Digital Wealth & Robo-Advisory

Robinhood has rolled out new AI trading agents that let users connect a chatbot such as Anthropic's Claude or OpenAI and direct it to place trades, Fortune Finance & Crypto Editor Jeff John Roberts said on Fortune Daily with Ellie Austin. Roberts said users can log into Robinhood, name the agent, and instruct it to buy shares such as Tesla. He framed the launch as the first arrival of a feature he expects every other company to add within the next couple of years, rather than an immediate overhaul of investing. Roberts warned of unintended consequences from letting agents trade while users sleep, including herd behavior if many agents converge on the same stock, and said that while guard rails exist, not everyone will use them.

Robinhood has placed its autonomous trading technology inside a separate legal entity, Robinhood Labs LLC, while keeping brokerage operations in Robinhood Financial LLC, creating a legal firewall between the two. Robinhood Labs LLC is explicitly not a broker-dealer, investment adviser, futures commission merchant, or money transmitter, and company disclosures state it does not provide investment advice, hold customer funds, or execute transactions. The user agreement requires customers to assume all risk for trades executed by AI agents and for any use of their data by third-party LLM providers. Robinhood reports that over 150,000 customers have opened agentic trading accounts since their May 2026 launch, with agents using tools nearly 30 million times per day, though these figures are self-reported and have not been independently verified. The model operates in a regulatory vacuum: the 2026 Annual Regulatory Oversight Report called existing rules technologically neutral, FINRA Rule 3110 requires reasonably designed supervisory systems without specific guidance on corporate separation, and the SEC has stayed silent on using a non-broker subsidiary to shield a parent from autonomous agents. Registered Investment Advisers remain barred from using AI agents to manage client money under fiduciary standards, while retail users on platforms like Robinhood can grant autonomous trading authority, and major firms including Fidelity, Charles Schwab, Interactive Brokers, eToro, and Webull have announced no similar separation. SEC Rule 15c3-5, the Market Access Rule, is the primary lever that could dismantle the template, and the alter-ego doctrine could pierce the liability shield if courts find the brokerage controls the Labs entity's operations.

IG Group shares fell as much as 27.2% to their lowest level since April 2025 after the British online trading platform said it expected third-quarter revenue of about £240 million, down 14% from a year earlier, as it retained less revenue from customer trading losses in its over-the-counter derivatives business. The company said OTC revenue retention was about 70% in the quarter, below the roughly 80% average since it introduced changes to its market-making operations in the second half of 2025, and it cut its 2026 revenue growth outlook to a mid-single-digit percentage range year-on-year. Third-quarter net trading revenue is expected at about £210 million, down from £249.5 million a year earlier, with OTC net trading revenue falling about 18% to £155 million while OTC customer income rose about 8%. Customer activity remained strong, with organic first trades up more than 25% year-on-year and active customers rising about 17%, and the Underdog business more than doubled third-quarter net revenue to about $105 million ahead of the seasonally important fourth quarter. Chief Executive Breon Corcoran said growth in first trades and active customers remained strong in Q3 2026, while lower revenue reflected reduced OTC revenue retention in less supportive market conditions; IG also expects about £30 million of non-recurring costs in 2026 tied to moving its domicile to Jersey and restructuring, after recording £16.4 million of those costs in the first half, and excluding those and Underdog acquisition expenses it expects a 2026 EBITDA margin in the low-40% range.

