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FPPad Bits and Bytes for October 21, 2016

Posted on October 21, 2016 by in Bits & Bytes

On today’s broadcast, the World’s Most Famous Hacker shares his top cybersecurity tips, Fidelity previews its next-generation advisor technology platform, and get rapid-fire news from three of the fastest-growing portfolio management providers.

So get ready, FPPad Bits and Bytes begins now!

(Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes on YouTube)

Today’s episode is brought to you by Envestnet | Tamarac, providers of Advisor Xi, an industry-leading fully integrated web-based suite for RIAs. Tamarac’s Advisor Xi unifies portfolio management, modeling, rebalancing, trading, billing, and reporting with a fully customizable client portal and enterprise-grade CRM.

envestnet-tamarac-600

If you’re going to Schwab IMPACT next week, be sure you make some time to visit the Envestnet |Tamarac booth for a live demo on their latest client portal and financial planning capabilities.

Here are the links to this week’s top stories:

See the #topsecurityshow tweets from Kevin Mitnick’s cybersecurity presentation

[Now continuing with the National Cyber Security Awareness theme this month, my first story is about Kevin Mitnick, the World’s Most Famous Hacker, as he presented some jaw-dropping examples of cyber and social engineering attacks that are being used today to compromise businesses of all kinds, including financial advisory firms.

Envision Consulting hosted the event in Washington DC and brought me in as the master of ceremonies, so I wanted to be sure I shared my top three takeaways with you.

First, Mitnick advised that none of the computers in your business or home should have any kind of peer-to-peer sharing software installed. This software is usually used to download pirated movies and music across peer-to-peer networks, so while you might not be downloading any pirated content, it’s possible that some of your colleagues or even your kids are doing so.

Mitnick said that some peer-to-peer software exposes the contents of a computer’s ENTIRE hard drive to the sharing network without the user’s knowledge, which is never a good thing, so you need to be sure it’s not installed on any of your systems.

Second, Mitnick showed how hackers can use a custom wireless access point to mimic public WiFi hotspots and perform man-in-the-middle attacks on your devices. For about $100, hackers broadcast their own hotspot pretending to be attwifi or free airport wifi, wait for your device to automatically connect, and then intercept the data your device sends back and forth.

So whenever you’re in a public place, turn your wifi connection off and use your mobile carrier’s network, or if you must connect to an untrusted WiFi network, use a virtual private network, or VPN, to encrypt the traffic sent to and from your device.

And third, instead of opening email attachments directly with Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat, consider using Google’s file preview built into the Chrome browser. This way, you won’t risk executing what Mitnick calls “weaponized” files, because Chrome will render a preview of the document in the web browser first, helping you determine if the file looks legitimate or if it seems suspicious. You can check the plugin settings in Chrome to see if the PDF viewer is enabled for your computer.]

Fidelity® Goes to Market with Next-Generation Advisor Technology Platform from BusinessWire

[Next up is news from Fidelity Investments, as the company offered a preview of its automated investment solution for advisors called the Fidelity Automated Managed Platform, a solution co-developed with eMoney Advisor expected to be in pilot in the late first quarter of 2017.

Now if you take a look at the linked article, you’ll see a few screenshots of the solution powered by the eMoney online experience, so this doesn’t appear to be a repackaged version of Fidelity Go that is offered to retail clients, and the portfolio allocations are the same as those in Fidelity Go which are managed by the sub-advisor Geode Capital Management.

Unfortunately the preview didn’t cover any specific pricing of the Fidelity Automated Managed Platform, and advisors not already using eMoney will have to purchase at least the eMX Select subscription that’s somewhere around $1,500 to $2,000 per year, which is an interesting way to get advisors to buy more eMoney subscriptions. The press release also includes descriptions of the coming Wealthscape total advisor platform, Wealthscape Portfolio Tools, Wealthscape Regulatory Early Warning, and more. There’s a lot to take in from the press release, so be sure to follow the link included with this week’s top stories if you want to get completely up to speed.]

