LinkedFA reboots as closed platform for advisers

A social network designed to enable advisers to communicate more easily with their clients is being reborn this week as a closed platform for advisers to communicate with one another. The firm FA today Inc. has acquired the platform linkedFA and is rebuilding it as a news and information portal for independent advisers, as well as a forum for those advisers to discuss practice management and other issues, said Jason Bishara, who founded linkedFA and is now president of FA today. An official announcement is scheduled for tomorrow, Mr. Bishara said. FA today is designed to harness reams of data gathered on each adviser in order to provide relevant news and connections to other advisers. Advisers enter their name, e-mail and a CRD registration number. The website then compiles a profile on each adviser with data such as company name and custodian, the types of products sold, client type and fee structure, as well as licenses and designations. The site was rebuilt because advisers were not using it to communicate with their clients but with one another, Mr. Bishara said. The site restricts full membership to independent advisers, although there is a “breakaway” group to encourage advisers with the wirehouse brokerages to go independent. Some 12,000 advisers have been transitioned from linkedFA to the new platform, Mr. Bishara said.