On March 2, 2026, Charles Schwab completed its purchase of Forge Global, a marketplace where investors buy and sell shares of private companies, paying $45 cash per share in a deal announced the previous November at about $660 million. [1][2] Schwab's chief executive said that "helping more people participate directly in the growth of private companies is a meaningful opportunity." [1]


Read the same press release for who may use Forge today. Only accredited investors, qualified clients and qualified purchasers. [1] Schwab has said it will introduce Forge's products to more individual investors "over time." [1] It has not said it will open them to people who are not accredited.


Now the second event. On September 30, 2026, the three sitting SEC commissioners voted unanimously to put out for comment a rule that would let a person become an accredited investor by passing an exam developed with FINRA, or by holding a credential such as CPA, CFA or CFP. [3] Today the test is money: $1 million in assets outside the home, or $200,000 in income for two years running ($300,000 for a couple). [3] In 2022, 24.3 million US households, 18.5 percent, met it. [3] This is a proposal; the comment period has not run and the rule is not final. [3]


Put the two together and the claim of this piece follows: private-market access has a door and a gate, and one year has rebuilt both. The door is who sells the shares. Schwab bought one. The gate is who may walk through. The SEC proposes to change what opens it, from wealth to knowledge.


What neither move settles is the part that decides the outcome. A door and a gate say who may buy. They do not say who is offered the shares that are worth buying, at what price, or how early. In my reading, access to a marketplace is not access to the best allocations, and a rule that tests knowledge helps most the person who already has time and teachers to prepare for the test. I have not found a source that measures either point; they are my interpretation of how gated markets tend to work.


For an investor, this is a diligence habit for any product sold as access: ask which of the three is being opened. The door, the gate, or the allocation. A company that announces the first and implies the third has told you less than it seems.


Sources



  1. Charles Schwab Completes Acquisition of Forge Global, Schwab press release, March 2, 2026

  2. Charles Schwab to Acquire Forge Global, Creating Premier Destination to Democratize Access to Private Markets, Business Wire, November 6, 2025

  3. SEC rule would let investors take exam to qualify as accredited, American Banker, September 30, 2026


The reading that a marketplace is not access to the best allocations, and that a knowledge test favors people with time and teachers, is the author's interpretation and is not established by the sources. The SEC measure is a proposal, not a rule. This is not investment advice.