Tag Archives: Alexa

Alexa is NOT spying on you! Flash briefing for May 25, 2018

Posted on May 25, 2018 by in Flash Briefing, Technology

Here are the links to today’s top stories:

Aquiline Capital Partners Acquires Compliance Software and Solutions Provider RIA in a Box from BusinessWire.com

Don’t Freak Out About That Amazon Alexa Eavesdropping Situation from Wired

Orion’s May 2018 Product Updates Empower Financial Planners, Chief Compliance Officers from BusinessWire.com

(Disclosure: RIA in a Box and Orion Advisor Services have engaged Bill Winterberg for consulting and/or marketing services over the past 12 months. Full updated disclosures are always available here fppad.com/disclaimer)

Welcome to a new 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 coming June 11 in Chicago.

RIA in a Box Gets Acquired

In compliance news, RIA in a Box, a leading provider of compliance solutions to registered investment advisers, announced it has been acquired by New York private equity firm Aquiline Capital Partners for an undisclosed amount. RIA in a Box serves approximately 2,000 investment advisers in the country with compliance solutions ranging from initial business registration, online compliance calendar and reporting programs, as well as automated employee trade monitoring. According to a press release, Aquiline plans to help RIA in a Box pursue organic growth initiatives as well as an acquisition strategy in the wealth management software and compliance industry.

Alexa is NOT Spying on You

Is your Alexa spying on you? A Seattle news channel reported that a Portland, Oregon couple’s Echo device surreptitiously recorded a private conversation and sent it to a random person listed in their contacts. While the story quickly stoked backlash among the see-I-told-you-so crowd online, Amazon was quick to reply that the couple unintentionally activated their Echo’s wake up word followed by the phrase “send message,” which activated the Echo’s built in messaging feature. It’s the smart speaker equivalent of a butt dial. Nevertheless, however unlikely the string of events may be, Amazon said that the company will continue to evaluate options to make cases such as this one less likely.

Orion Advisor Services May 2018 Release Details

And finally, Orion Advisor Services released its May 2018 Software Update that includes updates to fee billing for one-time financial planning engagements, new integrations, and additional compliance automation. Here’s Orion’s Director of Technology Support, Joe Leyboldt with more details:

Today we announced the details of our May 2018 Tech Release. The most impactful updates are new billing functionality enabling advisers to generate bills for financial planning and advice, the addition of a tool called Supervise to Compass, our compliance app. We’ve also strengthened Compass’ AML screening capabilities. Finally, we’ve launched an integration with BlackRock’s iRetire and updated our Salesforce integration to run on the new Salesforce Lightning user interface.

To see all the detail of the Orion Software update, be sure to visit FPPad.com/flashbriefing for 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.

Learnvest to shut down accounts by June 5: Flash briefing for May 7, 2018

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

Here are the links to today’s top stories:

LearnVest to drop financial planning while ‘further integrating’ into Northwestern Mutual from Financial-Planning.com

Financial Engines Announces Agreement to Be Acquired by Hellman & Friedman for $45.00 Per Share in Cash from Businesswire.com

Alexa can remember birthdays and other things for you now from TechCrunch.com

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.

Learnvest to Shut Down Accounts by June 5

One of the larger acquisitions among financial planning startups in recent years is closing out with a whimper, as Learnvest told its customers that it will be shutting down its online investment tools next month, according to an email sent by the company and highlighted by Financial Planning Magazine. Back in 2015, Learnvest received substantial fanfare as Northwestern Mutual announced the acquisition of the online financial planning startup, and while terms of the deal were not disclosed, it was widely reported that the deal’s valuation was somewhere around $250 million.

Now three years later, Learnvest said it will turn off access to customer accounts on June 5 and plans to relaunch later this year as a “digital resource focused on educating consumers on how to meet their financial goals” according to a company statement. Some 8,000 customers will be affected, and may turn to other low-cost online financial planning services available from members of groups like the XY Planning Network or Garrett Planning Network.

