Hey adviser fintech folks, where is everyone?
I know it’s the end of July, but my inbox is quiet — too quiet. Don’t you folks have integrations and acquisitions to announce?
I did hear from Riskalyze CEO Aaron Klein this week, who told me about the company’s new executive leadership team and its strategy to work more with large wealth management firms.
BPAS, a Utica, New York-based fund administrator and provider of retirement and benefit plans, updated its financial planning tool. and Oaks, Pennsylvania-based asset manager SEI launched a digital practice management hub for independent advisers. TradeStation, an online securities and futures brokerage, was slapped with a $425,000 fine for lax identify theft prevention.
Here's the rest of the week’s news from the adviser fintech companies who aren’t on vacation.
Advisor Circle, a product and content studio for the financial services industry, and Ritholtz Wealth Management have whittled down more than 100 applicants to a final list of 10 fintech companies that will demonstrate their technology to attendees of the FutureProof event in September. The list contains startups, new products from established firms and some cutting-edge features from widely adopted fintech firms.
If you’ve ever been to a tech demo event — and if you haven’t, definitely check out this parody of TechCrunch’s infamous Disrupt competition — you’d know that it's unusual to see brand-new startups alongside established providers. It will be interesting to see what companies like Intelliflo’s RedBlack and WealthAccess have cooked up to take the place of a new startup.
Adviser fintech company Tifin announced a new partnership to make its suite of software available to the 60,000 financial professionals on the Chalice Network. Advisers will get preferred pricing, and the Chalice team will promote Tifin’s investment personalization and digital marketing tools within the network marketplace.
This is obviously a big win for the growing adviser fintech provider. Earlier in July, when the company acquired SharingAlpha to expand its presence internationally, I wondered how many customers it's getting outside of the acquisitions. While it remains to be seen how many of Chalice’s 60,000 (including CPAs and attorneys as well as financial advisers) will adopt Tifin’s tech, it still a significant exposure opportunity.
Back-office automation company Docupace had enhanced its integration with Envestnet to improve the digital account-opening process for managed accounts. Advisers can create a proposal within Docupace, move into the Envestnet dashboard via a single sign-on to work on draft items, send a completed proposal with a single click and automatically initiate the funding process.
It’s kind of crazy to think about just how fragmented much of wealth management still is in 2022. Even tasks as critical to the job as opening accounts are paper-based for many advisers or require manual reentry of data, which opens opportunities to make mistakes. Integrations like this are a step in the right direction, but it's up to advisers to actually take advantage of them.
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