Last Updated onOctober 16, 2017 byBarbara A. Friedberg, MBA, MS
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Betterment Launches Free Management Fee Promo + Free Investment Review
Choosing the right investment manager is tough. Betterment is making it easier. Betterment continues to entice and innovate.
Betterment Free Investment Review
Betterment’s free investment review can help you assess your current investment approach. Here’s how the Betterment investment review can help you:
- Betterment asks you a series of questions related to your finances.
- Next, you receive an analysis of your investments that covers four topic areas:
- investment accounts,
- tax savings,
- fees
- risk exposure
This gives you a better idea of what you’re doing well, how you could improve your investing approach, and where Betterment might be able to help.
Click here to go directly to the Betterment Investment Review Page
Read on for the latest robo-advisor news…
“Robo Advisors And The Great Money Movement” by Stephanie MacConnell –Forbes.com
“In FinTech funding news, the robos are back and ready for battle. For those unfamiliar with the digital revolution happening in wealth management, arobo-advisoroffers automated, algorithm-drivenfinancial planningservices with little to no human supervision. The money saved not paying a human is passed through to the customer, resulting in younger, less affluent, less investing-savvy folks being able to get in the game.”
Betterment just received $70 million in new funding.
Personal Capital a $40 million round of capital.
Ellevest, for women, enjoyed a $34.6 million capital infusion.
Soon, $30 trillion baby boomer assets will change hands. And those young adult recipients just might look towards a robo-advisor to manage that windfall.
“Is Your Data Safe With a Robo-Adviser?” by Brian O’Connell –US News and World Report
“Experts say robo-portfolio users shouldn’t worry about their digitally-based investment services providers, although they may want to focus on their own computers, laptops, tablets and smartphones instead.
“Robo-investment platforms have bank or military-grade encryption,” says Robert Siciliano, an identity theft expert at IDTheftSecurity.com. “They have everything to lose and nothing to gain by being breached.”
Siciliano does say that “nothing is 100 percent secure”, but the “path of least resistance is not necessarily the site itself but the user’s device.”
“To protect oneself when investing with a robo advisor, the most important thing is to look under the hood and find out who they trade and clear their trades through and what custodial relationship they have where your money is being held,”
“Vanguard, Charles Schwab and Fidelity will reign over robo advisors” by Tobias Salinger –Financial-Planning.com
“Vanguard, Charles Schwab and Fidelity will press their advantages in digital advice, but Acorns is driving the sector’s massive expansion, a new study says.
So-called incumbent firms’ share of the robo advice market will jump to 93% by 2021 from 78% last year, according toa reportreleased last week by Boston-based consulting firm Aite Group. At the same time, the number of digital advice clients will soar by nearly 850% to 17 million by 2021, the study says.”
Expanding its reach, Acorns gains a PFM partners” by Bryan Yurcan– Financial-Advisor.com
“Microinvesting sites are strategically expanding their appeal among millennial investors.
Now claiming over 2 million investment accounts, Acorns announced a partnership with Clarity Money, which offers a personal finance management app.
Through the partnership, Clarity Money customers can use Acorns’ automated investing features, while Acorns investors are able to see a snapshot of their investing activity in the Clarity Money app.”
“Baby Boomers Get Their Own Retirement Robo Advisor — And A Pitch To Spend More” by Janet Novack – Forbes.com
“Here’s the dirty little secret about managing your money in retirement: it’s a lot more complicated than when you were drawing a paycheck, particularly if you’re fortunate enough to have retirement accounts and other income sources besides Social Security.
In theory, you should first guesstimate how long you (and your spouse, if you’ve got one)are likely to live. Then you should calculate how much you can safely spend if you don’t want to run out of money during that period; which accounts (taxable, tax deferred or Roth) to draw down first to minimize taxes andMedicare’s high income surcharges; and at what age it’s optimum for youto claim Social Security benefits. That’s all while allocating your money between stocks, bonds and other assets. And yes,you should probably work most of this outbeforeyou quit working—just to be sureyou’re ready.
United Income, a new hybrid robo-human adviceservice that launched today, is betting that middle and upper middle class baby boomers will pay hundreds or thousands of dollars a year to have someone else handle all those calculations—and in some cases, the paperwork too.”
Robo-Advisor News Wrap Up
Follow along as the robo-advisory wealth management industry merges, launches and grows. The new providers are emerging rapidly and existing shops are expanding offerings. It’s anyone’s guess how this nascent robo-advisor industry will evolve over the long-term.
