Treasury picks BNY and Robinhood to manage Trump accounts for kids

The U.S. Treasury Department has designated Bank of New York Mellon $BK +0.94% as a financial agent to manage the initial Trump accounts, the government’s new tax-deferred investment program for children. Robinhood’s role in the arrangement will be to act as the program’s brokerage and initial trustee.

The two firms will develop a custom app for the program, Treasury said. Rather than displaying either firm’s name, the app will be built as a white-label product owned and controlled exclusively by Treasury. The financial details of the arrangement were not disclosed.

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“We are honored to be selected as financial agent for Trump Accounts,” BNY chief executive Robin Vince said in a statement. Vlad Tenev, Robinhood’s chairman and chief executive, offered his own statement, saying the company is “proud to power Trump Accounts with Robinhood’s technology, and to work alongside a historic and trusted institution like BNY.”

Treasury will retain control over the app and account operations. According to The Wall Street Journal, account holders will be able to roll over their accounts to other financial institutions within a year.

The accounts are set to open for contributions on July 4. The $1,000 seed deposit from the federal government is reserved for U.S. citizens who have a Social Security number and were born from Jan. 1, 2025, through the end of 2028. All children with a Social Security number can hold an account. Annual after-tax contributions from parents, guardians, and other individuals are capped at $5,000. Within that overall cap, employers may make pretax deposits of as much as $2,500 a year on behalf of workers’ children; the ceiling adjusts for inflation starting in 2028.

Until a child reaches 18, account assets must be held in U.S. stock index funds carrying annual fees of no more than 0.1%. According to CNBC, in the year a child turns 18, the account begins following tax rules for individual retirement accounts.

IRS figures through March 31 show that enrollments have surpassed 4 million children, approximately one-quarter of whom qualify for the $1,000 Treasury contribution. Enrollment is available through TrumpAccounts.gov or by submitting IRS Form 4547 alongside a 2025 tax return. Treasury expects to begin verifying identities in May before depositing seed funds on July 4.

Trump accounts were established under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law last July. The program has attracted pledges from several large employers, including Nvidia $NVDA -0.01%, Goldman Sachs $GS +0.38%, and Uber $UBER +0.46%, to match the Treasury’s $1,000 seed contribution for their workers’ children. BNY is among the employers that previously pledged to match the Treasury’s seed money for children of U.S. employees.

Madeline Brown, a senior policy associate at the Urban Institute, said Monday’s announcement helps clarify the program, but some questions are still unanswered. Brown pointed out, “There are certainly still questions that remain about what the interface and product will look like for account holders … and how financial planning and coaching may be integrated.” She also said, “Given that at least some participants will be new to long-term savings there is this need for advisor-type guidance.”

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