One product category (or the lack of it) has impeded financial advisers' longtime ambition of becoming all-purpose fiduciaries for their clients: Bank accounts. Especially ones that pay generous interest.
But Galileo Processing, a manager of prepaid card programs, says it has developed the equalizer for these wannabe bank challengers: a white-label digital banking product developed exclusively for financial advisers.
The product, Money Plus, is meant to give financial advisers the opportunity to offer a traditional checking and savings account with interest rates tied to the Effective Federal Funds Rate, as part of a broader wealth management program.
“This allows the adviser to identify and find a partner that does align with their interests as an adviser, in particular in how they act in the role of fiduciary,” said Clay Wilkes, Galileo’s CEO. “These were the key and underlining principles of the way we constructed the product."
The Carson Group, a family of companies advising individual investors, is first in line to offer the digital banking service, starting in the third quarter.
“This presents an opportunity for advisers to capture assets and a greater share of wallet that traditionally has been untouchable,” Ron Carson, the CEO and chairman of the Carson Group, said in an email. “It’s one more way advisers can further entrench themselves into helping manage their clients’ financial lives without them needing another service provider.”
To that end, Wilkes said the interest rates are a critical feature for financial advisers to sell because often they are suggesting clients open such accounts with Ally Bank, Capital One or Synchrony, to name a few.
“As soon as they do that, they’re turning their client over to someone else,” he said.
To be clear, other banks offer similar or better rates than Galileo, which pay out the interest on these accounts.
For example, the robo adviser Wealthfront markets a savings account with a 2.29% rate. Marcus, the online bank owned by Goldman Sachs, offers a savings account with a 2.25% rate.
The Money Plus Reserve Account, which is essentially a savings product, has an interest rate of 2.20%. The Money Plus checking account, which Galileo calls the Spending Account, features an interest rate of 1.24%.
Wilkes and the Carson Group insist the appeal of Money Plus is to give users a clear picture of their finances in one place, complete with traditional bank accounts.
“We can tell them that this is all in one spot,” said Andrew Rogers, adviser solutions manager for Carson Group. “Your entire financial picture can be in one location through the different technology and tools that we have.”
Whether financial advisers can persuade their clients to leave their current bank could be a challenge.
Multiple industry surveys suggest many consumers tend to stay with their legacy bank despite intentions to switch.
“It’s not easy to do unless what you’re converting to offers a comparable end-to-end experience to handle the minutiae of what your legacy bank does for you, especially for high-net-worth people, because they don’t want to upset the apple cart that’s working,” said Lane Martin, a partner in the banking practice at the consulting firm Capco.
Galileo Money Plus users will benefit from the same features as a traditional checking account, including a Mastercard-branded debit card, direct deposit, online bill pay, mobile check deposit, person-to-person transfers, automated clearinghouse transfers and the ability to send a check.
Bancorp, a longtime partner of Galileo, will hold the deposits.
Wilkes attended the recent Excell conference where Galileo and the Carson Group officially unveiled their partnership and came away convinced financial advisers could successfully market Money Plus.
“In the conversations that I had, there was no doubt in the adviser's mind that they can get their client to adopt this product, because they already want products that maximize interest,” Wilkes said.
Martin added that Money Plus could potentially be an easy sell for financial advisers “that look after their customers’ financial well-being from a fiduciary perspective and should be making recommendations and do make recommendations for how they should manage cash across their entire wallet.”
