Tag Archives: FlashBriefing

Envestnet Yodlee acquires Abe AI: Flash briefing for January 28, 2019

Posted on January 28, 2019 by in Flash Briefing

Envestnet | Yodlee Acquires Abe AI to Revolutionize Financial Wellness and Wealth Management with Conversational AI from Yodlee

PIEtech, Inc. ® Expands its MoneyGuide Platform to Meet Different Advisor Needs, Adds Two Powerful New Financial Planning Solutions from GlobeNewswire

XY Investment Solutions Announces New Partnership with Orion Enterprise from PRNewswire

NOTE: Please see my conflicts of interest regarding Envestnet, Orion Advisor Services, and XY Planning Network, all mentioned in today’s briefing:
http://fppad.com/disclaimer

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

Envestnet | Yodlee Acquires Abe AI

Envestnet | Yodlee is expanding its capabilities in artificial intelligence, as the company announced the acquisition of Abe AI for its conversational banking technology. Founded in 2016, Abe AI is best known for AI-powered chatbots used by financial institutions to engage customers with messaging platforms like SMS, Slack, and Facebook Messenger as well as the voice-first platforms of Amazon Alexa and Google Home.

According to the company press release, Envestnet will add Conversational AI to Yodlee’s financial wellness apps and APIs, other retail banking solutions, and in the future, Envestnet’s wealth management offerings.

PIETech Announces MoneyGuideOne and MoneyGuideElite

In financial planning news, PIETech, the creators of MoneyGuidePro, announced the introduction of two new products that are powered by the company’s flagship software. The first is MoneyGuideOne, a streamlined version of MoneyGuidePro, that targets advisors who have not performed financial planning in the past, to create financial plans in minutes without compromising on quality.

The second product is MoneyGuideElite, an advanced planning product that supports sophisticated illustrations for lifetime insurance analysis, portfolio and social security income modeling, and more.

XYIS Announces Partnership with Orion Advisor Services

And finally, the XY Planning Network just announced a new partnership between its XY Investment Solutions subsidiary and Orion Advisor Services. The new partnership will leverage Orion’s new Enterprise platform to offer integrated portfolio management technology and an advanced investment management experience to advisors that use XY Investment Solutions for investment management.

I caught up with XYIS director Brandon Moss to get more information.

This partnership with Orion Enterprise puts our advisors using XYIS on par with the capabilities of the biggest and baddest RIAs in the country. They’ll no longer have to worry about whether they’re missing out on something by not signing up with a robo, but even the broader aspects a large national RIA might have, all of that is there, and Orion Enterprise is giving us the same robo-sytle capabilities for front-end type activities, but all of the flexibility that advisors are truly looking for from an automated platform.

Brandon Moss, XYIS Director

For more details on this news and more, head over to FPPad.com/flashbriefing to find the links to today’s top stories.

And don’t forget to leave a 5-star review in the Alexa app if you enjoy the FPPad Fintech Update.

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.

Plaid Acquires Quovo: Flash briefing for January 10, 2019

Posted on January 10, 2019 by in Flash Briefing

Here are the links to today’s top stories:

Logging In to Your Bank Account Is Now a $3 Billion Business from Bloomberg

Quovo is joining Plaid from Plaid.com

SEC sanctions robo-advisers Wealthfront, Hedgeable from Reuters

Introducing the All-New Wealthbox Mobile App for iOS from Wealthbox

[Disclosure: I provided marketing services to Wealthbox within the last 12 months. See all my disclosures at fppad.com/disclaimer ]

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

Plaid Acquires Quovo

Financial account aggregation provider Plaid started off 2019 with one of the first large #fintech acquisitions, announcing earlier this week that it will acquire Quovo, a competing account aggregation company, in a deal that Bloomberg reported could be worth roughly $200 million dollars after performance bonuses are factored in to the price.

Most consumers aren’t aware of Plaid, as the company focuses on helping other financial applications such as Venmo, Betterment, and Robinhood, connect to customer bank and credit card accounts in order to verify account information. According to a company blog post, Plaid will use the Quovo acquisition to expand its data aggregation capabilities to include investment and brokerage accounts.

SEC Fines Wealthfront and Hedgeable

In regulatory news, the Securities and Exchange Commission took its first enforcement actions on two automated investment services, commonly referred to as robo-advisors, as it fined both Wealthfront and Hedgeable for making false statements in marketing materials to potential customers.

The SEC fined Wealthfront $250,000 dollars for claiming the company would avoid all wash-sale transactions in its tax-loss harvesting algorithms, when three years of trading history showed that wash sales were indeed triggered in at least 31 percent of customer accounts. The SEC also issued an $80,000 fine to Hedgeable for allegedly misleading portfolio performance reports that included performance data from less than 4 percent of client accounts.

Wealthbox Releases All-New Mobile App for iOS

And finally, in CRM news for financial advisers this week, Wealthbox announced the release of an all-new mobile app for iOS devices. The mobile companion to Wealthbox CRM supports Touch ID or Face ID for account authentication, single-tap quick actions for frequently used functions, support for native dictation, and more.

