UBS buys US digital platform Wealthfront for $1.6 billion. The bank wants to attract the up-and-coming rich from generations Y and Z with automated investment advice. A plan that she failed in 2018 with her own project.
Now he has arrived: UBS boss Ralph Hamers.
As the embodiment of digital thinking, Ralph Hamers was appointed to the helm of UBS in 2020. Now the “Google banker” is living up to its reputation. UBS buys Wealthfront for $1.6 billion.
The US company has a banking license and serves 470,000 customers with an automated advisory platform. These bring an average fortune of 57,500 dollars and are served purely digitally. Financial planning, banking services, investment solutions – everything happens in one app.
With Wealthfront, UBS wants to win aspiring young rich people of generations Y and Z, those born between 1980 and 2010, as clients. If these “affluent clients” become richer and become “high net worth individuals”, the UBS banker is then personally available to them. That’s the logic behind the deal.
But why is UBS spending more than a billion on an acquisition instead of investing in the further development of its own online solutions? Because it’s not easy to create real innovations from a traditional company.
In 2017, for example, UBS launched the Smartwealth platform in Great Britain for young, digitally savvy people. But after just one year, the Swiss Bankers pulled the plug again. The project was a failure across the board.
It therefore makes sense that UBS not only seeks its way into the digital future on its own, but also bets on other platforms with acquisitions. Just like Google does.
The search engine giant bought the young video platform YouTube in 2006 for 1.6 billion dollars. Too expensive, too daring, critics complained. Today, YouTube is one of the most important pillars of the tech group.
Did the “Google banker” at the top of UBS have that in mind when he signed the deal with Wealthfront?