class selection, done for you. We're issuer-agnostic. We're not a fund manager filling portfolios with our own product, and we're not tied to one house's ETF range. We select ETFs from established asset managers based on factors including the quality of the underlying investments, diversification, cost and how well each ETF fits Cash+'s objectives.

• Diversification. Each ETF invests across many underlying securities, helping reduce the impact of any single bank or issuer.

• Transparency and accessibility. Every ETF is ASX-listed, priced through the trading day, and publishes its holdings. You can always see exactly what you own and what it costs.

• Low cost. ETF fees are typically well below those of traditional managed funds, which means more of the income reaches you.

Cash+ currently uses ETFs from iShares (BlackRock) and VanEck, two established global investment managers.

Read More: Top ETFs Selfwealth Investors Buy

What to know before you invest

Cash+ is an investment, not a deposit. Its value can move, and the income it pays can change.

• Your investment can fall in value. Cash+ is held in ETFs, whose prices move with the market. The movements are small compared with bonds or shares, but they are not zero.

• Credit risk. FLOT lends to banks and other financial institutions. Its value could fall if those institutions become less able to repay their debts. This is where part of the extra income comes from.

• The yield is an estimate, not a guarantee. The income you receive changes as interest rates and market conditions change.

In return for taking this small additional level of risk compared with a bank account, Cash+ aims to provide a higher, market-linked income without requiring you to lock your money away or meet bonus-interest conditions.

Frequently asked questions

Is Selfwealth Cash+ a savings account or a bank deposit?
No. Cash+ is a managed investment held in exchange-traded funds (ETFs), not a bank product. That means it isn't a deposit, it isn't guaranteed, and it isn't covered by the Financial Claims Scheme. Its value can rise and fall, and the income it pays can change over time.

Can I withdraw my money whenever I want?
Yes. There are no lock-ups, no fixed terms and no notice periods. Cash+ holds two ASX-listed ETFs that can generally be bought and sold during market hours, so you can access your money when you need it, subject to normal market conditions. It sits inside your Selfwealth account alongside your ASX and US holdings

Is Cash+ safe? Is my capital guaranteed?
Cash+ is designed to be lower risk, not risk-free. It holds high-quality, short-term investments, so its value tends to move far less than shares or traditional bonds — but the value can still fall and returns are not guaranteed. It aims to earn more than traditional cash in return for taking on a small additional level of risk.

How is Cash+ different from a high-interest savings account or a term deposit?
A savings rate is a promise set by the bank, often tied to bonus conditions, and a term deposit locks your money away at a fixed rate. Cash+ pays a market-linked income that moves with interest rates — it generally rises within weeks when rates rise and falls when they fall — with no bonus criteria and no lock-up. If you're weighing cash against staying invested, see Worried about markets, or chasing a better rate on your cash?.

What does Cash+ cost?
The Selfwealth management fee is 0.05% to 0.25% p.a., depending on how much you have invested. There are no entry, exit or transaction fees, and no fees on contributions or withdrawals.

How and when is income paid, and what does the yield mean?
Income is paid monthly as distributions from the underlying ETFs. The distribution yield (around 4.6%) describes what those investments are currently paying as a percentage of your investment's value — it's an estimate, not a guaranteed rate, and it changes as interest rates and market conditions change. Yield is not the same as total return, which also reflects any change in the value of your investment.