Here’s Steve Carroll, Product Manager for Wealthbox, with more information:

The all-new Wealthbox Mobile app is completely rebuilt and and redesigned for today’s modern financial advisor. This companion app is completely in sync with the full-featured functionality the web-based Wealthbox product, and has many convenient mobile features like bio authentication and native dictation for advisors on the go.

For more information on this news and more, head over to FPPad.com/flashbriefing to find the links to today’s top stories.

And don’t forget to leave a 5-star review in the Alexa app if you enjoy the FPPad Fintech Update.

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.

Robinhood Rescinds “Checking and Savings” Feature: Flash briefing for December 17, 2018

Posted on December 17, 2018 by in Flash Briefing

Disclosure: Wealthbox and its owner Starburst Labs have purchased marketing services from Bill Winterberg in the last 12 months. See all disclosures here: fppad.com/disclaimer

Here are the links to today’s stop stories:

Robinhood’s options trading stopped working, and customers are furious over the money they say they lost from Business Insider

Robinhood Will Offer Checking Service Promising 3% Interest from Bloomberg

and Robinhood Will Retool Checking Product Following Scrutiny from Bloomberg

TD Ameritrade Institutional and Wealthbox CRM Collaborate to Automate Account Openings for RIAs from PRNewswire

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

Robinhood Outage Impacts Options Trading

It was a tough week for Robinhood, the zero-commission stock and cryptocurrency trading app, as the company first suffered a significant outage related to stock option trading on Wednesday December 12th.

According to a Business Insider article, a Robinhood spokesperson said the outage impacted “a smaller percentage of customers” and trading was limited, “as a precautionary measure.”

Nevertheless, a number of Robinhood users voiced their frustration on Twitter, posting a series of tweets showing rejected option trades in their accounts and complaining of losses they felt they realized due to the outage in trading.

Robinhood Rescinds “Checking and Savings” Feature

Then on Thursday, Robinhood announced a new brokerage feature it called “Checking and Savings,” that promised a 3% interest rate on cash, support for bill pay and direct deposit, all of which Robinhood claimed was insured under SIPC protection.

But in response to swift industry backlash, Robinhood removed all of its marketing material for “Checking and Savings” just 36 hours later and replaced it with a reference to potential “cash management” features to be released at a later time. The most concerning feedback surrounding the feature launch came from SIPC president and CEO Stephen Harbeck, who went on the record to say that he doubted cash deposited for the Checking and Savings feature would be covered and insured under the non-government member agency’s rules and requirements.

TD Ameritrade Institutional and Wealthbox CRM Automate Account Openings

And switching gears to fintech news for financial advisers, Wealthbox, the provider of CRM solutions for advisers, announced a new automated account opening feature integrated with TD Ameritrade Institutional’s Veo platform.
The integration allows advisers using Wealthbox CRM to pre-fill client information into Veo and Veo One account-opening forms directly from the contact record page in Wealthbox.

Here’s Wealthbox CEO John Rourke with more:

Wealthbox continues to fathom the depths of Veo One integration resulting in fewer steps.
For advisers to help investors the Wealthbox app is a breeze.
From millennials to empty nesters, opening new accounts is now done with ease.

For more information on this news and more, head over to FPPad.com/flashbriefing to find 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 offers Path financial planning software free: Flash briefing for December 7, 2018

Posted on December 7, 2018 by in Flash Briefing

Here are the links to today’s top stories:

Introducing Free Financial Planning from Wealthfront

SEI Strengthens Automated Workflows through Strategic Partnership with Advizr from PRNewswire

See the New RightCapital/Advyzon Integration in Action from RightCapital

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

Introducing Free Financial Planning from Wealthfront

Today’s update is all about financial planning software, with the first story coming from Wealthfront, the Silicon Valley-based automated investment service with over 220,000 clients. This week the company announced it will now offer free access to its propriety financial planning software called Path with no investment account required.

Originally launched in February 2017, Path allows customers to illustrate the hypothetical growth of stock market investments, estimate home affordability, calculate projected college tuition costs, and more. Prior to the announcement, investors needed $500 to open a Wealthfront investment account in order to use Path, so the minimum fee to access the service was 25 basis points of $500, or just one dollar and twenty five cents.

SEI Strengthens Automated Workflows through Strategic Partnership with Advizr

Next up is news about Advizr, as SEI Investments recently announced an integration with financial planning software from Advizr to expand the company’s BusinessWise Program for financial professionals. SEI works with over 7,500 financial advisers under its SEI Advisor Network, which was recently rebranded to Independent Advisor Solutions by SEI, and the addition of Advizr to the BusinessWise Program is intended to offer financial professionals the choice of implementing a focused, modular financial plan or a completely holistic plan when engaging clients in the planning process.

