pari
Canonical facts
Every number, with its source
Several quantities in this space are legitimately measured more than one way. This is the single reference: what each figure actually measures, the period it covers, and where it comes from.
If you have seen two different numbers for the same thing,
both are probably right and they are measuring different things. The most common example:
the US wealth transfer is quoted as both $124 trillion and
$84 trillion. These are not competing estimates. $124 trillion is
Cerulli's projection through 2048; roughly $84 trillion of it is expected over the next two
decades. An older Cerulli figure of ~$84 trillion through 2045 also circulates, which is
why the confusion persists.
Pari's house rule: link the primary source, label an estimate as an estimate, and never restate a figure without its definition. Every number below is one we use, and this page is the version of record.
Family lending, United States
| Figure | What it measures | Period |
|---|---|---|
| $200-400B | Estimated annual US intra-family loan originations: what families lend to one another in a year, across housing help, tuition, bills and business capital. This is Pari's working figure and it is an estimate, not a measured series. No US agency publishes one. It is synthesised from the measured components below, which bracket it. Consolidated, that volume would rank among the largest sources of consumer credit in the country.Source: Pari estimate, from the sources below | Annual, current |
| $317B | Value of US property purchases supported by a gift or loan from family or friends, which would have ranked the Bank of Mom and Dad as the 7th-largest US housing lender. Housing only, so it is a component of the range above and not the whole of it. Note that this figure is unrelated to any Pari pipeline or AUM number.Source: Legal & General | Calendar 2018, published 2019 |
| ~$500B | Estimated annual transfers from boomer and Gen X parents to their adult children, roughly twice what the same parents contribute to their own retirement accounts.Source: Merrill Lynch and Age Wave | Annual estimate |
| $48.6B | Voluntary financial support recorded flowing to individuals outside the provider's household, of which $17.6B went to adult children. A floor, not a total: it captures only what respondents reported as support.Source: US Census Bureau, SIPP | Single survey year |
| 22% | Share of first-time home buyers who funded part of their down payment through a gift or loan from a relative or friend.Source: National Association of Realtors | 2025 |
| 40 | Median age of a US first-time home buyer, a record high since tracking began in 1981.Source: National Association of Realtors | 2025 |
| 21% | First-time buyers as a share of all home buyers, a record low.Source: National Association of Realtors | 2025 |
The wealth transfer
| Figure | What it measures | Period |
|---|---|---|
| $124T | Projected US intergenerational wealth transfer. This is the current Cerulli figure and it supersedes the earlier ~$84T through 2045 estimate, which is why both numbers circulate.Source: Cerulli Associates, December 2024 | Through 2048 |
| ~$84T | The portion of the above expected to move over roughly the next two decades. Same projection, shorter horizon. Not a competing estimate.Source: Cerulli Associates | Next ~20 years |
| 2% | Share of households projected to transfer more than half of the total. The transfer is highly concentrated.Source: Cerulli Associates | Through 2048 |
The advisor channel
| Figure | What it measures | Period |
|---|---|---|
| 16,544 | SEC-registered investment advisers at year-end 2025, up 674 firms or 4.2% over 2024.Source: Investment Adviser Association and Comply | Year-end 2025 |
| $424M | Average regulatory AUM of an adviser focused on individual clients, typically a firm of about 8 employees.Source: Investment Adviser Association and Comply | Year-end 2025 |
| 97% | Self-reported average annual client retention among RIAs. Describes the living client, not the transfer event.Source: Charles Schwab RIA Benchmarking Study | 2024 |
| >70% | Heirs likely to fire or change financial advisors after inheriting.Source: Cerulli Associates | Survey |
| 27% / 20% | Future beneficiaries who plan to keep their benefactor's advisor, falling to 20% among those who have already inherited. Only 10% cite unmet investment needs; 50% already had their own advisor and 28% had no relationship with the benefactor's advisor.Source: Cerulli Associates, via CNBC | October 2025 |
| 41% / 22% | US advisors who regard the wealth transfer as an existential threat to their practice, and those who report having already lost significant assets to generational attrition.Source: Natixis Investment Managers | April 2026 |
