Banking Briefing: UBS buys Wealthfront
- This week: UBS buys Wealthfront, a digital US dollar may be on the way, and Tearsheet's Challengers Podcast is back
- What a crazy month it's been in the world of banking -- and crazier still is that it's just the first month

A few days ago, Swiss bank UBS announced it was acquiring automated wealth-management provider Wealthfront in an all-cash deal of $1.4 billion, making it the biggest robo-advisor acquisition in history.
Wealthfront will be operated as a wholly owned subsidiary of UBS, run within UBS Global Wealth Management Americas.
The acquisition comes following UBS’s statement in October that as part of its 2025 vision, it wanted to create a digitally scalable advice model that would target affluent clients in the Americas with up to $2 million to invest. That same month, UBS had its most profitable quarter for wealth management, reaching $1.5 billion of pre-tax profits – over 40% more than last year.
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