For Personal Capital, the path to scale is to go broad. As a result, the Redwood Shores, Calif.-based hybrid adviser, which has $10 billion in assets under management, is bringing together investing, banking and personal finance management for the largest possible swath of users regardless of portfolio size. This includes digital investment products, a Mint-style financial dashboard and, since this summer, high-yield savings accounts.

It’s a playbook employed by other digital investment startups, including Betterment and Wealthfront, but Personal Capital strives to set itself apart through the use of human advisers who can augment the utility of digital tools, along with product offerings that appeal to a range of customer types. It’s also investing in client outreach by letting anyone use its free digital dashboard.
“We built Personal Capital with the premise of bringing together technology and people,” said Dan Stampf, vice president of Personal Capital Cash, the company’s high-yield savings account launched in June. “What you’re seeing throughout a lot of the industry is many of the other folks started with a pure human or pure robo [approach]. Now, they’re trying to play catch-up.”
Personal Capital, reportedly among the more profitable of digital investment startups, is using two tools to attract new customers: high-yield savings accounts (2.1% APY for clients and 2.05% APY for non-clients) and its free digital dashboard that lets users link all of their financial accounts. The free dashboard provides insights on its 2 million users — information the company can use to recommend products and services and refine product direction, Stampf noted. As customers use the free tools, they become added motivations to do other business with the company.
“We have allowed all of our dashboard users and the general public to open a Personal Capital Cash account,” Stampf said. “It’s entirely possible that they build a relationship with us through Personal Capital Cash and that’s how they become introduced to the platform, [but] there’s never any obligation to to do that.” Meanwhile, for high-net-worth investors, the company launched a partnership in February with alternative investment platform iCapital Network, which offers access to private equity funds and hedge funds.
According to Dennis Gallant, senior analyst at Aite Group’s wealth management practice, Personal Capital’s growth trajectory has been the result of the breadth of its customer acquisition strategy. While its assets under management fees for its wealth management offering runs between 0.49% and 0.89% — higher than some larger robo-advisers — its diversified revenue streams put it in a good position, he noted.
“Personal Capital has been ahead of the curve,” Gallant said. “With client acquisition, which has been a challenge for many robo-advisers, they’ve been able to build assets and grow.”
Despite its impressive growth story, the company faces pressure as competitors pursue similar strategies. According to Stampf, Personal Capital continually is evaluating future product offerings, but becoming a bank isn’t in the cards.
“I can’t really say what’s on the near-term roadmap, but I can tell you that, as long as there’s evidence that we can serve our existing clients and future clients better and more holistically than we’re doing today, we want to consider it as part of our roadmap, whether that’s lending or credit cards or whatever the case may be,” Stampf said. ” The motivation isn’t to become a bank, [rather it is] to provide the most customer-centric tools and services.”
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