| 78% | Rate at which US advisors retain assets when a spouse inherits, against a much lower rate down a generation. This is where the leak is located.Source: Natixis Investment Managers | April 2026 |
What informality costs
| Figure | What it measures | Period |
|---|---|---|
| 44% / 26% | Among US adults who lent money or fronted a shared expense expecting repayment, those who lost money outright and those whose relationship was damaged.Source: Bankrate Financial Taboos Survey | 2025 |
| ~99% | Repayment rate reported in formalised, socially embedded lending circles. Evidence that structure, not wealth, drives the outcome.Source: Mission Asset Fund | Program to date |
| 168 pts | Average credit-score improvement among participants in formalised lending circles, produced by documentation and reporting rather than by capital.Source: Mission Asset Fund | Program to date |
The comparison set
| Figure | What it measures | Period |
|---|---|---|
| $350-$756 | Reported and estimated cost to acquire a single borrower in consumer marketplace lending. SoFi spent roughly $756 per acquired customer in 2017; LendingClub and Prosper were estimated at $350 to $450.Source: Fast Company; LendingClub Form 10-K | 2017-2018 |
| -4.1% | Mean internal rate of return on a Prosper retail lender's portfolio in the 2008 cohort. The median lender funded 6 loans totalling about $350.Source: Kawai, Onishi and Uetake, NBER | 2008 cohort |
| 3,464 to 343 | Active Chinese peer-to-peer platforms, 2015 to 2019, before the sector was closed by the regulator. Roughly 15% of the 6,000-plus platforms ever established survived.Source: Crime, Law and Social Change | 2015-2019 |
| $6.0B / $31.5B | Airbnb's accumulated deficit at year-end 2020 and Uber's cumulative operating losses through 2022: the measured price of manufacturing a behaviour that did not previously exist.Source: Company filings | To first profit |
| 4,336 | FDIC-insured depository institutions today, against 14,496 at the 1984 peak, with fewer than ten new charters a year.Source: FDIC | Current |
Pari's own metrics, defined
Three different quantities appear in Pari materials and they measure three different things. Values are reported on the advisor page and in the data room rather than here, but the definitions belong on this page so that no two of them can be read as the same number.
- Annual intra-family loan origination volume The size of the market: what all US families lend to one another in a year. Nothing to do with Pari's own activity. Market size · $200-400B · estimate
- Pilot commitment Assets under management at advisory firms that have signed a letter of intent to run a pilot. It measures signed intent, not revenue and not assets on the Pari platform. Letters of intent are non-binding. Signed intent · value reported in the data room
- Pipeline AUM Combined assets under management of every advisory firm currently in the pipeline, including firms in early conversation. It is the reach of the pipeline, not a commitment and not a forecast. This is the figure the live map on the advisor page reports. Pipeline reach · live from the internal dashboard
A firm counted in pipeline AUM has not necessarily signed anything, and a dollar counted in any Pari metric is not a dollar of revenue. None of the three is a subset of the market figure, because the market figure measures annual lending flow and the other two measure assets under management at firms.
The legal frame
Below-market family loans have been governed by Internal Revenue Code Section 7872 since 1984, following the Supreme Court's holding in Dickman v. Commissioner that the right to receive interest is itself a valuable property right. Charge below the Applicable Federal Rate, published monthly by the IRS, and the shortfall is imputed and treated as a gift. The AFR tracks Treasury yields, which is why a compliant family rate sits far below both commercial credit pricing and any state usury ceiling.
Tax figures change annually. Anything tax-adjacent on this site is dated and carries a not-advice disclaimer, and families should consult their own advisors.
A note on method
- Where a range exists, we publish the range and the definition rather than picking the flattering end.
- Estimates are labelled as estimates. Projections are labelled with their horizon.
- Third-party data has not been independently verified by Pari.
- Figures drawn from a single survey or a single vendor snapshot document a condition, not a constant.
The rest of the briefing
Analyst briefingWhat Pari is, and the thesis in fullObjectionsEvery standard doubt, answered directlyThe graveyardWhy peer-to-peer lending failed, mode by mode
Informational only. Not investment, legal or tax advice.