California robo-adviser Wealthfront began in asset management, but they’re now joining financial services company Green Dot to offer banking services to their clients.
Green Dot is creating a Visa debit card that will let customers of Wealthfront’s new “banking” services perform a variety of tasks from auto-depositing their paychecks into their Wealthfront accounts to setting their bills to autopay. To sweeten the deal, Wealthfront clients will receive a 2.5% interest rate on their cash balance.
The upcoming move follows Wealthfront’s February cash account launch. Clients delivered $1B in funds over the span of a few months.
According to FinancialPlanning, Wealthfront CEO Andy Rachleff has a goal to make Wealthfront an all encompassing platform for complete banking services. Clients would deposit, Wealthfront would handle the rest.
Will other advisers adopt the practice of including banking services? Some already have. But whether clients can trust one source for all of their financial practices – banking, investing, and beyond – remains to be seen.