Envestnet | Tamarac Offers Goals-Based Reporting in Advisor View™ & Client Portal from PRNewswire, and

BAM Advisor Services Selects Orion as Exclusive Portfolio Accounting Software for RIAs from Marketwired, and

Addepar Surpasses $500 Billion in Assets and Opens Platform API for Integrations from PRNewswire

[And I’m running out of time, so let me finish with a rapid-fire update that starts with Envestnet | Tamarac, as their Advisor View client portal integration with MoneyGuidePro is now officially in production, then Orion Advisor Services, as the company announced a partnership with BAM Advisor Services to provide portfolio management software services to their collective $27 billion dollars in assets, and finish with a surprise update from Addepar, which used a rare press release to announce that the company surpassed $500 billion in assets managed on its platform and the rollout of the Addepar Open API for third party developers.]

 

Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes for October 21, 2016

Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes for October 21, 2016

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FPPad Bits and Bytes for October 14, 2016

Posted on October 14, 2016 by in Bits & Bytes

On today’s broadcast, one Wells Fargo broker loses her job after a client spoofing attack, Envestnet acquires Wheelhouse Analytics, and another day, another new robo advisor.

So get ready, FPPad Bits and Bytes begins now!

(Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes on YouTube)

Today’s episode is brought to you by Envestnet | Tamarac, providers of Advisor Xi, an industry-leading fully integrated web-based suite for RIAs. Tamarac’s Advisor Xi unifies portfolio management, modeling, rebalancing, trading, billing, and reporting with a fully customizable client portal and enterprise-grade CRM.

envestnet-tamarac-600

On October 20th, two innovative and rapidly growing firms will share how they leveraged the Advisor Xi Suite in their business during an interactive webinar. Space is limited, so secure your spot today by visiting http://fppad.com/tamarac

Here are the links to this week’s top stories:

FINRA Disciplinary Action for Kathleen Kincade (enter Kathleen Kincade in the Individual Name search field)

[Now October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month, so my first story is about an unfortunate cybersecurity incident involving a broker from Wells Fargo. According to a FINRA letter released this month, Kathleen Kincade was targeted by attackers who used spoofed client emails to submit three wire transfer requests for nearly $350,000, two of which were processed before Wells Fargo became aware of fraudulent activity.

One wire transfer for $99,000 was reversed, but the company ultimately had to make the client whole for the remaining $250,000 that was transferred.

The letter goes on to say that Kincade used Wells Fargo’s forms to falsely report that she verbally confirmed the wire disbursement instructions with the client, which was not the case. Now I know you’ve heard me say time and time again that attackers are impersonating clients and are targeting you to get you to send money where it shouldn’t go.

So take this as a reminder that you need to continue to be vigilant and suspicious with respect to sporadic requests for client withdrawals, and always, ALWAYS follow a process to authenticate the identity of your client, usually with a phone call, or else you won’t allow any fund transfers to be processed.]

Envestnet Acquires Wheelhouse Analytics from PRNewswire

[Next up is news from Envestnet, as the company announced the acquisition of Wheelhouse Analytics in a move executives said will provide more insight on key performance indicators for asset managers, enterprises, and financial advisors.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, and I have to admit, Wheelhouse Analytics was not on my radar at all until this announcement, so I checked out their website and learned about their solutions for data analytics, online education, and document management for sales and business development. This is more business intelligence than it is financial technology, but I can see how Wheelhouse Analytics can connect to the data stored in the Envestnet platform and ultimately deliver timely insight to financial advisors.

Also, think back to Envestnet’s acquisition of Yodlee last summer, and consider how data on client spending and consumption can generate key indicators on which clients might warrant a follow up phone call, versus those who are on a steady path to meet their goals. I think this is worth watching in the near future.] Envestnet, Inc. announced today that it has acquired Wheelhouse Analytics LLC, a technology company that provides data analytics, mobile sales solutions, and online education tools to financial advisors, asset managers and enterprises

Zacks Advantage Form ADV

Merrill Egde Guided Investing Form ADV

[And I think it’s safe to say that my broadcast wouldn’t be complete without a little robo news, so up first, Zacks Investment Management announced the launch of Zacks Advantage, an automated investment service built on the Schwab Intelligent Portfolios platform that adds a bit of active management to balanced portfolio investing. The minimum account size is $5,000, and fees are 50 basis points for accounts up to $100,000, which drops to 35 basis points for accounts greater than $100,000 according to the Form ADV.

