Links to today’s top stories:
Investing Just Got Better with Wealthfront from Wealthfront
Robo-adviser Wealthsimple raises $51 million to expand service from Reuters
What’s new from RobustWealth | 2018 Fintech Update from YouTube
Welcome to the FPPad fintech briefing, Here are the top fintech stories you need to know today.
Wealthfront Adds Risk Parity Fund
Wealthfront, the Silicon-Valley based automated investment service, announced it is introducing its own Wealthfront Risk Parity mutual fund into the asset allocations of customers who qualify for the PassivePlus investment strategies, which requires an account balance of $100,000. The Risk Parity mutual fund is modeled after giant hedge fund Bridgewater Associates and carries an expense ratio of 50 basis points. In a move stirring controversy on social media, Wealthfront is automatically opting in eligible customers to the Risk Parity fund for up to 20% of their allocation unless they specifically opt out in their account settings.
WealthSimple Raises $51 Million
In other automated investing news, Toronto-based Wealthsimple announced it raised another $51 million US dollars from Power Financial Corporation, bring its total investment to $131 million. Originally started in Canada in 2014, Wealthsimple expanded to the US and UK markets in 2017 and now manages $1.45 billion dollars for approximately 65,000 customers. Fees for accounts under $100,000 are 50 basis points, while fees for larger accounts at 40 basis points.
RobustWealth Offers White-Labeled Automated Investment Solution
And finally, financial advisers are also looking for solutions that rival the customer experience delivered by automated investment services, so I recently met with Ryan Horvath of RobustWealth to learn more about their white-labeled solution:
So now advisors can come on and completely launch their own white-labeled robo advisor. So this is great for small accounts, millennials, and what the advisor can actually do is customize their risk tolerance questionnaire, put a link on their website, so now the client can come on, take that risk tolerance questionnaire, sign the electronic advisory documents all in the platform, get assigned to a model that’s customized by the advisor, open up accounts, all electronically, and get invested in their model, so it’s making life really easy to optimize those smaller accounts.
For more details on the automated investment solution from RobustWealth, head over to fppad.com/flashbriefing to get all the links to today’s top stories.
I’m Bill Winterberg, and those are your fintech headlines for today from FPPad.com, be sure to check back in with me later for more fintech news.
