Transfers

How We Help Investors Seamlessly Switch to Betterment Moving investment accounts from one provider to another can be tedious and complicated. We can help make it seamless. Transitioning investment accounts from one provider to another can be complicated. You may be in the early days of exploration. Or you may be ready to make a switch but want to learn more about how Betterment will handle the trading and operational steps required to complete your transfer. How we help customers transition to Betterment We’ve largely automated the process of transferring outside investment accounts to Betterment. Our in-app tooling fully addresses the needs of many customers, and some transfers can be self-serviced entirely online. While our online tools provide a great foundation, personalized guidance from an expert can make for easier transfers and help investors navigate more complex situations. If you’re considering moving accounts to Betterment, our transfer specialists and Licensed Concierge team are available to help you explore the options and complete a smooth transition. Fortunately, IRAs and 401(k)s can be directly transferred without creating a taxable event, so we help investors understand our philosophy, and ensure that the accounts are moved using efficient transfer methods. For taxable accounts, especially those with large embedded gains, we take things a step further, offering personalized tax-impact and break-even analyses. Breaking down our taxable account guidance As your fiduciary, we believe that transparency is key to making well-informed investment decisions. Whether you’re in the early stages of exploring if Betterment’s right for you, or fully sold and ready to get started, knowing the potential tax implications and the trading and operational steps required to complete your transfers is important. Below, we offer a step-by-step preview into the Licensed Concierge-specific process. Step 1: Review Current Situation When a Licensed Concierge associate is connected with a new client, our first priority is to understand their main goals. We start by reviewing their current investment accounts to see if they are properly aligned to their financial goals from a fee, investment mix, and risk perspective. Misalignment in any of these areas can impact a customer’s likelihood of reaching their goals. We prefer connecting with clients over the phone to gather information more efficiently, but we’re also available via email. We’ll also request account statements and fee information so that we can offer a more thorough analysis. Our free, automated tooling will analyze your account details and let you know if you’re taking on too much (or too little) risk, paying too high of fees, or don’t have proper portfolio diversification. Syncing your accounts to Betterment will also allow our human-facing teams to better guide you, if need be. Step 2: Establish A Plan Once we understand a customer’s current situation, our next step is to put together a comprehensive assessment and action plan. While the details are unique to each customer, at a high-level, the moving parts are largely the same. Based on the firm where an account is currently held, the type of taxable account (individual, joint, trust), and the underlying investments, we are able to tell our customers: Whether making a switch to Betterment comes highly recommended based on any red flags from our Step 1 review. Whether the firm and account type can be moved electronically to Betterment through the ACATS network. Which of the current holdings (if any) can be moved to Betterment in-kind without first selling at the current provider. What to expect once we receive the transferred account and begin transitioning it into the target Betterment portfolio. What the estimated tax-impact (if any) will be to move forward with the transfer to Betterment. The above information is delivered to the customer without industry jargon, so that making an official decision is as straightforward as possible. Step 3: Executing The Plan Assuming the customer would like to proceed with a transfer to Betterment, we’ll do a final check to ensure their Betterment account is set up properly. Once everything is in order from our side, we can begin implementing the transfer plan. Since it’s likely that our team has performed transfers from the customer’s current provider to Betterment, we’re usually able to be specific about what to expect throughout the process. We’ll communicate the steps involved, the expected timeline to complete, and when possible, we’ll handle any heavy lifting. We’ll regularly check-in and once the transfer has arrived, we’ll confirm with the customer and ensure any outstanding questions are answered.

