Opening accounts, performing KYC and AML, and funding accounts

The first step of bringing our plan to life is to open an investment account where your money will be placed and, once investments have been made, where any investment products will be held.

Investment accounts are just like bank accounts, but in addition to holding cash, they can hold various types of investments. Financial institutions providing such investment accounts are called custodians. While many banks are also custodians, there are many specialists that provide such services, including some online brokers and even a few Robo-advisors. Generally speaking, the complexities of custody are not part of this book, so we will assume a third-party custodian to manage our accounts. For the sake of simplicity, we will assume our broker and custodian are one and the same financial institution.

Automated account opening

As we established in Chapter 1, Introduction to Robo-Advisors, a key consideration for any Robo...