Robo-adviser Wealthfront wants to become the center of its customers’ financial lives. To do so, it’s steadily added products beyond its core investment offerings, including a personal finance management tool called Path and banking services. Now, the company is going full circle with its financial offerings by seeking to own the deposit relationships with its customers through checking accounts.

“We really want to be serious about building the next-gen banking service,” said Kate Wauck, vice president of communications at Wealthfront, in an interview with Bank Innovation. “Instead of walking into a bank branch or having to call an advisor, you’ll just open the Wealthfront app.”

Unlike other robo-advisory platforms that have added human advice for a fee, Wealthfront is steadfastly digital-only. Through its automated portfolio investing and a financial planning engine called Path, the platform is able to help customers with a range of financial needs from home buying to retirement. However, owning the deposit relationship is a crucial tool to allow for new customer acquisition and deeper engagement from existing customers.

Launched in 2011, the Redwood City, California-based company has $14.5 billion in assets under management and approximately 250,000 customers. In February, it launched a high-interest savings account that amassed $1 billion in deposits in less than two months; it recently began offering 2.51% APY and, through a partnership with Green Dot finalized in May, debit cards and direct deposit capabilities will soon roll out. The company is on pace to become what some have called a “super robo” — a holistic platform for all aspects of its customers’ financial needs.

Wauck said she believes the high-interest account will attract customers looking to save in the short term for something like a car. It’s a way to give Wealthfront access to customers who weren’t initially thinking about investing in index funds and lock them into the platform. Meanwhile, owning customers’ deposit relationships gives financial technology companies access to valuable data that can be used to cross-sell.

Wealthfront isn’t the only company in the space with a multi-service platform approach. Investment companies like Acorns, Betterment and Robinhood are all adding new products with the goal to own customer relationships for a large bundle of financial services.

Despite the ‘arms race’ among fintech companies adding new products, Wauck said the high-interest savings account puts Wealthfront in a competitive position. “We feel pretty good that, if we can give people another way to use our service, they will want to do more business with us,” she added.

Still, the pressure is on for digital banking and investment platforms to set themselves apart from one another. “When it comes to trust overall, it’s a lot to ask consumers to differentiate between the startups,” said Aite Group research director Alois Pirker. “To them, tech is tech.”

As fintech companies march to become bank-like platforms, Wauck said investment companies are better positioned to win than transaction-based companies like Square or PayPal because investment companies build their relationship based on trust. “People from day one have been entrusting us with tens of thousands of dollars in a long-term investment account,” she said. “That’s really hard to do as a new financial service.”