Fintech Brokerage M1 Finance Rolls Out Retirement Account Functionality

Working out a retirement plan means ensuring each of your dollars is fully invested while minimizing the fees your funds incur. Balancing these forces can be difficult for investors, so Chicago-based M1 Finance, an automated online broker, has developed a fintech solution for investors.

The company recently launched traditional, Roth and SEP IRA retirement accounts. M1 portfolios allow investors to select from a variety of ETFs and equities, and also invest using fractional shares.

“Online brokers make saving complicated and expensive, while technology-enabled robo-advisors severely limit choice,” said CEO Brian Barnes in a press release. “M1 Finance allows investors to make their own portfolios, or select from one of many pre-made portfolios, and then have every dollar fully invested automatically.”

That automatic investing will also balance portfolios for investors, according to Barnes.

“As customers save, M1 automatically invests first in underweight slices of their portfolio, rebalancing it with each contribution,” Barnes said in the release. “Further, as markets move up and down, investors can rebalance their portfolios at any time with the click of a button.”

The company includes options to roll over existing retirement accounts into M1’s platform. Barnes emphasized the ease-of-use aspect of the new features in an interview with Benzinga.

“[Essentially], you can pick your investments from general templates that follow sound investing principles, pick your own investments, or you can do some combination thereof,” said Barnes in the interview. “Then M1 automates that portfolio. We like it to be as easy to manage as a savings account where you are just depositing or withdrawing money.”