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Robinhood to raise another $350 million: Flash briefing for March 16, 2018

Posted on March 16, 2018 by in Flash Briefing, Technology

Here the the links to today’s top stories:

Investing app Robinhood is raising $350 million, valuing it at $5 billion from FastCompany.com

Salesforce launches simpler small business product, will discontinue Desk.com and SalesforceIQ from cnbc.com

Vote Now for the 2018 IA25 from ThinkAdvisor.com

Welcome to the FPPad fintech briefing, Here are the top fintech stories brought to you by Morningstar

Register today for the 2018 Morningstar Investment Conference and see how they’ve helped lead the investing discussion for 30 years.

Robinhood to Raise Additional $350 Million

Robinhood, the popular for commission-free stock trading app, could be raising another $350 million in venture funding, according to a Wall Street Journal article, valuing the company at $5.6 billion, more than four times its valuation barely one year ago in April 2017. The Journal reported that the funding is likely provided by DST Global, which also led Robinhood’s previous funding round of $110 million. Robinhood reportedly has over 4 million accounts enabled for free stock trading and has begun rolling out Robinhood Crypto to some users, allowing transactions in cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum.

Salesforce Launches Salesforce Essentials

Salesforce announced the launch of a simpler version of its CRM software called Salesforce Essentials, targeted to small business owners who have complained that the company’s main CRM solution is too complex and expensive for their needs. Starting at $25 per user per month, Salesforce Essentials includes Einstein Activity Capture that automatically tracks emails, calls, and meeting activity with contacts and, functionality can be expanded by apps built specifically for Salesforce Essentials on the AppExchange, but many financial advisers may find that existing tools they use, like portfolio management software, are not yet compatible with Salesforce Essentials, and require the more robust, and expensive, Salesforce CRM.

Vote for the 2018 IA25

And finally, who do you think is a key influencer in the financial services industry? It’s time to make your voice heard, as voting is now open for the 2018 IA25 list of most influential people in the industry to be published in the May edition of Investment Advisor magazine. Votes can be cast among six segments which includes Investment Advisers, Independent broker-dealers, Political and Regulatory figures, and Financial Technology, which would be perfect to recognize someone using Amazon Alexa to, oh, I don’t know, provide financial technology updates to investors and financial advisers!

To cast your vote, head over to fppad.com/flashbriefing to get all the links to today’s top stories.

I’m Bill Winterberg, and those are your fintech headlines for today from FPPad.com. Check back in with me later for more fintech news.

Envestnet | Tamarac Clients Exceed $1 Trillion AUM: Flash briefing for March 12, 2018

Posted on March 12, 2018 by in Flash Briefing, Technology

Here are the links to today’s stories:

XY Planning Network serves 600 member advisers via Twitter

Tamarac Clients Exceed $1 Trillion in Collective Assets Managed from Tamaracinc.com

Morningstar expands ratings for U.S. mutual funds with Quantitative Ratings for Funds via Twitter

Welcome to the FPPad fintech briefing, Here are the top fintech stories you need to know today brought to you by Morningstar

Register today for the 2018 Morningstar Investment Conference and see how they’ve helped lead the investing discussion for 30 years.

XY Planning Network Crosses 600 Members

Several big milestones were crossed in the last few days, with the XY Planning Network leading off with its announcement that the organization now serves 600 members as a part of the fee-only, fiduciary financial planning network. Founded in 2014, the XY Planning Network provides turnkey technology, compliance, marketing support and business coaching to financial planners looking to serve Gen X and Gen Y clients, many of whom offer financial planning on an hourly basis or a low-cost retainer without requiring substantial assets in a portfolio.

Envestnet | Tamarac Clients Exceed $1 Trillion AUM

Also crossing another milestone is Envestnet | Tamarac, as the portfolio management, reporting, client portal, trading and CRM software provider recently surpassed $1 trillion dollars in collective assets under management among all the financial advisers that use the company’s technology. According to a recent press release, over one-third of registered investment advisory firms that manage $1 billion dollars are using the Envestnet | Tamarac solution, and the company says it maintains a renewal rate of 97% among its clients as a result of the company’s ongoing support, training, and consulting.

