Add this to the growing list of obsessions among RIAs and other financial service firms: major social media platforms making a blitzkrieg into the private wealth business.
There’s plenty of reason for trepidation. The Apple iPhone is already a payment system and is pushing into the credit card business, Facebook is working on a new cryptocurrency it calls Libra, observers point to growing signs that Google is preparing for a surge into the space, and can anyone seriously doubt that Jeff Bezos has spent a great deal of time contemplating expanding Amazon and its massive customer base into financial services?
This all comes at a time when existing investment advisers and managers are increasingly focused on the mass affluent, some $72 trillion in the hands of those who don’t qualify as ultra- or high-net-worth individuals and families, according to Oliver Wyman, a consulting firm to the financial services industry. Witness that Goldman Sachs, the gold-plated Wall Str
