My most popular presentation in 2012 has been Transformative Technology You Can Implement Today, and later this month you have a chance to attend the session via live webinar.
On Wednesday, November 28 at 3:00pm Eastern, I’ll be the guest of NAPFA’s Cutting Edge webinar series. Registration is $49 and is open to everyone. NAPFA members are eligible for a reduced registration rate of $19, and registration is free for NAPFA Genesis members.
This is the back of a Town Car. Don’t leave your phone here!
I just flew over 16,000 miles in the last 60 days, passing through airport security and riding in taxis at least a dozen times. Thankfully, I always remember to gather up my laptop and phone before I head to my destination.
But what if you have that one time when you’re in a rush and leave your mobile device behind?
This month’s Quickview update for Morningstar Advisor tells you about one simple setting you can use on your laptop, tablet, or smartphone to increase your chances of recovering your device.
Go read Rescue Your Lost Mobile Gear at Morningstar Advisor now.
Online financial planning provider’s registration as SEC adviser allows investment advice delivered by personal CFP® practitioners
LearnVest, the online personal finance start-up founded by Alexa von Tobel, announced today that it is now an SEC registered investment adviser and added a plan called “Portfolio Builder” to address general investment recommendations.
Readers should recognize LearnVest from recent updates (see: LearnVest’s Mission to Wrangle Your Personal Finances) and as a member of the wave of “robo-adviser” start-ups, with Personal Capital, Wealthfront, and Betterment among them.
Without the investment adviser registration, LearnVest previously limited advice delivered through its online program to budgeting and money management. LearnVest clients could enroll in the “Complete Plan” program for $349 per year and receive a financial plan, four phone calls, and unlimited email support from the company’s CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER(TM) certificants.
Going forward, clients still have the option to work with a personal CFP® practitioner at the $349 per year level (now called “The 5-Year Planner” level) or choose to receive general investment advice under the “Portfolio Builder” plan priced at $599 per year.
While investment advice is now available, Portfolio Builder clients won’t receive specific guidance on buying or selling securities or which investment account custodian to select. Clients will need to perform those selections on their own with general input from their LearnVest planner.
There’s a lot of media coverage on LearnVest’s announcement, so visit Google’s News results page and select the outlet of interest.
To learn more about LearnVest’s positioning in the market, watch their 1:07 explainer video below.
Finally, view the LearnVest SEC Form ADV Part II brochure here.
Last night I posted this tweet about a TechCrunch.com article on several compromised Dropbox accounts.
[Two-factor auth is overdue -BW] Dropbox Reports User Accounts Were Hijacked, Adds New Security Features http://t.co/6vRJCT8E via @zite
— Bill Winterberg, CFP®️ (@BillWinterberg) August 1, 2012
Unlike an issue last summer (see Bug Affects Dropbox Security: What Advisers Need To Know), you need to know that Dropbox’s security was not compromised.
Username and password credentials were stolen from a third-party website, which were then used to log in to associated Dropbox accounts.
In response, Dropbox said in a blog post that it will add new security features in the coming weeks, with two-factor authentication being the most noteworthy (see Boost your online security with two-factor authentication).
Events like this should be a lesson to you, even if you’re not a Dropbox user. Remember to follow good security practices to keep your account credentials safe, such as:
In a few weeks, Dropbox should be rolling out the new security features. When they appear for your account, be sure to activate and use two-factor authentication. It’s one additional layer of protection you can add to better protect all the information you keep in your Dropbox account.
Schwab Advisor Services’ first iPhone app lacks functionality offered by the competition, but opportunity remains for the leading custodian to catch up
In last week’s Bits & Bytes, you read about Schwab Advisor Services’ new iPhone app release. RIABiz posted this article shortly after the release with comments and perspective. The gist is Schwab’s 30,000 users across 7,000 firms can use Schwab Advisor Center on an iPhone to check client account balances, transactions, and positions in version 1.0.
Yesterday I spoke with Steve Hirsch, vice president of institutional web services for Charles Schwab, about the company’s decision to offer basic functionality in its first mobile app for financial advisers.
“We conducted extensive client research, asking over 400 [adviser] clients to rank the features and functions they would use most in a mobile phone app,” said Hirsch. “Out of a selection of five features, 66% of them chose access to account balances, transactions, and positions.”
Choices for other functionality selections included access to account alerts and notifications, market news and information, move money capabilities, and trading.
Schwab’s entry into the mobile app scene is long overdue, as competing custodians have offered mobile apps to advisers for well over a year. Two of them have even developed apps exclusively for iPad that offer features such as streaming market news (see Exclusive look at Veo® Mobile app updates for iPad from TD Ameritrade Institutional’s Jon Patullo) and trading in client accounts (see Fidelity WealthCentral Mobile now available for iPad).
So if you’re Schwab, there are two ways to enter this market.
First, you can survey what the competition is doing, match them on a feature-by-feature basis, and then raise the bar on functionality by developing features nobody else has. Remember Steve Jobs and the three new product launches of “a widescreen iPod, a revolutionary mobile phone, and a breakthrough Internet communications device?”
Or second, you can ask users what they want, pick the top response, and build to that specification (The “we want a faster horse” scenario).
Schwab, with version 1.0, selected the latter.
But to Schwab’s credit, they’re far from finished with the rollout of their mobile strategy. It’s just that with version 1.0 of Schwab Advisor Center, Schwab delivered only what advisers said was their number one desired feature.
Where’s the innovation in that strategy?
I challenged Hirsch to get him to divulge a bit more about Schwab’s future in mobile. Clearly, rolling out a basic iPhone app first was an easy win.
