Fintech newsJanuary 13, 2016March 9, 2016

Wealthfront Launches Portfolio Review, An Advisory Tool For Avoiding Fees And Maximizing Savings

By Jonathan Shieber for Techcrunch.com

Ever year investors pay out hundreds of billions of dollars (that’s billions with a “b”) in fees to money managers that, essentially, they really don’t need to be paying.

Things are so bad that companies like FeeX have raised over $12 million in financing to provide a service that gives people a window into the fees they’re paying to their advisors.

Now Wealthfront, the robo-advisory wealth management service, is offering a tool of its own to help people get a window into the money they’re losing on fees.

According to a study from BCG and State Street that the company cites, investors could pay out $13.2 trillion over the next thirty years. That’s money going from investors’ pockets into money managers’ bank accounts.

The company says that 80% of fees investors are paying could be avoided if they switched to the type of index funds that Wealthfront offers. And they’ve set up the Wealthfront Portfolio Review to prove it.

The company’s data is based on an analysis it conducted based on accounts it controls that had made the switch from traditional wealth management shops to Wealthfront’s service over the past four years.

What the company found was that amateur investors who were using wealth management services weren’t as good at structuring their portfolios and managing their money as WealthFront has been (shocking).

Using the new WealthFront tool folks, whether or not they’re customers, can get a window into the product fees, transaction fees, and advisory fees that they’re paying; can take a look at potential strategies to optimize tax savings; see what the right amount of cash savings a person should have; and finally ensure that their portfolio of investments is sufficiently diversified.