Morningstar Launches Quantitative Rating for Funds

And for a new milestone in mutual fund research, Morningstar just announced that the company has launched the Morningstar Quantitative Rating for funds, which generates ratings of Gold, Silver, Bronze, Neutral, or Negative for mutual funds based on a large set of quantitative factors like fund fees, manager tenure, firm success, and much more. Historically, Morningstar has generated Analyst Ratings for mutual funds, but the number of ratings has been limited by the size of the Morningstar analyst team. The Quantitative Rating uses machine learning models to apply the analyst’s decision-making process to the list of funds not covered by the analyst team, which allows the company to generate ratings on six times more mutual funds in the United States market.

Morningstar is the sponsor of this Flash Briefing for the month of March.

I’m Bill Winterberg, and those are your fintech headlines for today from FPPad.com. Check back in with me later for more fintech news.

Fidelity® Announces Multiple Advisor Technology Initiatives: Flash briefing for March 5, 2018

Posted on March 5, 2018 by in Flash Briefing, Technology

Links to today’s top stories:

Fidelity® Announces New Advisor Technology Solutions to Help Firms “Get Smarter and Go Faster” from Fidelity.com

Core Upgrade Brings Orion’s Dynamic, Time-Saving Reporting to Private Assets from BusinessWire

Human Interest (Formerly Captain401) raises $11 Million Series A to Serve Small Business 401(k) Market from PRNewswire

Welcome to the FPPad fintech briefing, Here are the top fintech stories you need to know today.

Fidelity® Announces Advisor Technology Initiatives for 2018

Fidelity, one of the top institutional custodians for financial advisers, recently announced the planned introduction of several new technology solutions for financial advisers. In a recent press release, Fidelity said it will introduce a new account aggregation tool called Consolidated Data, a business analytics tool called Insights + Analytics, new Advanced Modeling & Rebalancing capabilities for its Wealthscape software platform, and the launch of a digital app store called the Wealthscape Integration Xchange.

Pilots of several of these new tools are scheduled to begin in the third quarter of 2018, and no guidance on pricing was provided for any of the new tools announced, so expect quite a bit more concrete information over the coming months as these tools get closer to production.

Orion Advisor Services Launches Alternative Investment Platform

From Orion Advisor Services, the company announced the release of its Alternative Investment Platform tool, allowing financial advisers to offer better reporting to their clients around alternative investments like private equity, venture capital, non-traded real estate, and more.

The company press release also highlighted an update anticipated for May that adds automated data gathering for alternative assets from DTCC and other alternative data vendors.

Captain401 Rebrands as Human Interest, Raises $11 Million Series A

And Captain401 has a new name and new funding, as the company said it’s changing its name to Human Interest on the heels of raising an additional $11 million dollars in a Series A round last week.

Founded in 2015, Human Interest says it helps over 10,000 employees save for their retirement with a focus on the small business retirement plan marketplace, where it will find competition from other providers like Betterment for Business, America’s Best 401(k), as well as large incumbents like Vanguard and Financial Engines.

I’m Bill Winterberg, and those are your fintech headlines for today from FPPad.com. Check back in with me later for more fintech news.

XY Planning Network Partners with Capitect: Flash briefing for February 28, 2018

Posted on February 28, 2018 by in Flash Briefing, Technology

Clarification added February 28, 2018 at 1:38 PM ET: XY Planning Network members can use up to 20 client households in Capitect for no additional  fee. Accounts in addition to 20 require additional fees. See Capitect XYPN Pricing for details. Prior versions of this post did not specify how many accounts could be used for free.

Here are the links to today’s top stories:

Acorns, the financial management service for everyone else, adds 3 million users from Techcrunch

XY Planning Network Partners with Capitect to Offer Client Portal and Performance Reporting Technology to Members from PRWeb

What’s new from Capitect | 2018 Fintech Update from YouTube

Welcome to the FPPad fintech briefing, here are the top fintech stories you need to know today.

Acorns Surpasses 3 Million Accounts

You’ve heard that “mighty oaks from little acorns grow,” right? Well, in the case of Acorns, the micro-investing app for investors, that saying rings true, as the company announced it recently crossed 3 million investment accounts on the platform, adding 500,000 of those in just the last 3 months. Acorns co-founder and CEO Noah Kerner said that the service is differentiated from Betterment and Wealthfront because it isn’t targeted to investors who already have assets to manage, focusing instead on hardworking Americans who are saving roughly 5 to 7 percent of their income each year. Fees for Acorns are $1 a month for account under $5,000 and 25 basis points a year for accounts above $5,000.

