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Wealthfront busts through $20 billion mark with its 'break things but make it happen' approach, but it's bedeviled by details when it comes to customers

CEO Andy Rachleff near doubles assets with high-interest paying robo-bank as new tailwind, but with brand risk as customer service may not be keeping pace, according to one cautionary tale.

Author Oisin Breen September 15, 2019 at 2:42 AM
Admin:
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Michael Cohan: No information can be revealed at any point, lest laundering proliferate unchecked and unabated around the cosmos.

Related Moves

Wealthfront's unlikely tapping of Sheila Bair and Tom Curry signals likely push to gain a bank charter, analysts say

The Redwood City robo-advisor's addition of two renowned former chief banking regulators brings legitimacy and guidance that could lead to a margin-fattening bank charter and help solve the robo-advisor's problem of high client acquisition costs.

December 31, 2020 at 4:37 AM

Wealthfront cedes to four years of investors clamoring for crypto by taking on expensive third-party vendor that Betterment rules out

The Redwood City, Calif., robo-advisor turned a hard 'no' into a soft 'yes' by dealing with Grayscale and its 200 basis-point-plus fees, which its robo rival in NYC -- also without a crypto path -- finds ludicrous.

August 14, 2021 at 2:20 AM

Second Betterment exec departs as new CEO Sarah Levy orients to her first month on the job and is confronted by personnel matters

Chief operating officer Dustin Lucien is the latest to leave the New York City robo-advisor, one of at least eight positions open as it prepares a push across multiple business lines to ignite growth.

January 19, 2021 at 6:32 PM

Jon Stein ousts himself as Betterment CEO and taps Sarah Levy, who joins an exclusive club of top women executives, with a mission -- an IPO

The co-founder of the New York robo-advisor headhunted the ex-Viacom brass through Harvard professors on the down low to ostensibly scale operations.

December 8, 2020 at 5:27 PM

See more related moves

Mentioned in this article:

Wealthfront
Portfolio Management System
Top Executive: Andy Rachleff

Betterment, LLC
Financial Planning Software
Top Executive: Jon Stein




Brian Murphy

Brian Murphy

September 16, 2019 — 7:32 PM
Wealthfront is a company that never really found economically viable product/market fit with their wealth management offering. Instead they continue to look for lower cost acquisition strategies to continue driving AUM, that can bring their average revenue per client up. Unfortunately I can't see much in the way of margins on the money market fund - just a lot of likely future churn. Good luck to the team in pulling off a turnaround however.
Greg B

Greg B

September 16, 2019 — 9:07 PM
ACH fraud is becoming a growing problem and this, not AML concerns, is likely the reason for the restrictions they have in place.

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