Max introduces private banking solutions

For financial advisors, there's often a natural incentive to go "upmarket" with their services to higher-net-worth clients: The higher clients go up on the spectrum, the more complex planning issues around things like taxes and estate that they encounter, and the more they're willing to pay someone who can help them solve those problems. Hence, advisors who seek to work in the HNW or UHNW space build deep expertise in topics like executive compensation, complex trust planning, and charitable giving strategies to help them stand out.

But there's a different thing besides planning expertise that financial advisors can provide to clients as they go up the income and net worth scale: Access to products and services that aren't available (or practical) to 'mere' HNW or mass affluent clients. Hence, for example, many of the financial advisors that UHNW clients work with are at private banks, where the advisors can not only help them solve their complex planning issues, but also get the client access to a universe of banking services like bespoke loan products and cash accounts with higher yields than can be found on the retail market.

This can be a problem for independent RIAs who aren't affiliated with a private bank. They can't offer those products themselves because they aren't banks themselves. And while advisors could try to develop referral relationships with private bankers to send their clients when the need arises, there's no guarantee that the bank won't turn around and pitch the client on their own wealth management services.

It's notable, then, that Max (formerly MaxMyInterest) has introduced a new private banking solution specifically for UHNW clients of RIAs. At its core, the new product offers cash management and borrowing solutions tailored to UHNW clients, but also includes advisor-specific features like an advisor-branded client portal, flexibility to choose which products to make available to clients, and integrations with advisor-specific CRMs, portfolio management platforms, and financial planning software.

Max already has a history of creating innovative solutions for HNW advisory clients. Their flagship product, the original MaxMyInterest, was all about spreading cash around to different (retail) banks in order to maximize the client's cash yield while maintaining full FDIC coverage – which caps out at $250,000 per customer per bank, meaning that was only really relevant to clients who planned to keep more than $250,000 in cash, which is already a fairly upper tier of net worth. The new private banking solution seems to aim even more upstream into UHNW territory (explicitly including "yacht loans" as a feature of its product, to give a sense of the tier of clientele it's targeting). In other words, Max is aiming for a fairly narrow slice of the RIA market – but even just a handful of RIAs signing up their $100 million+ clients for private banking services would likely make the venture worthwhile.

At one level, this is a continuation of the story of RIAs moving upstream into ever-higher-net-worth territory, and evolving their product and service offerings to adapt to those clients' needs. If advisors expect UHNW clients to choose them over a wirehouse broker-dealer or private bank advisor, they need to have product and services that are competitive with what those advisors would be able to provide. Akin to the handful of advisor-friendly corporate trustees in the marketplace, providers like Max recognize the opportunity that exists to outsource the things like lending that independent advisors can't do on their own (and won't try to steal the advisor's clients while doing so).

But on the opposite side of the coin, the demand for products like Max's private banking suggests that UHNW clients really are starting to go to independent RIAs, even though they don't have direct access to the kinds of proprietary products and services that private bankers do. Which in turn implies that at the end of the day, for many clients (even UHNW ones), planning expertise is the primary factor in choosing an advisor, and access to products and services (while still having some importance) is a secondary concern. But as the upstream movement of advisors continues, there's likely going to be opportunities to have the best of both worlds: The in-depth planning expertise at the core, plus a growing number of banking and trust products that the advisor can offer (without being a banker or corporate trustee themselves). 

This article first appeared on the Nerd’s Eye View at Kitces.com at https://kitc.es/advisortech-march2026, and has been reprinted here with permission.

Ben Henry-Moreland 

Ben Henry-Moreland is a Senior Financial Planning Nerd at Kitces.com, where he specializes in writing and speaking on financial planning topics including tax, practice management, and technology. He also co-authors the monthly Kitces #AdvisorTech column. Drawing from his experience as a financial planner and a solo advisory firm owner, Ben is passionate about fulfilling the site’s mission of making financial advicers better and more successful.

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Michael Kitces

Michael Kitces is Head of Planning Strategy at Focus Partners Wealth, which provides an evidence-based approach to private wealth management for near- and current retirees, and Focus Partners Advisor Solutions, a turnkey wealth management services provider supporting thousands of independent financial advisors through the scaling phase of growth.

In addition, he is a co-founder of the XY Planning Network, AdvicePay, fpPathfinder, and New Planner Recruiting, the former Practitioner Editor of the Journal of Financial Planning, the host of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, and the publisher of the popular financial planning industry blog Nerd’s Eye View through his website Kitces.com, dedicated to advancing knowledge in financial planning. In 2010, Michael was recognized with one of the FPA’s “Heart of Financial Planning” awards for his dedication and work in advancing the profession.

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