The All-in-One Advisor Is Dying — Here's What’s Replacing It

A decade ago, your financial life lived inside one relationship. You had a financial advisor who handled your portfolio, offered some light tax tips, maybe helped with insurance, and made sure your plan looked good on paper.

That model still exists — but it’s quickly becoming obsolete. Today, the wealth management landscape is being unbundled and rebuilt as modular, API-first components.

Clients expect digital-first tools, personalization, and transparency. Fintech founders want to build leaner, faster, and smarter. And forward-thinking advisors know that trying to do everything in-house is a recipe for burnout — not scale. Just like traditional banking gave way to modern fintech stacks (Stripe, Plaid, Brex, etc.), the same shift is happening in wealth management.

What Is the “Unbundling” of Wealth Management?

Unbundling refers to the breakdown of the traditional, full-service advisor model into discrete, best-in-class tools that specialize in one function — and do it better than the old-school “all-in-one” firm.

Think of it like replacing the cable package with Netflix, Hulu, and Spotify.

Here’s what’s happening:

Why Modular Beats Monolithic

The shift isn’t just aesthetic. It’s strategic.

1. Faster Innovation

Each component in the stack is focused on a single problem. That means faster product development, tighter feedback loops, and constant upgrades.

2. More Flexibility

Advisors and fintech builders can choose what they need, skip what they don’t, and swap out tools as their business evolves.

3. Lower Cost to Build

You don’t need a dev team to build an investment engine or compliance tool from scratch. You just plug into one that already exists — like Surmount for automated portfolio strategies.

4. Better Client Experience

Your clients get a seamless, modern digital experience — not clunky PDFs and “We’ll email you next quarter” vibes.

How This Impacts RIAs, Wealth Firms, and Fintech Teams

If You’re an RIA:

You don’t need to become a tech company to stay competitive. You just need a smarter stack.

Outsource portfolio automation to Surmount, use a planning tool like Elements or RightCapital, and focus your energy where it matters — on relationships, education, and planning.

If You’re a Fintech Product Team:

You don’t need to build a fully licensed investing platform. You can embed investing as a feature — and Surmount becomes your backend.

Let your users allocate into proven, backtested strategies through their existing brokerage accounts, all white-labeled or via API.

This is what modern fintech infra looks like.

Modular Wealth Management in Action

Here’s a hypothetical (but realistic) modern stack:

Use Case: A digital financial wellness app for millennial users wants to offer investing, planning, and cash flow management.

Stack:

• Investing: Surmount for strategy automation

• Planning: Elements for dynamic planning tools

• Custody: Apex for account management

• Tax: Holistiplan to offer value-added tax insights

• UX Layer: Custom frontend with embedded widgets

Time to build: 6–8 weeks.
Dev team required: Minimal.
Compliance headache: Significantly reduced.

This is what used to take Merrill or Schwab years and millions to build. Now it’s plug-and-play.

The Next Decade Belongs to Integrators

The biggest winners in wealth tech won’t be the firms who try to build every feature.

They’ll be the ones who integrate the right tools.

Modular investing is already here — and Surmount is powering the automation layer for a new class of firms that want speed, scalability, and simplicity.

If you're building the future of financial services, ask yourself:

• What are we building from scratch that we could plug in?

• Are we bundling too much under one roof?

• Could our clients benefit from a better experience with less internal overhead?

Want to See Modular Wealth in Action?

If you're an RIA, fintech builder, or advisor-led firm looking to modernize your stack, Surmount can help you launch automated investing without touching a line of code.

• Launch in weeks, not months

• Offer backtested strategies

• Keep full transparency and client control

• Avoid hiring quants, PMs, and engineers

Book a 1:1 strategy call or explore our integrations to see how it works.

SEC Disclaimer:The information presented is for educational purposes only and not an offer or solicitation for any specific investments. Investments involve risk and are not guaranteed. Consult with a financial adviser before making any investment decisions. Past performance does not guarantee future results.