Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's absolutely fair when you're evaluating a potential fiduciary. I personally don't consider small regional banks secure beyond the FDIC limits for the same reason. But one of the "big guys" is fine as they're too big to fail.
> As part of the agreements with the United States Attorney’s Offices for the Central District of California and the Western District of North Carolina, the Commercial Litigation Branch of the Civil Division, and the Securities and Exchange Commission, Wells Fargo admitted that it collected millions of dollars in fees and interest to which the Company was not entitled, harmed the credit ratings of certain customers,…
I totally accept and understand that large businesses do all sorts of shady and nefarious things. What I don't expect them to do is lose all my money with no recourse. And that's not just the case because they're big, but the regulatory regimes are set up to deal with these known entities. The reason I've personally become wary of fintechs recently is because many of them want to "move fast and break things", and think they can offload all of the regulatory responsibilities to partner institutions. Like, if you're such a great fintech, why not open as an actual bank or as an actual broker dealer (note, I'm not saying that's the case here, as they are an RIA, but I don't know the protection that is entailed by that designation).
When you say "Madoff had $65B AUM", he also had like 10 employees, which is why he was able to hide the fraud for so long.