XY Planning Network Partners with Capitect

In news from the XY Planning Network, the company announced it recently partnered with Capitect, a portfolio management software provider, to offer the client portal and performance reporting software to its nearly 600 members for no additional fee. Network members will be able to use Capitect to manage portfolios, perform portfolio rebalancing with the Capitect’s Rebalance Architect, deliver performance information to through the client-friendly portal, and more.

What’s New from Capitect

So if Capitect is a name you haven’t heard before among portfolio management software providers, you’re in luck, because I recently connected with Capitect co-founder Edwin Choi to learn a little about what’s new in their technology solution for advisers:

 

Some of the newest features that we’ve added in the last few months, and are going to be adding in the coming months, are recently introducing fee billing, which has been one of our most-requested features over a long period of time, so we’re very excited to be launching that. We recently added unrealized gain loss and cost basis, that we’re able to capture from the custodians, and some of the things that we’re working on in the coming months are primarily in the integration space, so financial planning integrations, deeper CRM integrations, and essentially any other system that the adviser wants us to connect with, we’re very open about integrating with other tools.

To watch my full interview with Edwin Choi, head over to fppad.com/flashbriefing to get all the links to today’s top stories.

I’m Bill Winterberg, and those are your fintech headlines for today from FPPad.com. Check back in with me later for more fintech news.

Wealthfront Launches Risk Parity Mutual Fund: Flash briefing for February 23, 2018

Posted on February 23, 2018 by in Flash Briefing, Technology

Links to today’s top stories:

Investing Just Got Better with Wealthfront from Wealthfront

Robo-adviser Wealthsimple raises $51 million to expand service from Reuters

What’s new from RobustWealth | 2018 Fintech Update from YouTube

Welcome to the FPPad fintech briefing, Here are the top fintech stories you need to know today.

Wealthfront Adds Risk Parity Fund

Wealthfront, the Silicon-Valley based automated investment service, announced it is introducing its own Wealthfront Risk Parity mutual fund into the asset allocations of customers who qualify for the PassivePlus investment strategies, which requires an account balance of $100,000. The Risk Parity mutual fund is modeled after giant hedge fund Bridgewater Associates and carries an expense ratio of 50 basis points. In a move stirring controversy on social media, Wealthfront is automatically opting in eligible customers to the Risk Parity fund for up to 20% of their allocation unless they specifically opt out in their account settings.

WealthSimple Raises $51 Million

In other automated investing news, Toronto-based Wealthsimple announced it raised another $51 million US dollars from Power Financial Corporation, bring its total investment to $131 million. Originally started in Canada in 2014, Wealthsimple expanded to the US and UK markets in 2017 and now manages $1.45 billion dollars for approximately 65,000 customers. Fees for accounts under $100,000 are 50 basis points, while fees for larger accounts at 40 basis points.

RobustWealth Offers White-Labeled Automated Investment Solution

And finally, financial advisers are also looking for solutions that rival the customer experience delivered by automated investment services, so I recently met with Ryan Horvath of RobustWealth to learn more about their white-labeled solution:

So now advisors can come on and completely launch their own white-labeled robo advisor. So this is great for small accounts, millennials, and what the advisor can actually do is customize their risk tolerance questionnaire, put a link on their website, so now the client can come on, take that risk tolerance questionnaire, sign the electronic advisory documents all in the platform, get assigned to a model that’s customized by the advisor, open up accounts, all electronically, and get invested in their model, so it’s making life really easy to optimize those smaller accounts.

For more details on the automated investment solution from RobustWealth, head over to fppad.com/flashbriefing to get all the links to today’s top stories.

I’m Bill Winterberg, and those are your fintech headlines for today from FPPad.com, be sure to check back in with me later for more fintech news.