Singularity Financial Partners launched today as The Operating Company for RIAs, founded in February by wealthtech veterans Michael Roth, Oleg Tishkevich and Jim Zimmerman, whose careers span InvestCloud, Envestnet and Microsoft. The Henderson, Nevada-based firm takes an ownership position in each advisory firm it works with, through capital, operating work or both, and embeds its own people inside the business rather than acting as a vendor, consultancy or aggregator. Singularity said it has completed its first transactions and is operating inside those firms today, with its economics tied to each firm's performance rather than to a software contract or fee. The company cited Cerulli data showing 35% of advisors, representing approximately 40% of industry assets, are expected to retire within the next 10 years, and pointed to research by Jerry D. Prince and Russ Alan Prince finding that only half of 311 advisors who sold their firms were satisfied with the outcome. Its technology layer runs on the Data Lakehouse from Invent, the wealth data company founded and led by Tishkevich, while Jim Zimmerman, a veteran of Red Hat and Microsoft, serves as Chief Technology Officer and sets AI governance and security standards. Additional announcements on Singularity's partnerships and expansion are expected in the coming weeks.

A first-of-its-kind Bitwise Institutional crypto adoption report found that none of the 15 major institutions it interviewed reduced their crypto allocations during the recent 50% plus drawdown, with several adding to their positions. The survey, conducted over three months, covered pensions, endowments, foundations, family offices, sovereign wealth funds and public companies, and every participant held Bitcoin, with allocations ranging from 0.5% to 13% and most between 1% and 2%. The findings came as the Fed's preferred inflation gauge, the Personal Consumption Expenditures report, showed cooler-than-expected August readings, with headline monthly at 0.3% versus 0.4% expected, headline annual at 3.4% versus 3.7% expected, core monthly at 0.2% versus 0.3% expected, and core annual at 3% versus 3.3% expected. Second quarter GDP was revised sharply higher from 1.5% to 2.2%, and ADP reported 90,000 new private sector jobs, also stronger than expected. Separately, House Oversight Chair James Comer expanded an insider-trading investigation into online prediction markets, sending new letters to crypto.com, Hiker Liquid and Aristotle Exchange after earlier probes of Kalshi and Polymarket that began in May. Robinhood also unveiled a slate of product announcements at its Hood Summit, including 24/7 365 trading, 10X leverage on crypto products, perpetuals, take-profit and stop-loss orders, and AI agent trading tools.

J.P. Morgan resumed coverage of European investment platforms and stock exchanges on Wednesday, taking a more selective stance on platforms as economic conditions diverge across regions. The broker reinstated full coverage of broker-dealer TP ICAP at overweight with a December 2027 target price of 461 pence, and resumed Italian savings platforms FinecoBank and Banca Mediolanum at overweight with targets of €29 and €28, respectively, citing industry growth, limited competition and a favourable regulatory backdrop. Both Italian names are on Positive Catalyst Watch ahead of third-quarter results on Nov. 5 and Nov. 10, with the bank expecting upward revisions to consensus net interest income. On the UK side, wealth manager St. James's Place was downgraded to neutral from overweight with a 1,381-pence target and placed on Negative Catalyst Watch ahead of its Oct. 29 third-quarter update, with J.P. Morgan forecasting third-quarter net flows of £0.9 billion, about 20% below consensus, as higher interest rates and potential Autumn Budget tax increases weigh on flows. Platform operator Aberdeen Group was also downgraded to neutral from overweight with a 267-pence target, while Quilter stayed at overweight with a 227-pence target. In the Nordics, online broker Nordnet was resumed at overweight, raised from neutral, with a SEK401 target, and Avanza Bank was reinstated at neutral with a SEK408 target. Among exchanges, London Stock Exchange Group was resumed at overweight with a 10,600-pence target, Deutsche Boerse was reinstated at overweight with a €345 target, and Euronext was resumed at neutral with a €171 target. All price targets are for December 2027.

Deutsche Bank and J.P. Morgan have both initiated coverage of Nordic online brokerage and savings platform Nordnet, taking opposing views on whether its growth prospects justify its valuation. Deutsche Bank started with a hold rating and a SEK360 price target, saying the shares, trading at about 20 times estimated 2027 earnings and roughly 30% above the peer average excluding Nordnet, already price in much of its growth. J.P. Morgan began at overweight with a SEK401 target, raising its 2027-28 forecasts for brokerage, fund commissions and net interest income to about 8% to 9% above company-compiled consensus. Deutsche Bank forecasts annual EPS growth of about 15% over 2025-28, while J.P. Morgan sees about 14% annually over 2026-30, helped by increased cross-border trading and related foreign-exchange fees. On third-quarter estimates, Deutsche Bank expects transaction-related net income of SEK667 million and net income of SEK927 million, while J.P. Morgan expects transaction income of SEK712 million and net profit of SEK947 million. Nordnet had about 2.5 million customers and SEK1.374 trillion in savings capital at the end of June 2026.