How To Decide If You Should Switch Financial Firms Taking your assets to a different firm can have a big impact on your long-term investments. Here’s how to consider if it’s worth it. In 1 minute Thinking about switching financial firms? Whether high fees are hurting your returns or your portfolio isn’t performing as well as you hoped, there can be plenty of good reasons to consider transferring your investments to a new firm. The right financial firm can help you reach your goals and feel more comfortable with your investments. Thankfully, no matter how much you have invested, you’re never “stuck” with a strategy that isn’t a good fit or no longer appropriate for your goals. Start with your financial goals. Are they decades away, or are you going to reach them in a couple years? For short-term goals, transferring isn’t always worth it. But with long-term investments, lower costs, increased tax efficiency, and automation could have an impact on long-term returns. Before you make a decision, ask yourself these five questions: Will transferring allow you to invest in better assets? If other investment options may give you higher returns, transferring could be a smart move. Is your portfolio automated? Automation can help you avoid common investor mistakes, help keep your portfolio balanced, and may offer tools to maximize potential opportunities to save on taxes. Could you pay less in fees? Fees can be harder to notice than taxes, but they vary widely from one firm to another, and they can take a big bite out of your portfolio every year. How easy is it to adjust your asset allocation and keep your portfolio up-to-date with your goals? Your assets should fit the goals you’re trying to achieve. Some firms (like Betterment) are designed to take the guesswork out of asset allocation by recommending the appropriate risk level for your goals and keep you on track via automatic rebalancing and auto-adjust features if certain criteria are met. Do you own mutual funds in a taxable account that pay capital gain distributions? Even when a mutual fund’s performance is down, you may have to pay additional taxes from capital gain distributions. Depending on how you answer those questions, you may want to consider transferring your investments. In 5 minutes In this guide we’ll: Discuss the main concerns with switching financial firms Explain situations where it could be smart to move Help you calculate the impact of transferring your assets When you’re driving, sometimes it just makes sense to change lanes. The same can be true with investing. Sometimes the firm you’ve invested with has high fees and other costs that hold you back from reaching your financial goals. Or their guidance has led to lower performance than you expected. In the right circumstances, transferring your investments could help you reach your goals sooner. But it’s not always the best strategy. Before you transfer, it helps to think through all the variables. Let’s see if switching financial firms could be a smart move for you. What’s your timeline to reach your goals? If you plan on reaching your financial goals in the next couple years, transferring may not be the best choice. You may end up paying taxes, and your portfolio won’t be spending much time at the new firm anyway. The longer you plan to hold your assets, the more valuable a transfer could be. Which is worse: taxes or fees? While qualified retirement accounts can generally be moved to a new provider without penalties or taxes, that’s not always the case for taxable accounts. One of the main barriers that keeps investors from transferring their taxable assets is that your new provider may invest in a portfolio that has different assets in it than your old provider. This forces you to sell some or all of these assets. If these investments are trading at a large gain—way above what you originally bought them for—then there may be significant tax implications of making the switch. Over a long enough timeline, annual fees can hurt your investments more than taxes. But it can be hard to think of it that way. Some fees usually kick in before returns ever hit your accounts—you may be losing money you’ve never even seen. But when you transfer your assets, capital gains taxes put a dent in funds you already possess. The decision boils down to paying more upfront in taxes to enable a switch versus staying put in a less optimal portfolio with higher expenses. Keep in mind: unless you gift your portfolio to someone else, you have to pay capital gains taxes someday anyway. But a difference in fees could quietly shave off value from your accounts every year. Tax deferral is worth something, but how much? Could you invest in better assets? Take a hard look at your returns in your current investments. Could they be better? For example, index funds tend to perform better over time than actively-managed funds. Those better returns could increase your account balance over time. Are your investments automated? If you or someone else has to manually maintain your portfolio, you can miss opportunities to improve performance. Betterment maintains your investments with features like rebalancing, dividend reinvestment, portfolio diversification, tax-efficient options, and more, that can be automated. Automation can also help you avoid reacting to market volatility and losing sight of your goal. Could you pay less in fees? Every financial institution has a different fee structure, and some cost much more than others. Between your annual advisory fees, trading fees, and other costs, you could be losing a lot more than you have to. How easy is it to adjust your allocation? As your goals change, you get closer to reaching them, or the market becomes more volatile, you may want to adjust your asset allocation. But how that works and how easy it is to do varies from one firm to another. At Betterment, you can easily make adjustments in the app, and we’ll even help you choose an appropriate allocation for your goals. Some firms allow you to manage your account yourself and choose from thousands of investment options, but it can be challenging or time consuming to do so. Others offer managed accounts with limited options and flexibility and they may have transaction and commission fees. If your firm makes it difficult or confusing to change your allocation, you may want to consider switching to a firm that provides a better experience. Do you own mutual funds in a taxable account that pay capital gains distributions? Mutual funds invest in individual stocks and bonds. When a mutual fund manager sells investments in the fund, they may realize capital gains, which they’ll pass to individual shareholders—investors like you. You pay taxes on these distributions. Less ideal: mutual funds can pay out capital gain distributions even if the fund’s overall performance is down for a year. If the taxes you’d owe from selling your investments are lower than the taxes you’d pay on the annual, and likely ongoing, capital gain distribution from the fund, it could be wise to sell your shares before the distribution is paid out.

How to navigate the sunk cost fallacy And bring your old, underperforming investments to Betterment Let’s say you love Betterment. (The feeling’s mutual, by the way.) You have some old investments lying around, investments you’re leaning toward moving over here, but you can’t bring yourself to do it. Why? They’ve lost value as of late, and they’re now worth less than what you paid for them. In this scenario, you’re dealing with a dangerous animal: The sunk cost fallacy. Also known as the “breakeven” fallacy, it’s a phenomenon we’ve all likely experienced at some point. It's hard to sell anything at a loss, be they stocks, bonds, or Beanie Babies. Advisors often rely on hard facts to combat this thinking. For example: Did you know that an asset experiencing a 50% loss must see a 100% gain just to be made whole? That’s a long way to go. But most fallacies aren’t successfully fought with facts. Because we’re all human, and we often make decisions based on emotions. So here are two simple tips that can help you lean into these feelings, hurdle this mental roadblock, and give your old investments new life. Reframe the narrative Thinking of the move as “selling your losers” or “cutting your losses” is a surefire way to trigger feelings of loss aversion. It’s also a little overstated in this circumstance. Unlike selling your Beanie Baby collection, moving your old investments to your preferred broker isn’t swearing off the concept of investing altogether. You’re selling these stocks and bonds, yes. But that’s in order to buy other stocks and bonds with a different strategy for growth moving forward. Better yet, when you invest with Betterment, those new assets you just bought come with some shiny new bells and whistles. Features like automated rebalancing and tax-smart trading. Benefits designed to help maximize your returns. The longer you wait, the less time you have to use them. So think of the move in positive terms. You're not selling your losers and calling it quits. You're swapping them for a new strategy. Use reverse psychology If your brain’s going to insist on avoiding losses, let’s use that aversion against it. You can do that by shining a spotlight on the less obvious losses that could be slowly eating away at your old investments: fees and taxes. It’s 2024 AD, and it’s still pretty standard for advisors to charge 4 times the amount we do. That’s an extra 750 bucks vanishing for every $100,000 of investments. Then there’s the cost of the investments themselves. The average mutual fund expense ratio can be up to 5 times(!) that of the typical exchange-traded fund (ETF). Worse yet, you may have to pay taxes on a mutual fund even when the fund loses money. A loss by any other name is still a loss. And all of the examples above could be causing your old investments to bleed value. The sooner you make a switch, the sooner you can stop the bleeding.