And Bank of America offered more information about Merrill Edge Guided Investing, the company’s automated service that also has a $5,000 account minimum, but charges 45 basis points no matter how much money is invested in the account.

So, I want to ask two questions about all this robo stuff. First, if all the other financial firms have a low-cost automated investing solution, why don’t you? If the solutions are so commonplace, prospects might think that your firm is behind the times because you’re not leveraging a solution that is offered pretty much everywhere else.

But second, assuming you DO provide an automated investing solution, the next question you’ll face is why should a prospect choose your business over all the others, when they appear to do the same thing? And THAT is your opportunity to communicate why your business is different, identify your value proposition, and describe all the things you do that go far beyond portfolio asset allocation and frequent rebalancing.

No robo solution can compete with that!]

 

Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes for October 14, 2016

Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes for October 14, 2016

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FPPad Bits and Bytes for September 30, 2016

Posted on September 30, 2016 by in Bits & Bytes

On today’s broadcast, get updates on hackathons hosted by Orion and eMoney, Motif Investing introduces subscription pricing, Betterment automates asset location preferences, and more.

So get ready, FPPad Bits and Bytes begins now!

(WatchFPPad Bits and Bytes on YouTube)

Today’s episode is brought to you by Envestnet | Tamarac, providers of Advisor Xi, an industry-leading fully integrated web-based suite for RIAs. Tamarac’s Advisor Xi unifies portfolio management, modeling, rebalancing, trading, billing, and reporting with a fully customizable client portal and enterprise-grade CRM.

envestnet-tamarac-600

On October 20th, two innovative and rapidly growing firms will share how they leveraged the Advisor Xi Suite in their business during an interactive webinar. Space is limited, so secure your spot today by visiting http://fppad.com/tamarac

Here are the links to this week’s top stories:

Fuse 2016: Day One and eMoney Advisor Summit 2016: Hack-a-thon Day One

Now you’ve probably noticed that it’s been a few weeks since my last Bits and Bytes broadcast, and that’s because I’ve attended not one, but two hackathon events hosted by financial technology companies. The first was the Fuse event in Park City, Utah, where Orion Advisor Services assembled developers from dozens of companies to present innovative ways they leverage the Orion Notifications platform. My producer Steve and I vlogged each day of the event, which I highly recommend you watch to find out who claimed the coveted Best in Show award.
And then two weeks later, eMoney hosted their own hackathon event, which had a bit of a different structure from Fuse, as four groups of advisors teamed up with eMoney product, design, and engineering employees to build new planning experiences onto the existing eMoney platform. We made vlogs of this event, too, which I also think is worth your time to watch.
Now, I get that hackathons generate good PR and marketing buzz for the host companies, but quite honestly it’s exciting to see activities like these that promote innovation and experimentation with technology that’s all about helping you serve your clients AND be a better business owner.

Motif Enters Subscription Economy, Introduces Motif BLUE from BusinessWire

Now, moving on to top stories, let’s start with Motif Investing, as the company just introduced a new subscription-based service called Motif BLUE. If you remember back in December 2014, I awarded the Best Back-Office Technology to the Motif Advisor Platform, but that was before the company switched from a flat monthly fee per customer to an AUM-based fee schedule.
But with Motif BLUE, the monthly fee makes a comeback, as customers can pay up to $19.95 a month to invest in three motifs, get auto-rebalancing of professional motifs, and trade motifs three times per month commission free.
So my theory is, customers can use the Motif BLUE Starter plan at $5 a month to mimic one of the asset allocations of the popular automated investment services out there, but instead of paying an AUM-based fee of, oh, 25 to 35 basis points, customers pay Motif roughly $60 a year.
Do the math, and Motif is cheaper when assets go above about $20,000 versus an annual fee of 35 basis points. Now I admit, there are still other differences between Motif Investing and automated investment services, but I think you can sense I believe that fees for investing software should not be based on the size of the assets being managed, and I expect that trend to grow as customers gravitate towards subscription-based pricing models.

