Apex partners with fintech to bring robo-advice to community banks, credit unions

Apex Fintech Solutions, the company that provides infrastructure to fintech companies like SoFi, Betterment and Altruist, wants to bring digital financial advice to community banks and credit unions.

The company announced a partnership that connects Apex Clearing Corp., the company’s digital custodian, with Unifimoney Inc., a fintech that builds digital wealth management platforms, that will let community banks and credit unions roll out self-directed trading and robo-advice to retail customers.

Unifimoney is integrated with Jack Henry Banno and Q2, and firms that use this for digital banking will be able to introduce trading and robo-advice through their existing online banking portal. It takes than less than three days and no coding; Oklahoma-based First Fidelity Bank has already gone live with the service.

The partnership will help community financial institutions keep up with increasing consumer demand for long-term wealth management, Connor Coughlin, Apex’s general manager of fintech, said in a statement.

Many of the customers served by credit unions remain underserved by the traditional wealth management industry, said Josh Book, CEO and founder of Parameter Insights. His company’s research has found that there's significant opportunity for these firms to grow a wealth management business with their existing customer base.

“Customer acquisition is most probable (and lower cost) for existing customers,” Book said in an email. “As ever, the keys to success will lie ultimately in how they execute on the offer expansion and engage customers, many of whom will be new to investing and wealth management.”

Apex isn’t the only brokerage platform looking to serve the market of regional banks and credit unions. LPL Financial has targeted the market and in November brought aboard Commerce Financial Advisers, the wealth management division of St. Louis-based Commerce Bank with 30 financial advisers and $4.4 billion.

Unifimoney ultimately chose Apex for its market experience, product mix, compliance procedures and understanding of community financial institutions, Unifimoney CEO Ben Soppitt said in a statement.

“We took great care and time in choosing the brokerage platform needed to support what are some of the most heavily regulated financial companies in the world,” Soppitt said.

The companies were unable to respond to a request for additional comment.

Large banks and wirehouses have used technology to keep assets with the firm rather than a third-party brokerage. Firms like Morgan Stanley and Bank of America Merrill Lynch have built expansive digital platforms aimed at serving as wide a range of investors as possible.

However, large firms haven't all been successful at penetrating the market of smaller investors served by regional financial institutions. Goldman Sachs' plans for the Marcus brand have stalled, and the company announced Monday that it would cut hundreds of positions retail operations. UBS Group Chairman Colm Kelleher said in November that the bank would retreat from trying to serve smaller investors after its deal for robo-adviser Wealthfront fell apart.

[More: J.P. Morgan, Charles Schwab and Edward Jones deliver best mobile wealth management apps: J.D. Power]