Maybe it’s all the tryptophan, but the week after Thanksgiving always seems to be one of the slower weeks of the year in adviser fintech. The holidays are officially here and many companies are riding out the end of 2022.
Fallout from FTX continued this week as former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried’s interview at the New York Times’ DealBook Summit has many convinced the entrepreneur may be guilty of fraud. While the year’s crypto meltdown has largely spared the traditional financial system, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink revealed his company has invested roughly $24 million in FTX.
Send me an email or Tweet letting me know what you think the biggest adviser tech stories of the year, or what you think will be the biggest fintech trends in 2023. We’ve got four more weeks left in the year, let’s make them good!
Salesforce shared data from its work with RBC Wealth Management, which has 2,100 financial advisers across 184 locations, as a case study of the value of its client relationship management software. The company claimed it consolidated 26 different systems into one CRM, helping to reduce maintenance costs and streamline client onboarding to a single click.
As one of the biggest business-to-business tech firms on the planet, Salesforce has been trying to grow its presence in financial services for years now. However, a criticism it routinely faces is that it is too expensive for smaller, independent wealth management firms and contains too many features useful only to the largest of institutions. This case study presents a compelling argument for using CRM as the central hub for a technology stack, but not everyone has the tech resources or budget of RBC Wealth to make full use of Salesforce.
Speaking of CRMs, Wealthbox CRM, a Salesforce competitor built for registered investment advisers and broker-dealers, announced a new integration with MaxMyInterest, a fintech providing cash management solutions for advisers. Firms using Wealthbox can now kick off the onboarding process to put clients into FDIC-protected savings accounts with yields as high as 3.83% APY.
Thanks to the Federal Reserve, cash became perhaps the best-performing asset class in 2022, as my colleague Jeff Benjamin has covered. High interest rates are likely here to stay for a while, which is opening opportunities for fintech companies like MaxMyInterest, Flourish and other cash-management-for-advisers options to grow.
CapIntel, a Toronto-based adviser fintech that entered in U.S. market in 2022, raising $11 million in funding, has seen impressive growth despite a difficult year for many technology companies. At a time when startup and established tech companies alike are announcing layoffs, CapIntel increased head count 185% to 60 people.
The company is primarily focused on automated proposal generation and attributes its growth to meeting a crucial need among wealth management firms. CapIntel received several awards for its growth in the Canadian market, but it’ll be an interesting name to keep an eye on as it tries to penetrate the U.S. market.
Compliant communications fintech company Smash hired Mike Cagle and Leander LeSure as its chief financial officer and chief people and diversity officer, respectively. Smash says it now serves 6,500 customers worldwide, including B-Ds and RIAs in the U.S.
LeSure brings more than 20 years of HR experience to Smarsh, including positions at Western Union and American Express, while Cagle most recently served as vice president of financial planning and analysis at Veeam Software, a backup-and-recovery company.
Merrill's latest hires span Colorado to Louisiana, even as industry-wide recruiting data suggests the firm is losing almost as many advisors as it gains.
The $36 million buy allegedly hid inflated books and a $50 million diversion.
“An award citing emotional distress is very unusual,” an industry executive said.
New EBRI research found workers who participated in employer financial education reported higher confidence, literacy and financial satisfaction.
Beyond operational excellence, the winning advisors of the future are the ones who can reach across multiple disciplines without discarding specialist skills.
Northern Trust’s Ken Lassner shows advisors how to convert volatility into after-tax portfolio gains
Dan Biagini of American Equity says the steady decline of pensions, longer lifespans and a reset in interest rates are rewriting how advisors build retirement income