Hackers Latest Trick to Steal Tax Refunds from Taxpayers: Flash briefing for February 21, 2018

Posted on February 21, 2018 by in Flash Briefing, Technology

Here are the links to today’s top stories:

IRS Scam Leverages Hacked Tax Preparers, Client Bank Accounts from KrebsOnSecurity.com

Quovo Announces “Cue,” a Data-Driven Alert Engine for Financial Services Firms from PRNewswire

What’s new from RIA in Box | 2018 fintech update from YouTube

[Note: I have provided creative marketing services to RIA in a Box in the last 12 months. See my full disclosures here]

Welcome to the FPPad fintech briefing, Here are the top fintech stories you need to know today.

Hackers Tricking Taxpayers Demanding Payments of False Tax Refunds

Hackers are using more elaborate techniques to steal money from taxpayers, according to a new report published by security researcher Brian Krebs. In this latest scheme, hackers are breaking in to tax preparation firms to file fraudulent tax returns that result in large refunds deposited directly into taxpayer bank accounts. The attackers then posing as debt collection agencies to contact the taxpayers, demanding that the tax refunds be returned. The demands appear very legitimate, as the hackers know the dollar amount of the refund because they created the phony tax returns. The IRS says that taxpayers who receive such inquiries should contact their financial institution to potentially close the affected accounts as well as their tax preparer who likely had their systems compromised.

Quovo Announces “Cue” System

In account aggregation news, Quovo recently announced the introduction of a new alerts feature called Cue, which applies data science to monitor connected accounts for changes in balances, significant money movements, and even identify the chances clients may have additional accounts that their financial advisers do not yet know about. Currently, the Cue system can generate email notifications for advisors or be integrated directly into CRM software by leveraging the Quovo API, and is currently in a pilot phase with several large financial institutions for a rollout later this year.

RIA in a Box Electronic Employee Trade Monitoring

And speaking of aggregation, how do financial advisers make sure they stay on top of their compliance requirements to monitor personal stock trading by employees? I recently spoke with GJ King of RIA in a Box to learn more about how the company is using technology so simplify trade monitoring for compliance:

Our latest new feature we’re rolled out in the last few months is what we call automated employee trade monitoring, and how we think about that is most advisory firms today, maybe they don’t want to admit this but it’s true, where most people are still tracking personal employee trading through paper brokerage statements. You walk into an advisor’s office, you’ll generally see a stack of paper statements, maybe hidden in the corner, but they exist, we’re trying to bring that into a digital experience. It’s not rocket science, but we’re taking what used to be a paper experience and making that all automated and electronic through our system.

For more details on employee trade monitoring by RIA in a Box, head over to fppad.com/flashbriefing to get all the links to today’s top stories.

I’m Bill Winterberg, and those are your fintech headlines for today from FPPad.com, be sure to check back in with me later for more fintech news.

Stash raises $37.5 million in Series D funding: Flash briefing for February 16, 2018

Posted on February 16, 2018 by in Flash Briefing, Technology

Here are the links to today’s top stories:

Simplified investing app Stash raises $37.5 million Series D as it heads into banking from TechCrunch

Yahoo Finance Expands Offerings as Only Free Provider of Sustainability Scores, across Desktop and Mobile Web from Sustainalytics

What’s new from Envestnet | Tamarac from YouTube

Note: Coverage from the TD Ameritrade Institutional National LINC conference was sponsored by Envestnet | Tamarac. Click here to view my full disclosures.

Welcome to the FPPad fintech briefing, Here are the top fintech stories you need to know today.

Yahoo! Finance Adds Sustainalytics ESG Ratings

How socially and environmentally friendly are the companies you invest in? Well, it just became a whole lot easier to find out, as earlier this month, Yahoo Finance announced it will now display Environmental, Social and Governance, or ESG scores, for more than 2,000 publicly traded companies, powered by data from Sustainalytics. The Yahoo Finance Sustainability quote pages will show scores ranging from 1 to 100 for each of the three ESG categories, as well as a company’s ESG performance relative to its peer average in the same category. In the coming weeks, Yahoo said that ratings for over 28,000 mutual funds and ETFs will be available with data powered by the Morningstar Sustainability Rating™ for funds.

Stash Raises $37.5 Million in Series D Funding

In low-cost investing news, Stash announced that the company raised an additional $37.5 million in Series D funding this week, bringing its total funding to just over $116 million. Stash offers low-cost automated investing to over 1.7 million clients, up from 850,000 last year, and recently introduced support for IRA accounts with its Stash Retire product. The company also announced plans to introduce its Stash Banking product in the near future with support for free accounts with no fees and no minimum balance requirements, which is intended to broaden Stash’s appeal as a diversified financial services company instead of competing in the narrow automated investment marketplace.