Robinhood announced on September 29 that it will offer crypto perpetual futures to eligible customers in the United States, with trading to become available through its own app within the coming months. The offering covers eight assets: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, XRP, Dogecoin, Cardano, Chainlink, and Hyperliquid. Bitcoin and Ethereum will support leverage of up to 10x, while the remaining six assets will support up to 3x. The service will be provided by Robinhood Derivatives, which is registered with the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, through the crypto exchange Bitstamp, and Robinhood will leverage the trading infrastructure from its acquisition of Bitstamp, which closed in June 2025. Trading fees are set at 1 basis point per trade, or 0.01%, through the end of 2026. In the US, the CFTC approved the listing of Bitcoin perpetual futures for the first time on May 29, and the move to offer such products under US regulation is spreading.

Pi Securities assessed KKP shares, expecting third-quarter 2026 net profit of 2 billion baht, up 19% year on year but down 6% quarter on quarter. The year-on-year growth came from net interest income expanding on NIM, fee income growing on wealth management and the digital financial and investment services of the Dime! business, as well as lower losses on repossessed cars. Meanwhile, profit declined quarter on quarter on operating expenses. The research team expects total loans to continue expanding 0.5% quarter on quarter, bringing loans in the first nine months of 2026 up 3.7% year to date, driven by corporate loans and Lombard loans. It expects NIM to hold steady both year on year and quarter on quarter at 4%, with the NPL ratio steady at 3.5% and the coverage ratio at 149.5%. For 2026, the research team expects net profit to grow strongly by 35% year on year, supported by fee income from the capital markets business, higher dividend income, and lower losses on repossessed cars. For 2027, it expects net profit to grow 4.5% year on year on expanding net interest income and fee income from the capital markets business. It expects ROE to rise to 12.1% and 12.3% in 2026 and 2027, compared with 9.3% in 2025, and expects dividend yields of 6.3% and 6.6% in 2026 and 2027. KKP has already paid an interim dividend of 3.25 baht for the first half of 2026, so it is expected to pay an additional 3.82 baht in the second half of 2026. The research team noted that KKP stands out in wealth management services, with capital markets revenue accounting for roughly 20% to 30% of operating revenue, the highest among commercial banks. It therefore maintains its buy recommendation and raises its fair value to 130 baht.

OneVest has gone live with an integration that brings Schwab Advisor Center digital onboarding directly into its Workspace wealth operating system, the company announced on September 28, 2026. Advisors using OneVest can now initiate Schwab account opening, send a secure digital envelope to an end-client to eApprove, and track approval within minutes without leaving the OneVest platform, with the process started either through an automated agentic workflow within Workspace or an advisor-guided setup. The offering also opens up OneVest's underlying connectivity as a plug-and-play provider of Schwab's digital onboarding integration, giving enterprise technology teams a pre-built Schwab integration module that can run in CRMs, portfolio management systems, or in-house platforms. The same flow covers individual, joint, trust, custodial, and retirement account types with no rekeying into Schwab Advisor Center required, and because it can be initiated by OneVest's agentic platform, onboarding agents pre-fill account information from data already on file, flag missing information before it reaches the client, and route the envelope for approval automatically. Schwab digital onboarding is available now to OneVest clients, and enterprise firms interested in the integration can contact the OneVest team to discuss implementation into their existing technology stack.