“We saw great utility in mobile phone devices as a vehicle for quick access to client accounts,” said Hirsch. “Advisers and consumers carry their phone everywhere 24×7, so we felt it was a great place to start by supporting immediate account access using devices widely held across a large base of users.”
And on plans for the iPad app, expected by the end of 2012?
“The iPad app will have a different tenet than the iPhone app,” he said. “We’ll optimize what we present, starting with functionality similar to the iPhone app, but expand it well beyond that to take advantage of bigger screen real estate.”
Hirsch acknowledged that the app is anticipated to deliver much more functionality that what is offered today.
“Clearly, client reporting is priority for us, as well adding performance and asset holding features that advisors will use in client meetings and presentations.”
When asked about the ability to use the iPad in the account application process, including e-signature capabilities, Hirsch was guarded.
“These features are in Schwab’s domain, and we see tremendous potential here.” he said.
Brooklyn-based startup launches free asset allocation planning tool to the public
Investors (read: your future clients) have an ever-increasing array of options to obtain financial advice online. You’ve read about sites and apps like Personal Capital, Betterment, SigFig, and Wealthfront on FPPad before.
Plantly, a Brooklyn-based startup, is the latest financial services startup seeking to lower the barriers between investors and access to investment guidance.
On Plantly’s website, users can select from a range of five plans arranged by targeted return and level of risk. Each week the five plans are optimized to adjust their asset allocations according to Plantly’s proprietary risk/return models.
Ideally, according to Plantly’s website, investors select a plan based on their tolerance for risk and expectation for return, allocate their own portfolio according to the plan, and reevaluate plans annually. Plantly plans begin with principles from Harry Markovitz’s Modern Portfolio Theory that are then run through custom forecasting, probability, and scenario engines to identify potential outcomes of individual plans.
There’s a lot more detail behind Plantly on its website, and when I stop traveling, I hope to have a chance to virtually sit down with Plantly’s founders for some additional insight.
It’s an intriguing option among the suite of online investment tools, especially for the do-it-yourself investor seeking allocation guidance supported by reasonable thought and scenario testing (though no back testing will ever produce a loss-proof allocation).
In a press release today, Schwab announced that it has added Tamarac, a division of Envestnet, Inc., to its Schwab Intelligent Integration™ initiative.
About a year and a half ago, Schwab announced its first CRM partners for the initiative (see Junxure, Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics Are The First Schwab Intelligent Integration Partners).
Back then, I predicted that Tamarac Advisor would be included in that list, saying:
It seems redundant at first to have included Tamarac Advisor CRM, as it is built on top of Microsoft Dynamics, but in my opinion, Tamarac Advisor CRM is substantially different from MS Dynamics as Tamarac has customized Dynamics’ out-of-the-box functionality to include data and fields relevant to wealth managers and financial advisers.
However, Tamarac was excluded from that first list of providers.
Now, it appears Schwab is compelled to work with Envestnet | Tamarac and officially support it under Schwab Intelligent Integration.
What’s interesting to note is that more than a year after selecting Microsoft Dynamics CRM as an integration partner, Schwab has yet to release a production Dynamics CRM solution to its advisor community.
Currently the company plans to roll out a pilot of Salentica CRM this summer. So with the addition of Envestnet | Tamarac, Schwab at least now has a viable Dynamics CRM offering in the form of Tamarac’s customized Advisor Xi platform.
Latest integration to offer advanced, highly-customizable trading capabilities based on thinkorswim technology.
Advisers can now access thinkpipes trading information directly from the Veo® platform
In a press release today, TD Ameritrade Institutional announced that it has integrated thinkpipes®, an advanced trading platform based on thinkorswim technology, into the Veo® adviser platform.
“thinkpipes is much more than a trading platform and has truly become one of the most powerful tools that we leverage day-to-day” said Donald Capone, CFA, portfolio manager at JK Financial, Inc., in the press release. “If it’s being traded on the market, I no longer have to use multiple sources for historical data or quotes. It’s all right there at your fingertips in thinkpipes.”
For more details, visit TD Ameritrade Institutional’s thinkpipes page and Veo® page.
Last week you found out about TD Ameritrade Institutional’s updates to the Veo® Mobile app for ipad, including the ability to trade equities and mutual funds and stream CNBC.
Yesterday, Jon Patullo, Managing Director of Technology Product Management, gave me an exclusive tour of the app’s new features from TD Ameritrade Institutional’s offices in Fort Worth, TX. Enjoy the video.
Advisers using the Veo® Mobile app can trade and view client account information in real time
In a press release today, TD Ameritrade Institutional announced several enhancements to mobile apps it provides for the Veo® advisor platform.
Click here to read the press release (at Marketwatch.com)
If you recall my interview with Chris Valleley, Senior Manager of Technology Product Management, he mentioned that the trading interface would be opened up to partners through Veo® Open Access, including the company’s own iRebal rebalancing software provider. Now that same trading capability has been expanded to include mobile apps available to advisers who custody assets with TD Ameritrade Institutional.
In today’s release, Jon Patullo, Managing Director of Technology Product Management commented, “In today’s volatile economic environment, advisors need to be able to stay connected while on the go and have the ability to monitor markets and manage their business anytime, anywhere.”
However, not all advisors are on board with trading via mobile devices as noted in this recent RIABiz article, Why RIAs are shunning mobile apps and why Black Diamond, Orion, Fidelity and others are still placing their chips on an iPad future.
In some circumstances, advisers may find the trading functions too limited to submit bulk trades across all client accounts or to perform sophisticated rebalancing. On the other hand, being able to conduct one-off trades while away from the home office is very convenient, and is becoming a more frequent circumstance with advisers seeking productivity from mobile apps while on the road.
Veo® Mobile is available for download from the iTunes app store.