Platform Updates to Envestnet | Tamarac

And finally, Envestnet | Tamarac continues to make enhancements to their platform for advisors, so to learn more about what’s new from Tamarac, I met with Managing Director Brandon Rembe at the National LINC conference earlier this month.

There’s a lot of different things we’re working on, a few key areas we’re working on is digital client engagement, our client portal, things like client on boarding, tasking, calendaring, all of those things to provide a more digital experience if the client wants to do that as well as provide more service for clients and family offices, things like that. We’re also doing a few things with artificial intelligence, to help with predictive analytics on spending, budgeting, how much you’re going to spend later on in life, we’re doing that with our partnership with Yodlee, and a few other things are automated workflows in the back office, to not only help the end client but also help the advisor run a more efficient practice.

For more details on Tamarac’s enhancements, head over to fppad.com/flashbriefing to get all the links to today’s top stories.

I’m Bill Winterberg, and those are your fintech headlines for today from FPPad.com, be sure to check back in with me later for more fintech news.

 

Grove raises $2.1 million for hybrid financial planning: Fintech flash briefing for February 12, 2018

Posted on February 12, 2018 by in Flash Briefing, Technology

Here are the links to today’s stories:

Grove raises $2.1M to find the sweet spot between old-school financial advisers and chatbots from TechCrunch

Riskalyze Retirement Solutions Goes Live from Riskalyze

Laserfiche rolls out SaaS solution for document management in the cloud from YouTube

Welcome to the FPPad fintech briefing, Here are the top fintech stories you need to know today.

Grove Raises $2.1 Million for Hybrid Financial Planning Service

A new startup wants to make financial planning services more accessible and affordable for the nation’s savers. The company is called Grove, based in San Francisco, who just announced it raised $2.1 million dollars in a seed round to launch a hybrid software-and-human powered financial planning service. According to TechCrunch, Grove combines account aggregation software with advice from Certified Financial Planner certificants, with two CFP’s listed on the company’s website, all for an annual membership fee of $600. The company says that automated investment management services are also available for an additional 25 basis points of assets under management.

Riskalyze Rolls Out Riskalyze Retirement Solutions

In the retirement plan space, Riskalyze announced the formal launch of Riskalyze Retirement Solutions, a joint offering with Vestwell to provide an end-to-end digital platform to financial advisors looking to manage 401(k) retirement plans. The new platform leverages the proprietary Risk Number methodology to propose appropriate asset allocations to retirement plan participants, and then streamlines the account on boarding process with custodians such as TD Ameritrade and Trust Company of America. Riskalyze Retirement Solutions is available to all existing Riskalyze advisors at no additional cost.

Laserfiche Introduces Cloud Offering

And what’s the latest news in document management software for advisors? I recently connected with Laserfiche’s Linda Ding to learn more about the company’s new offering of Laserfiche now available in the cloud:

With more demand on the rise for mobile-driven solutions, especially for document management, this year we’re rolling out a full SaaS model for document management, especially for smaller financial advisors, this is the perfect model. It’s cost-efficient, very competitive in terms of monthly cost, but you will find all the on-premise features, especially on the workflow automation and electronic forms collection, is inclusive in the SaaS model for Laserfiche users.

For more details on the new Laserfiche offering, head over to fppad.com/flashbriefing to get all the links to today’s top stories.

I’m Bill Winterberg, and those are your fintech headlines for today from FPPad.com, be sure to check back in with me later for more fintech news.

 

Brokerage websites go offline during market volatility: Flash briefing for February 7, 2018

Posted on February 7, 2018 by in Flash Briefing, Technology

Here are the links to today’s top stories:

Fidelity Reports Web Issues After Robo-Adviser Sites Crash

Personal Capital Adds Socially Responsible Investing to Serve Rapidly Growing Client Base

What’s new from AdvisoryWorld, 2018 Fintech Update from YouTube

Welcome to the FPPad fintech briefing, Here are the top fintech stories you need to know today.