JR Kyushu announced on the 25th that it will partner with SBI Holdings to launch a financial services business. The company plans to develop a members-only app called JQ BANK (provisional name) that will allow users to access banking, payment, and other financial functions in one place, with the goal of offering it during fiscal 2027. JR Kyushu has previously rolled out transit IC cards and other services, but will now obtain a banking agency license and make a full-scale entry into the financial business. The aim is to combine rail services with financial services to improve customer convenience. The app will be exclusively for web members and will offer banking and securities services handled by SBI Group's SBI Shinsei Bank and SBI Securities, as well as insurance, crypto assets, and other services. It will also be linked with the company's own point service, and JR Kyushu is considering awarding points based on deposit balances.

HSBC is re-entering India's stock brokerage business after a gap of more than a decade, according to two people familiar with the matter. The move is aimed at meeting growing demand from wealthy clients, and one of the sources said, "Given that everyone can now directly access capital markets, building out digital capabilities and entering the retail securities business is an important element." The source added that interest among Indian clients in trading on international markets has also grown since the establishment of GIFT City, India's tax-advantaged hub. According to another source, HSBC is expected to launch retail brokerage services within the next few months. HSBC already holds a brokerage license through HSBC InvestDirect Securities (India) Private Limited and plans to use it to revive the business. HSBC declined to comment.

Robinhood Markets CEO Vlad Tenev said crypto-linked event contracts are already taking a disproportionate share of prediction-market activity and that sports will eventually represent a minority of that business. The shift matters because sports contracts sit at the center of Robinhood's regulatory challenges: Missouri recently ordered the company and other operators to stop offering sports event contracts without a state sports-wagering license, Robinhood is appealing litigation in Michigan, and the Ninth Circuit in August affirmed the denial of preliminary relief in its Nevada case, prompting the company to petition the U.S. Supreme Court. Prediction markets have become financially material for Robinhood, with event-contract revenues surging more than tenfold year over year to 156 million dollars in the second quarter of 2026 and contracts traded jumping more than tenfold to a record 13.6 billion. In June, Robinhood began routing event contracts to Rothera, a CFTC-licensed exchange and clearinghouse independently managed through its joint venture with Susquehanna International Group, which accounted for 17 million dollars of second-quarter event-contract revenues. Competition is building as Interactive Brokers has created a unified prediction-market interface spanning Kalshi, CME Group and its ForecastEx platform, while Coinbase's offering, launched with Kalshi-sourced contracts, saw prediction-market contracts and revenues rise 106% sequentially in the second quarter.

Savvy Wealth, an AI-native RIA managing $9 billion in AUM with more than 150 advisors, has launched the Savvy Custodial Platform, an integrated set of technologies and services that lets registered investment advisors onboard clients in as little as 90 seconds and move assets in a few clicks. According to founder and chief executive officer Ritik Malhotra, the platform is meant to eliminate the paperwork and delays of legacy custodial relationships by giving advisors and clients a digital experience. The company noted that the Savvy Custodial Platform is neither a separate legal entity nor an actual custodian; Savvy Wealth Management LLC, a registered broker/dealer, provides the platform technology and acts as introducing broker/dealer, while clearing, execution and actual custody of accounts fall to Fidelity's National Financial Services LLC, an unaffiliated clearing broker/dealer. The offering includes fully digital onboarding, white-labeled control for advisors and integration with CRM, billing, trading and reporting in one connected system, and was developed in partnership with advisors based on their pain points. Advisors registered with Savvy's RIA already have access to the custodial integration, and the launch extends the product to the broader RIA market; earlier this month Savvy announced it had raised $100 million in a Series C funding round, with its valuation hitting $600 million.

Elon Musk's social media platform X has launched a feature letting U.S. users trade Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies through partner platforms Interactive Brokers and Gemini. Users tap a tag such as "$BTC" on X along with a "trade" button and are then taken to Interactive Brokers or Gemini to buy and sell crypto. The move is the first step in X's broader plan to offer stock and crypto trading directly on its platform, part of Musk's stated ambition to turn X into an "everything app" with banking features. X already offers real-time prices and charts for cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin and Ethereum, and the platform claims 245 million global users across all devices. Bitcoin was trading right around $86,000 U.S. on Sept. 22.