Tax-Coordinated Portfolio™: The Latest Breakthrough in Tax-Smart Investing from Betterment

But to up the ante, Betterment announced its own new offering called the Tax-Coordinated Portfolio service, where Betterment automatically implements asset location preferences across taxable and tax-deferred or tax-exempt investment accounts.
Now the concept of asset location preferences is nothing new, but what IS new is the ability to use software to automatically manage location preferences on the fly, such as when clients make one-time deposits or withdrawals across their various accounts. Betterment confirmed that this service will be available to Betterment for Advisors customers, so when I go back to that whole discussion around fees a moment ago with Motif Investing, one could argue that higher fees could be justified because of nuanced differences like automated asset location management.

Quovo Unveils Advisor Dashboard, Arming Financial Advisors With Enriched Client Data Insights in an Intuitive User Interface from Marketwired

And look, if you want to effectively mange asset location preferences, you really need to see all of your clients’ assets and accounts, which leads me to my final story that comes from Quovo, as the company announced the release of the Quovo Advisor Dashboard. The dashboard allows advisors to quickly view information on both assets under management as well as held-away assets, easily synchronize new client accounts, and generate simple reports based on the data obtained by Quovo.
Now I know aggregating held-away assets has always come with its share of challenges (like expired account credentials), but with the Department of Labor fiduciary requirements coming in April next year, how will you be able to defend the advice you provide to clients if you don’t have a clear picture of their assets and liabilities?
You can certainly get those details without using account aggregation, but it just won’t be very efficient, and with direct-to-consumer providers like Personal Capital and Betterment including account aggregation in their solutions, well, these are the new table stakes for technology in your business. So if you’re not using solutions like Quovo or alternatives like Morningstar ByAllAccounts, Aqumulate, eMoney, Wealth Access, Yodlee and others, there’s still time to add one of these to the tools you use today.

Here are several stories that didn’t make this week’s broadcast:

Riskalyze Rolls Out Coverage for Individual Bonds from Riskalyze

It’s a request we’ve heard from a lot of advisors: make it simple to include individual bonds in a portfolio on Riskalyze. We’re excited to announce that coverage for over 30,000 individual corporate, government and municipal bonds will arrive on October 1.

Qumram launches fully-compliant WhatsApp social media record keeping from Qumram

Despite end-to-end encryption, Qumram enables financial services firms to meet client demand for social media interaction, via WhatsApp, without compromising compliance.

Save time with smart scheduling in Google Calendar from Google

If you’re using G Suite, “Find a time” already lets you set up meetings much faster in Calendar on Android. Today it’s coming to iOS and by the end of the year, the web.

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eMoney Advisor Summit 2016: Hack-a-thon Winner

Posted on September 25, 2016 by in Conferences

eMoney hosted its first-ever Hack-a-thon at this year’s Advisor Summit in Dana Point, CA.

At the conclusion of the conference, four teams presented their solutions to a room full of judges and advisor attendees, where one team was ultimately selected as the winner of the hack-a-thon.

Get my summary of each team’s hack-a-thon creation in the video above, and then see how the winner was revealed on stage to close out the event.

(Watch the eMoney Hack-a-thon winner presentation video on YouTube)

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eMoney Advisor Summit 2016: Hack-a-thon Day One

Posted on September 22, 2016 by in Conferences

eMoney is hosting its first-ever Hack-a-thon at this year’s Advisor Summit in Dana Point, CA.

Four teams were assembled, made up of four eMoney product managers, developers, and engineers combined with a diverse group of nearly a dozen advisers to explore ways to push the eMoney roadmap.

Witness the energy and activity of this event in the vlog embedded above, plus get a few tips on how to apply the design thinking process to your next brainstorming session.