Brokerage Websites Offline During Market Volatility

With huge increases in market volatility this week, brokerage customers have experienced unresponsive websites from some of the largest providers like Fidelity, Charles Schwab and Vanguard as well as smaller automated investment services Betterment and Wealthfront. According to Bloomberg, brokerage companies acknowledged that customers did lose access for short periods of time on Monday, but as trading activity subsided, account access was restored to all customers by Tuesday morning.

Personal Capital Adds Socially Responsible Personal Strategy®

In socially responsible investing news, Personal Capital is hopping on the responsible investing bandwagon with the addition of its new Socially Responsible Personal Strategy®. The strategy screens US equities based on environmental, social, and governance factors powered by Sustainalytics data to generate investment strategies that align with customers’ socially responsible preferences. Personal Capital joins Betterment, Wealthfront, Motif Investing, OpenInvest, and many others to help investors align their portfolios with their socially conscious preferences.

AdvisoryWorld Update on ACQUIRE Solution

And how do you stay up to date on what’s new this year in fintech? Well if you visit the FPPad YouTube channel, you’ll see the first batch of dozens of interviews filmed with fintech solution providers at last week’s National LINC conference, including a conversation about an updated from Advisory World called ACQUIRE. Here’s AdvisoryWorld COO Mike Wilson with the details.

We continue to work on what we refer to as ACQUIRE, which is our digital onboarding component. With that, advisors are able to embed links on their websites and social media accounts that helps get new business through the doors. It’s a questionnaire that points, again, to a model.

More interviews are being uploaded to the FPPad YouTube channel every day, so visit fppad.com/flashbriefing to get all the links to today’s top stories.

I’m Bill Winterberg, and those are your fintech headlines for today from FPPad.com, be sure to check back in with me later for more fintech news.

Overstock.com to launch automated investment service: Flash briefing for February 5, 2018

Posted on February 5, 2018 by in Conferences, Flash Briefing, Technology

Here are the links to today’s top stories:

Overstock.com and tZERO Advisors Launch Robo-Advisor Digital Investment Platform from Businesswire

Yes, You Can Find a Financial Planner Even if You’re Not Rich from the New York Times

Everything New in Veo One® from the 2018 National LINC Conference from YouTube

Welcome to the FPPad fintech briefing, Here are the top fintech stories you need to know today.

Overstock.com Announces Automated Investment Service

You never know when you’ll have the urge to buy a new sofa, portable generator, and, oh I don’t know, a diversified portfolio of low-cost exchange traded funds? Well now you’re in luck, as online discount retailer Overstock.com announced plans to introduce an automated investment service to its customers powered by tZERO Advisors. The service promises to match investors to one of several Adaptive Dynamic Portfolios managed by FusionIQ, or investors can customize their allocation among the portfolios on their own, all for a flat monthly fee of $9.95 instead of a fee based on percentage of investor assets like in other automated providers.

XY Planning Network Offers Affordable Fiduciary Financial Planning to Americans

Speaking of affordable monthly fees, millions of Americans think they need to have hundreds of thousands of dollars in order to qualify for an engagement with a comprehensive financial planner, but that is just not true according to a New York Times article by Ron Lieber published over the weekend. Leiber highlights the XY Planning Network, an organization of nearly 600 financial planners who all agree to act in their clients’ best interest at all times, offer affordable recurring fees simialr to a cable bill, and be willing to work virtually with clients from anywhere in the United States.

Updates from the 2018 TD Ameritrade Institutional National LINC Conference

And to finish last week, I attended the 2018 TD Ameritrade Institutional National LINC Conference and connected with the technology strategy team to learn more about the latest enhancements to the company’s Veo One solution for financial advisors. Here’s Managing Director Jon Patullo with a key takeaway:

The feedback for Veo One ® has been tremendous, advisers really love the platform to be able to come to one place and do everything they need to do is a home run. They’re thrilled with it, we’re in the process of rolling it out to all of our advisers, it’s available to every single adviser today, and they’re continuing to adopt it. It’s been a huge home run and we’re really excited to demo it for advisers this week.

My full interview with Jon is on the FPPad YouTube channel, so visit fppad.com/flashbriefing to get all the links to today’s top stories.

I’m Bill Winterberg, and those are your fintech headlines for today from FPPad.com, be sure to check back in with me later for more fintech news.