The Securities and Exchange Commission issued an "Innovation Exemption" on Sept. 17 that lets qualifying venues trade tokenized versions of U.S. stocks for five years without registering as stock exchanges, a move Robinhood Markets CEO Vlad Tenev has campaigned for since the start of 2025. Robinhood shares climbed 5% that day and trade at about $120. The relief is temporary and conditional: a venue must verify every token it lists carries the same rights and privileges as conventional shares, including dividends and votes, must give a company written notice and a chance to object before trading a third-party tokenized version of its stock, and must publish its plans publicly at least 30 days before launching, with the order capping symbols and volume. Robinhood's existing stock tokens, launched in Europe in mid-2025 and expanded to more than 120 countries, are structured as debt securities and would not qualify because holders do not own the underlying shares and cannot vote them. Three days before the order, on Sept. 14, Tenev said in a post on X that "in-kind redemption and voting are coming for Robinhood Stock Tokens," and Johann Kerbrat, who runs Robinhood's crypto business, called the exemption "a signal that tokenization is ready to come to the United States." Robinhood's equities transaction revenue jumped 95% year over year in the second quarter to $129 million, accelerating from 46% growth in Q1, while total revenue rose 32% to $1.31 billion and net income grew 48%.

The Canary Staked TRX ETF, trading on Nasdaq under the ticker TRXS, has launched as one of the first U.S.-listed exchange-traded funds designed to hold TRON's TRX token directly and pass through on-chain staking rewards, giving investors a way to gain single-asset crypto exposure inside a brokerage or IRA account without opening a crypto exchange account or managing self-custody. The fund's return engine combines TRX spot price appreciation with a staking reward stream earned by delegating a portion of holdings to validators on the TRON network, though that reward stream is reduced by the fund's expense ratio before reaching shareholders. With only 7 trading days of history and a settled close of $24.75 on September 17, 2026, TRXS is too young for a track record to matter, and the fund is positioned as a satellite holding sized at low single-digit weight at most within a diversified portfolio. Because the fund's operating fee is subtracted from staking rewards, TRXS will structurally deliver slightly less yield than buying and staking TRX directly, a tradeoff the fund offers in exchange for convenience and account eligibility. The fund also carries concentration and governance risk tied to TRON founder Justin Sun, whose active role in the network's development means the token faces headline risk that broader multi-asset crypto ETFs naturally dilute, and its tax treatment of pass-through staking distributions remains unsettled.

The Securities and Exchange Commission's Sept. 17 Innovation Exemption creates a five-year, conditional pathway for certain tokenized U.S. stocks to trade on blockchain-based Tokenized Securities Venues, a framework that could benefit Robinhood Markets. The exemption permits trading through permissioned automated market makers and liquidity pools, but requires tokenized shares to give holders the same rights and privileges as conventional shares, including dividends and voting rights, while issuers can block third-party tokenization by objecting within 30 days of receiving notice from the trading venue. Robinhood cannot simply bring its existing Stock Tokens to the United States, since the company describes them as tokenized debt securities backed 1:1 by underlying shares that provide economic exposure rather than legal or beneficial ownership and are unavailable to U.S. residents. Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev has said the company plans to add one-for-one share redemption and voting rights after AMC CEO Adam Aron criticized the Stock Tokens for lacking traditional shareholder rights, though the SEC's allowance for issuer objections diverges from Tenev's stance. Coinbase Global is the most direct rival given its U.S. stock-trading business and international tokenized-equity efforts, while Intercontinental Exchange is developing a 24/7 digital venue for tokenized equities through the NYSE. Robinhood's first-half 2026 revenues climbed 24% year over year to $2.38 billion, earnings rose 23% to $1.00, and the company ended August with 28.6 million funded customers and $384 billion in total platform assets, up 26% year over year.