Financial Engines to be Acquired for $3 Billion

In other acquisition news, Financial Engines, the nation’s largest independent investment adviser, announced it has agreed to be acquired by private equity firm Hellman & Friedman in an all-cash transaction valued at just over $3 billion. The transaction will merge Financial Engines’ $169 billion in assets with $21 billion in assets from Edelman Financial Services, which is another company in the Hellman & Friedman portfolio.

According to the Financial Engines statement, the combined companies will create the leading provider of scalable, comprehensive, and unbiased advice for all investors.

Alexa Adds “Remember This” Skill

And finally, did you forget your mother’s birthday or the last time you changed the filters in your HVAC? Well now there’s a skill for that, as Amazon rolled out a new skill for Alexa called “Remember This.” Simply ask Alexa to remember just about anything, including important dates, names, clothing sizes, you name it, and Alexa will remember the information and repeat it back to you when you ask in the future. I think this is a very slick feature, as you’re essentially building your own personal database of reference information that you can recall anytime in the future, all without any programming or writing a single line of code. You can’t do that with SQL!

For all the links to today’s top stories, be sure to visit FPPad.com/flashbriefing.

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.

Qapital raises $30 million: Flash briefing for April 20, 2018

Posted on April 20, 2018 by in Flash Briefing, Technology

Qapital Secures $30M in New Financing via PRNewswire

Create personal Alexa skills in minutes via Amazon

Win gear to boost your content creation via YouTube

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

Qapital Raises $30 Million

The savings and goal-setting app Qapital announced it raised $30 million dollars in new capital this week, bringing its total fundraising to just over $47 million, according to data from Crunchbase. Qapital launched in the US in 2015 and helps users automate their savings using rules like automatic transaction round-ups, forced savings when shopping at specific stores, perhaps for your frequent coffee splurges, and also integrates with If This Then That to trigger savings for almost any event you can think of.

While its unfortunate that Qapital does not pay interest on savings held in customer accounts, the app does encourage its users to refer their friends to Qapital by paying a $5 referral fee for each new sign up.

Amazon Publishes Skill Blueprints for Alexa Skills

Do you want to try your hand at making personal skills for Amazon Alexa, but don’t know how? This week, Amazon released a new feature called Skill Blueprints, which allows Amazon Echo owners to choose from twenty pre-built skill templates to customize your own voice experience. Select from Blueprints like frequently asked questions for your houseguests, custom flash card quizzes, adventure stories for your kids, and more. The Skill Blueprints are a quick and easy way Echo owners can get more utility out of the voice command devices, which I believe is the next frontier in the client experience between financial advisers and their clients.

Win Gear for Video and Podcast Production

And finally, would you like to win some free gear to boost the production quality of your videos and podcasts? Then head over to the FPPad YouTube channel to see our videos from the 2018 NAB Show, where I’m giving away a Joby GripTight Action Kit for your mobile phone, a Grip Gear Movie Maker Kit, and a free one-year subscription to the Soundstripe music licensing service.

All you have to do is give each video a thumbs up, subscribe to the FPPad YouTube channel, and leave a comment on each video to be eligible to win.

Head over to fppad.com/flashbriefing to find the links to my videos from the NAB Show as well as the other 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.

Enable the FPPad Fintech Update skill on your Amazon Echo device

Posted on December 26, 2017 by in Podcast

Enable the FPPad Fintech Update skill on your Amazon Echo device

Enable the FPPad Fintech Update skill on your Amazon Echo device

Did you receive an Amazon Echo device for Christmas? Then you need to install the new FPPad Fintech Update skill!

Simply speak the command, “Alexa, enable FPPad” to your Echo and confirm that you want to enable the FPPad Fintech Update.

If you’re using your Amazon Alexa app, simply visit fppad.com/alexa to follow the prompts, or click the enable button below:

Enable FPPad Fintech Update