Making Wealth Management Accessible: The Rise of Fintech Wealth Platforms

Wealth management originally entailed high-net-worth individuals visiting financial advisors in ornately decorated offices with enviable views.  These high-net-worth individuals had access to professional wealth management because they already had enough money to meet exorbitant minimum investments and accepted high 1–2% advisor fees to have someone manage their portfolios.  

Since approaching a wealth management firm was the primary method of investing (outside of a traditional pension), many individuals could not meet the required wealth threshold to build more moderate levels of wealth.  John Bogle sought to change this by founding Vanguard in 1975.  Vanguard, formally The Vanguard Group, offered low minimum investments that could be met by the middle class, index funds to allow investors to passively invest without expensive financial advisors, and expense ratios dramatically lower than traditional wealth management firms.

Vanguard changed wealth management by making it financially accessible to the masses, but individual investors still had to know to seek out Vanguard to build wealth as much as possible.  Fintech wealth platforms have taken the next step in making wealth management accessible to the masses:  They have made building wealth easy.

Atomic Habits author James Clear emphasizes the importance of ease in building a habit, and fintech wealth platforms have taken this piece of wisdom to make investing easier for individuals that may not otherwise put forth the effort to invest.  New investors, especially younger investors, now begin investing incrementally from their phones without complicated processes to facilitate communications between banks or the outdated need to walk into an office and meet with a financial advisor.

How Fintech Increases Accessibility: Financial Literacy and Location

Rather than going to an office or logging into Vanguard to make transactions, fintech platforms allow you to download an app on your phone and start investing.  Yes, you can also download a Vanguard app and perform transactions from your phone, but anyone familiar with more complicated transfers in Vanguard would probably declare them big-screen tasks.  Fintech platforms make investing easier and quicker, often with a more personalized feel or a financial literacy component.

This financial literacy aspect, a learn-as-you-go approach that makes investing fun and digestible, is a key way in which fintech wealth platforms have carved out a space in the market.  Those of us who are financial nerds who do not mind spending hours researching the Boglehead methodology and reading books like The Simple Path to Wealth: Your Road to Financial Independence and a Rich, Free Life by JL Collins are not the audience of fintech wealth platforms.  We would be investing anyway because we are interested enough in learning about money to spend hours learning how to invest our money.

Most people do not choose to spend their time researching how to invest their money, and fintech wealth platforms can help.  The focus on financial literacy while investing has actually inspired a sub-category of platforms that define themselves as WealthTech because their core purpose is helping newer investors learn how to grow their wealth.  Wealthyhood is a prime example of a WealthTech platform with a series of learning guides to help investors start investing and build a portfolio that balances risk and their financial goals over the investor’s ideal timeline.  Since financial literacy still feels out of reach for many, platforms like Wealthyhood bridge that gap by teaching investors as they go.

Fintech platforms are also increasing accessibility regardless of location.  While U.S. investors primarily hear about Betterment and Robinhood, Trade Republic in Europe just secured $1.5 billion in funding at the end of 2025, showing the proliferation of fintech wealth platforms in Europe.  But Americans and Europeans tend to have access to banking generally, even if these platforms facilitate easy entry and teach investors along the way.

Portions of the world remain unbanked, meaning individuals do not have a single bank account to their name, whether at a physical bank or on a mobile platform.  However, the World Bank Group’s Global Findex 2025 found that from 2021 to 2024, adults from developing countries saving money in a financial account grew from 24% to 40%.  This remarkable increase in accessibility to banking in developing countries led to a global increase in adults with access to a financial institution, whether physical or mobile, from 74% in 2021 to 79% in 2024.  Mobile banking contributed heavily to this increase in developing countries.

The Global Findex 2025 shows how mobile accounts have significantly contributed to the increase in banking in developing countries from 2021 to 2024.

Increasing global access to smartphones enabled the increasing access to fintech wealth platforms by investors in developing countries.  Assuming smartphone ownership continues to grow, it is likely fintech access among developing countries will continue to grow as well, as more individuals globally use mobile banking to save money easily from the various ways they make their living.

Fintech in Developed Countries: A Hybrid Approach

I do not use a fintech wealth platform, and I do not anticipate starting anytime soon.  This is largely because I already have an understanding of how to invest passively, how to rebalance a portfolio for different phases of life, and how to avoid the worst taxes when accessing my money.  Vanguard works for me because I do not want a hands-on financial manager charging exorbitant fees, but I also do not need the financial literacy tutorials offered by fintech platforms.  They are great for their audience, but I have read dozens of personal finance books and do not need those mini-tutorials.

But I recognize that these platforms have a place.  If they get a young investor to start investing a few dollars each week or month when they would have waited years before feeling like they had enough money to open an investment account, that is terrific.  The earlier each person starts investing, the better.  Since information about financial management is such a barrier to entry, I love that fintech is reducing that barrier.  In some ways, this is exactly what we do by writing free articles explaining how to invest, earn money, improve a career, avoid tax penalties, and generally enjoy a less taxing life.

Hopefully, those young investors investing a few dollars on a fintech platform will eventually have a 401(k) or other retirement accounts as well.  The use of fintech is not to replace more traditional financial institutions but to give investors the knowledge they currently lack so they can (a) get started investing early and (b) have the knowledge to make smart financial decisions when they gain the opportunity to invest more later in their lives.

Fintech in Developing Countries: The Democratization of Wealth

Candidly, when an American professes that fintech will “democratize wealth,” I do not buy it.  Most Americans can open an IRA with Vanguard, a high-yield savings account with Ally, or anything else right now.  Opening an account just takes a little bit of effort researching what kind of account they need to achieve their goals and meet their current situation.  Fintech helps Americans gain easier access, but they always had access if they were willing to put in the effort to research how.

The real benefit of fintech is in developing countries.  Individuals who do not have access to a physical bank because they live in areas where they simply cannot get to one can now open a bank account on their smartphones, download a fintech wealth management app, and start investing.  That is remarkable!  Regardless of profession, location, or level of current wealth, people who previously did not have a bank account can become investors with shares of the global economy.  That is a true democratization of wealth.