Money Machines

摘要

Last year financial technology start-ups made their mark on the wealth management business. The first wave of this new breed was the robo-advisers, automated investment platforms with rock-bottom fees. Their success paved the way for fintech players that seek to reap higher profits by catering to the ultrawealthy, providing highly specialized services or even helping human wealth managers to confront the virtual-adviser threat. One such newcomer is CircleBlack, launched in 2015 by John Michel, who previously headed BloombergBlack-an online wealth management experiment that Bloomberg scuttled three years ago-and held a senior post at Merrill Edge, Bank of America Merrill Lynch's web-based advisory service.