How to put your finances and investments on cruise-control
Investing is personal and your preferences matter. You might like to build a portfolio heavy on socially responsible investing (SRI), or you might prefer to steer into vetted ETFs and cryptocurrency. Silicon Valley-based investment platform Wealthfront is one company relentlessly empowering investors with its focus on automation.
Build and automate your own portfolio with Self-Driving Money™
Wealthfront has launched the final set of features that make up the first version of its Self-Driving Money™ product—a financial ecosystem it claims is “lightyears ahead of anything else on the market but will change outcomes for millions of investors for the better.”
With this offering, clients no longer need to move money between multiple institutions and coordinate across interfaces to grow their savings because Wealthfront offers end-to-end automation.
“The way the financial system is designed makes it nearly impossible to effectively manage your money, but at Wealthfront we’ve streamlined it using software. Now that automation can carry out our clients’ financial decisions, they will see enormously better outcomes,” says Dan Carroll, co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer.
Deposits into a Wealthfront Cash Account will immediately enjoy the benefits of Self-Driving Money, which monitors cash flow to ensure that bills are paid, and savings are instantly routed into the right investment accounts via a trading robot and based on pre-set savings goals. Clients can have Wealthfront organize their money into different savings buckets such as an emergency fund, home down-payment, or vacation fund. All routing happens immediately and simultaneously across different account destinations.
Invest savings instantly and automatically
This level of automation makes Wealthfront’s Cash Account unique in the market and increases the efficiency and value of the company’s investment service by giving clients more time in the market. For example, a client no longer needs to wait up to three business days for their money to reach their investment account. Instead, savings are now invested instantly and automatically.
Wealthfront is valued at about $1 billion—or less than 3%—of neighbor and rival platform Robinhood. However, the company has been on a sustained drive recently to corner the burgeoning online trading market and is pioneering service add-ons such as rebalancing and tax-loss harvesting, access to fiduciary advice, and financial planning tools at no additional cost.
“Our current clients alone have over $50 billion in assets linked to Wealthfront sitting in outside brokerages. Adding the ability for them to invest with Wealthfront based on their values and beliefs and apply the benefit of our automation, will enable them to simplify their investment activities and pursue their goals by trusting the management of those assets to us,” says Dan Carroll.