Tax-advantaged retirement accounts. Defer the tax; force the saving.
It is a financial instrument.
It exists to relieve Retirement is now visible and must be funded from what remains, Peak earning is peak taxation, Will the money last as long as the life and Money must arrive every month without a job. That is the whole reason it is here: nothing enters this map without a human problem behind it.
It could not exist without Retirement tax law and Capital markets. These are the quiet preconditions — remove any one and the solution stops working.
Solving that problem created new ones: Retirement savings are exposed to the market. Follow those and you find the next generation of products built on top of this one.
18 organisations in this map sell it, 11 of them publicly listed.
Its neighbourhood
Everything this entry connects to directly. Click any point to follow it.
The line back to a human being
2 hops from a person at a phase of life. The further a thing sits from the person, the more abstract it looks — and the more it tends to be mistaken for something that came from nowhere.
- SolutionTax-advantaged retirement accounts
- FrictionRetirement is now visible and must be funded from what remains
- Life phaseMidlife
- Rooted inScarce resources
- Rooted inUncertainty
Relieves
Created these new problems
Second-order frictions. This is where most of the modern economy actually lives.
Requires
Who sells it
| Organisation | Value | Type | Products |
|---|---|---|---|
| Morgan Stanley | $240B | public · MS | wealth management, E*TRADE, investment banking |
| Royal Bank of Canada | $190B | public · RY | mortgages, wealth management, City National |
| Charles Schwab | $170B | public · SCHW | brokerage, IRAs, Intelligent Portfolios |
| BlackRock | $160B | public · BLK | iShares ETFs, LifePath target-date funds, Aladdin |
| Robinhood Markets | $100B | public · HOOD | commission-free brokerage, crypto, tokenised stocks |
| Interactive Brokers | $100B | public · IBKR | brokerage, ForecastEx prediction markets |
| Manulife | $55B | public · MFC | life, John Hancock, long-term care block |
| Aviva | $25B | public · AV. | life, pensions, general insurance |
| T. Rowe Price | $22B | public · TROW | target-date funds, 401(k) plans |
| Legal & General | $18B | public · LGEN | annuities, pension risk transfer, asset management |
| Corebridge Financial | $18B | public · CRBG | annuities, retirement plans |
| Betterment | $1.3B | private | robo-advisor, IRAs, 401(k) for small business |
| Guideline | $1.15B | private | 401(k) for small businesses |
| Vanguard | mutual | index funds, target-date funds, 529 plans | |
| Fidelity Investments | private | 401(k) recordkeeping, brokerage, index funds | |
| Empower | private | 401(k) recordkeeping, retirement planning | |
| Internal Revenue Service | government | Child Tax Credit, dependent care credit, 401(k) and 529 rules | |
| TIAA | nonprofit | retirement plans for educators, Nuveen |