(Watch the recap of the eMoney Hack-a-thon Day One video on YouTube)

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See Kevin Mitnick, the World’s Most Famous Hacker, teach RIAs a thing or two about cybersecurity

Posted on September 16, 2016 by in Conferences

Win a free ticket to see Kevin Mitnick

Here is a great opportunity to get schooled in cybersecurity from the World’s Most Famous Hacker, Kevin Mitnick.

Envision Consulting, a Washington DC-based provider of IT services and support to financial advisory businesses, has hired me to be the master of ceremonies for a unique event to be held Wednesday October 19 in Tysons Corner, VA from 11am to 2pm.

The World’s Most Famous Hacker

Envision Consulting is brining Mitnick in to demonstrate his skills in front of our live audience and reveal just how vulnerable many of us are to sophisticated (and sometimes shockingly basic) phishing, spoofing, and social engineering attacks.

For more about Mitnick’s story and how he became known as The World’s Most Famous Hacker, watch the interview segment below with Stephen Colbert on the Cobert Report

See Kevin Mitnick for Free

So let’s get to the good stuff. You can enter to win a free ticket to this event, a $184.99 value, now through September 22nd.

Simply visit https://envisionconsulting.leadpages.co/fppad-cybersafe/ and use the Tweet button to post your entry via Twitter, or (since I’m all about efficiency) use the same Tweet button embedded below. All the rules for the contest, including notification information for the winner, are on the contest landing page, so be sure to review them to determine your eligibility.

Good luck, and I hope to see you in Washington DC on the 19th of October!

Tweet: Register today! Watch World's Most Famous Hacker school #RIAs on #cybersecurity Oct 19 McLean, VA @EnvisionITCloud http://bit.ly/29yV0yx

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Fuse 2016: Day Three and Best in Show

Posted on September 11, 2016 by in Conferences

Day three of Fuse 2016 kicked off with all of the developer presentations followed by the awards issued by the expert panel of judges.

Ok, I might be biased regarding the judges’ level of expertise!

Visit https://www.orionadvisor.com/fuse-2016-award-winners/ for more information on the Fuse 2016 award winners

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Fuse 2016: Day Two

Posted on September 10, 2016 by in Conferences, Vlog

Day two of Fuse 2016 includes hours of coding and four outdoor activities.

We attempted to do them all!

Visit http://fuse2016.com/ for more information

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Fuse 2016: Day One

Posted on September 9, 2016 by in Conferences, Vlog

See how day one of Fuse 2016 went down in Park City, UT.

Fuse is a three-day coding event with the financial services industry’s top software firms. Attendees work to create better integrations, build stronger relationships, and shape the next generation of financial technology. All while having a lot of fun.

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FPPad Bits and Bytes for August 26, 2016

Posted on August 26, 2016 by in Bits & Bytes

On today’s broadcast, get an update on LPL Financial’s technology roadmap, FutureAdvisor signs up the fifth largest bank in the US, Betterment forms a partnership with Uber, and more.

So get ready, FPPad Bits and Bytes begins now!

(Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes on YouTube)

Today’s episode is brought to you by Nest Egg Guru, a stress testing app for your clients’ retirement planning.

Designed as an alternative to Monte Carlo simulations and calculating probabilities of success, Nest Egg Guru helps you tangibly quantify how client portfolios may hold up if future investment returns don’t pan out as expected.

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Sign up for a no obligation free trial at fppad.com/nesteggguru to see how this low-cost solution can complement the planning software you already use today.

Here are the links to this week’s top stories:

LPL placing heavy focus on technology improvements from InvestmentNews, and

U.S. Bank Wealth Management Announces Partnership with FutureAdvisor to Offer Automated Investing Capabilities to Clients from BusinessWire

 

[Now on to this week’s top story that comes from LPL Financial, as this week the nation’s largest broker-dealer held its annual LPL Focus conference in San Diego.

I wasn’t able to attend the conference, but LPL CIO Victor Fetter kindly connected with me by phone to cover several of the key technology announcements made at the event.

