What happened: Two British infrastructure providers have teamed up to offer a new savings account product. Wealthkernel is an investment-as-a-service provider that enables fintech companies and non-financial brands to offer investment products to their customers. Wealthkernel has partnered with the banking-as-a-service provider Griffin to offer savings accounts (The Paypers).
My comment: Before this product launch, Wealthkernel could only offer investment products such as money-market funds, ETFs, actively managed funds and other equity products. For example, property software provider GetGround leverages Wealthkernel’s technology to offer money-market funds to real estate investors for their cash position. Money-market funds are frequently offered as an alternative to traditional savings accounts, but there are some consumers and businesses who prefer to use savings accounts. Wealthkernel operates in the UK and launched its business in the EU recently. Due to Griffin’s pure focus on the UK, this new feature will only be available for Wealthkernel’s UK clients (until they find a similar partner in the EU).
So far, the partnership seems to be fully focused on Griffin enabling Wealthkernel to provide savings accounts. I am curious whether this partnership will also go in the other direction and if we will see Griffin, at one point, offering investment products powered by Wealthkernel.
