Day two of the NAPFA Technology Conference has been exhausting.  Admittedly, I was up late last night, but digesting the volume of information and resources highlighted today is something I’d compare to drinking water from a fire hose.  So here it is, a recap of day two:

If you haven’t seen a Tamarac demo, DO IT NOW!  If your firm trades on a consistent basis (e.g. over 2,000 trades a year or so), Tamarac will save time, reduce mistakes, and facilitate compliance.

Tamarac is poised to give 3rd party money managers a run for their money.

I recommend requesting a demonstration of the program.  Connor Wilson presented for this conference, and he has deep knowledge of the program yet is able to explain its complex features with ease (note: I receive no compensation whatsoever for saying this, as noted in my About page).

Next up was Steve Ryder of True North Networks, LLC.  He presented on document management and the protection of sensitive data.  He mentioned many tools and services available that are essential in order to maintain security and integrity of financial advisory firm data.

Steve’s presentation was followed by Hussien Fawaz (TheMoneyGeek on Twitter) from YDream Financial Services who spoke about cool tools and virtual technologies.  There were TONS of applications and services mentioned and demonstrated in this resource-packed session.  I’m just scratching the surface by highlighting the following tools:

• GrandCentral
• DropBox
• TrueCrypt
• CrossLoop
• Launchy
• Ultramon

Finally, my last session before writing this post was delivered by Shawn Brayman of PlanPlus, Inc.

Look out financial planners; what Shawn has to say (and has been saying for some time, all while backing it up with research) will turn the financial services industry on its head.

So what did he say?

We [financial planners] really suck at predicting the future

In Shawn’s view, financial planning is still a cottage industry where planners can’t agree on anything!  He also professed that the fees charged by the industry are unsupportable in the long term.

This was definitely a controversial topic, especially considering today’s skepticism consumers have of the financial services industry.

Stay tuned for coverage of day three and my final recap of the conference.

View more reports from the NAPFA Technology Conference:

NAPFA Technology Conference Report: Day Three

NAPFA Technology Conference Report: Day One 

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This entry was posted on Thursday, October 23rd, 2008 at 4:39 pm and is filed under Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.