First, ClientWorks, the replacement for the existing BranchNet platform, is now available to roughly 11,000 advisors, up significantly from the 500 beta testers this time last year. Next, an updated account opening solution is anticipated soon which will streamline the creation of LPL account forms, pre-populate forms for clients with existing LPL accounts, and automatically fire off an electronic signature workflow.

Fetter also highlighted a new Adoption Index score that advisors can use to gauge their own adoption of particular technologies and then identify areas where efficiency can be improved.

And finally, lots of attention was given to Guided Wealth Portfolios, LPL’s automated investment solution powered by BlackRock’s FutureAdvisor platform expected to be available in early 2017. Fetter told me that advisors can choose to add their brand to Guided Wealth Portfolios as an extension of their existing business, or they can create a new brand as a separate, but complementary, platform for certain clients.

Guided Wealth Portfolios will consist of ETF allocations managed by LPL Research and they will be visible in the ClientWorks dashboard. Clients can view their information using a mobile responsive website, but Fetter said a native app for iPhone or Android is not anticipated at this time. Oh, and I think fees for the service are still up in the air, so we’ll have to check back as the service gets closer to its official rollout.

And speaking of FutureAdvisor, this week, US Bank, the fifth largest commercial bank in the United States, announced that it, too, will be using FutureAdvisor to power an automated solution for its clients with portfolios designed by, you guessed it, US Bancorp Investments. Like LPL’s Guided Wealth Portfolios, US Bank said the service is expected to be available in 2017, and fees for the service were not yet disclosed.] To stay up to date with technological innovations, the independent broker-dealer LPL Financial is developing more tools for its new adviser dashboard and implementing smarter automation.

Uber Lets Drivers Hail an IRA with Betterment from the Wall Street Journal

[Next up is news on Betterment, as this week the company announced a partnership with Uber, the multi-billion dollar global ride-sharing network, which allows drivers to open and fund a Betterment IRA account directly within the Uber app. Drivers get special fees, too, with their first year of Betterment completely free, and after that it’s 25 basis points per year on accounts below $100,000.

So guess what? The stakes for client acquisition just went up, in fact, way up. Millions of people recognize Uber, and when they see a partnership like this, they have to be thinking, “Hey, if Betterment’s good enough for a huge company like Uber, it’s gotta be good enough for me.”

And for Uber, they could have chosen anybody for this partnership. They could have teamed up with Vanguard, Schwab Intelligent Portfolios, or even *cough* FutureAdvisor, but no, they chose Betterment.

So the way I see it, this is about distribution and decreasing client acquisition costs. Look, for years, industry commentators, myself included, have beat the drum about the high acquisition costs of automated investment services and how tough it is for robo advisors to actually make a profit.

Well, if an automated service can immediately get exposure to hundreds of thousands of potential customers by getting embedded in another app, what’s to stop Betterment from getting embedded in the eBay app to invest your extra cash, or even into SnapChat right along side the SnapCash feature? That’s a pretty inexpensive, yet clever way, to acquire new customers.

So welcome to the new front line in the battle for asset management, I hope your marketing team is up for the challenge.] Uber Technologies Inc. is partnering with robo advice provider Betterment Inc. to offer thousands of its drivers access to retirement accounts.

 

Here are links to stories that didn’t make this week’s broadcast:

In a world of software overabundance, Siftery offers clarity from Medium

Siftery helps you discover the right software product for your business. Great software is a force multiplier for your job. And picking the right solution for your company will make you look like a rockstar.

Guide Financial set to close operations on October 11 from FPPad

Guide Financial, the financial planning startup acquired by John Hancock in June 2015, told its users via email this week that the company plans to discontinue operations on October 11.

Integration Update: RiXtrema + Black Diamond Now Available from Advent

SS&C Advent’s Black Diamond wealth platform is now integrated with Portfolio Crash Testing by RiXtrema, one of the advisory industry’s leading Portfolio Analytics/Risk Management solutions.

 

Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes for August 26, 2016

Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes for August 26, 2016

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