Vanguard has agreed to acquire Altruist, an AI-driven custody and software platform for independent financial advisers that it first invested in during 2020, on undisclosed terms. Britain and the EU are addressing the same shortage of advice through rule changes rather than acquisitions.
Vanguard is buying the platform it helped fund. It has agreed to acquire Altruist, a custody and software business for independent financial advisers that it first invested in during 2020, on terms neither company has disclosed.
Altruist is not a layer on somebody else’s custodian. It runs its own self-clearing brokerage, holding and settling client assets directly, with account opening, trading, rebalancing, billing and reporting built on top.
Its AI component is called Hazel. It reads an adviser’s live custodial data along with their CRM, email and notes, then answers questions and drafts client plans from it.
Vanguard’s argument is about capacity. “Technology can help close that gap by enabling advisors to serve more people and serve them better, while preserving the human judgment and relationships at the center of good financial advice,” chief executive Salim Ramji said.