Equitable Holdings added the industry's first bitcoin-linked investment option to a registered index-linked annuity on September 2, tracking the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF through a new SCS Premier option. The bitcoin option offers one-year segments with buffers of 10%, 15%, 20% and 40%, and allocations are generally capped at 25% of contract value, giving clients defined protection rather than open-ended exposure. The same update added Optimal Mix Segments, which spread money across multiple indices and weight the best performers at maturity, plus Dual Direction Downside Advantage segments that can turn a decline within the buffer into a gain worth twice the size of that drop. The launch sits on top of a business that is already growing: in the second quarter of 2026, Equitable posted net inflows of $1.7 billion in Retirement, $2.0 billion in Wealth Management and $0.8 billion in Asset Management, pushing total assets under management and administration to a record $1.2 trillion, up 10% from a year earlier, while returning $449 million to shareholders and staying on track for a 60% to 70% payout ratio in 2026. The headline growth hides a rockier bottom line, with a GAAP net loss of $453 million, or $1.68 per share, for the second quarter of 2026 even as non-GAAP operating earnings came in positive at $488 million, and book value per common share of negative $6.79 once accumulated other comprehensive income is included. The pending merger with Corebridge Financial, approved by shareholders on July 30, still needs regulatory sign-off before it can close, leaving the promised earnings boost of more than 10% to earnings per share on a run-rate basis by year-end 2028 dependent on approvals still to come.

24/7 Wall St. has issued a BUY rating on Coinbase with a 12-month price target of $212.94, implying 23.73% upside from a current price of $172.11, even as the stock sits 47.37% below its 52-week high. The call follows a rough second quarter in which revenue of $1.22 billion fell 18.5% year over year and missed consensus by 5.36%, with GAAP EPS of -$1.36, as total crypto spot trading volume dropped 25% quarter over quarter. The bull case rests on diversification: subscription and services reached 48% of net revenue in Q2, prediction markets already exceed $100 million in annualized revenue, average USDC held on platform hit an all-time high of $20 billion, and Base has processed roughly $32 trillion in trailing 12-month stablecoin transfer volume, with management projecting the stablecoin market will grow tenfold from $300 billion today to $3 trillion by 2030. The bear case is equally blunt: consumer transaction revenue fell 20% year over year and institutional dropped 26%, assets on platform slid to $246 billion from $294 billion, and the FY2026 EPS estimate has collapsed from $0.8953 ninety days ago to -$1.9697 today on 13 downward revisions in the past 30 days. For comparison, Robinhood posted Q2 2026 revenue up 32% year over year to $1.31 billion and carries an $87 billion market cap versus Coinbase's $38 billion, while CME Group reported $1.71 billion in quarterly revenue at a $99 billion market cap. 24/7 Wall St.'s bull scenario points to $361.40, while its bear scenario lands at $186.62, still above the current price.

Apex Fintech Solutions has entered a digital wealth alliance with FusionIQ, a provider of cloud-based digital wealth management technology. The partnership combines Apex's clearing, custody and brokerage infrastructure with FusionIQ's end-to-end digital wealth platform, giving financial institutions a faster, more integrated route to launching and scaling modern investing experiences. Mutual clients will be able to combine Apex's brokerage, custody and clearing capabilities with FusionIQ's platform, including digital advice, self-directed investing, digital model marketplace and fin-TAMP capabilities, within a single technology stack. Apex Fintech Solutions CEO Bill Capuzzi said firms need backend systems that are fast, flexible and secure, while FusionIQ CEO Eric Noll said the combination removes friction from the integration process. The combined offering is intended to reduce integration complexity and shorten time-to-market for banks, credit unions, registered investment advisors, broker-dealers and other institutions modernising their wealth management services. In June, FusionIQ acquired Marstone, a US-based digital wealth technology company, bringing together two platforms serving banks, credit unions, wealth managers and their customers.