See the New RightCapital/Advyzon Integration in Action

And finally, in news from from RightCapital, the financial planning software provider announced a new integration with Advyzon, a cloud-based wealth management platform for investment advisors. Soon advisors will be able to leverage data and portfolio account information maintained in Advyzon to quickly and efficiently populate an initial financial plan inside RightCapital without the need to duplicate data entry.

The companies will demonstrate the new integration in an upcoming webinar held on Tuesday, December 11, so be sure to visit FPPad.com/flashbriefing for a link to the webinar as well as 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.

LPL Financial Acquires AdvisoryWorld: Flash briefing for December 4, 2018

Posted on December 4, 2018 by in Flash Briefing

Click here to see my conflicts of interest regarding Envestnet, mentioned in today’s update.

Here are the links to today’s top stories:

Envestnet and BlackRock Enter Strategic Relationship to Enhance the Financial Advisor Experience from Envestnet.com

LPL Financial Announces the Acquisition of AdvisoryWorld from LPL Financial

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

BlackRock Announces Strategic Relationship with Envestnet

First up is news from BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, as the company announced a strategic relationship with Envestnet, a provider of research, analytics, portfolio management, and reporting tools for financial professionals, and also announced that the company purchased a 4.9% equity stake in Envestnet for roughly $123 million dollars.

According to a press release, the new partnership will accelerate work to integrate BlackRock Digital Wealth’s technologies into Envestnet’s platform, which includes solutions such as iRetire, FutureAdvisor, and Aladdin Risk for Wealth Management. The partnership also provides Envestnet with additional growth capital, which some analysts expect Envestnet will use for strategic acquisitions in 2019.

LPL Financial Acquires AdvisoryWorld

And speaking of acquisitions, earlier this week, LPL Financial, the nation’s largest broker-dealer announced the $28 million dollar acquisition of Advisory World, an investment analytics technology provider to financial advisers.

The AdvisoryWorld acquisition will bring over 30 years of analytics and technology expertise to LPL, as the company’s tools like proposal generation, hypothetical illustrations, and digital on-boarding workflow have been widely adopted by over 30,000 financial advisors and institutions in the U.S.

I caught up with AdvisoryWorld COO Mike Wilson for his thoughts on the acquisition announcement:

This is just a great opportunity for us to continue to serve our existing clients in new ways and to deliver our capabilities to more people. Leveraging LPL’s resources will allow us to evolve our offerings, we’re going to be able to try new things and to learn from a broader base of customers which will help us deliver the most sophisticated service we can to all of our clients, both existing and new. Something completely that I must underline is LPL has this broad base of experience and knowledge that we can use to widen our offering to different types of products and to a more diverse audience.

For more information, 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.

Facet Wealth Raises $33 Million: Flash Briefing for September 19, 2018

Posted on September 19, 2018 by in Flash Briefing

Here are the links to today’s top stories:

Baltimore fintech startup Facet Wealth raises $33 million from bizjournals.com

RightCapital Announces Strategic Partnership with Betterment for Advisors from PRNewswire

PIEtech, Inc. Unveils Fifth Generation of MoneyGuidePro, G5, for Financial Advisors from GlobeNewsWire

Welcome to the FPPad fintech briefing, here are the top fintech stories you need to know today brought to you by Orion Advisor Services.

Enable Orion’s new flash briefing by searching for Orion Advisor in the skills section of your Alexa app.

Facet Wealth raises $33 million

If you want a financial plan, but don’t have a hundreds of thousands of dollars to invest, there’s a new company that wants to help, as Baltimore-based Facet Wealth recently raised $33 million dollars in funding to offer financial plans by CFP professionals to Americans nationwide. Facet Wealth charges a flat fee for financial planning services that range from $480 a year to $5,000 per year based on the complexity of the plan. Facet Wealth also said it will use some of its funding to transition certain clients from other financial advisers that don’t meet that firm’s ideal client profile.

RightCapital Announces Strategic Partnership with Betterment for Advisors

Continuing with the financial planning theme, earlier this week, RightCapital announced that the financial planning software provider has secured a strategic partnership with Betterment for Advisors. The partnership builds on an integration that was rolled out last year, and means that RightCapital will help advisers streamline the process of managing investment accounts with Betterment for Advisors, and advisers using Betterment for Advisors will be able to launch Right Capital software and access its planning features all under one login.

PIEtech Unveils MoneyGuidePro Version G5

And finally, MoneyGuidePro, one of the industry’s largest providers of financial planning software to advisers, announced the launch of G5, the fifth generation of its planning software. G5 features enhanced planning for anticipated health care expenses, custom rate-of-return estimates for assets outside the adviser’s management, a cash reserve bucket strategy, and sophisticated life insurance needs analysis illustrations.

Here’s executive vice president Kevin Hughes with more details on G5

Our customers view MoneyGuidePro less as a financial planning tool and more as an integral part of their business model. G5 builds on that successful collaborative experience helping advisers position their advice and motivate their clients to implement their recommendations.

For more information, 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.

 

Personal Capital Releases “Retirement Paycheck” Feature: Flash Briefing for September 4, 2018

Posted on September 4, 2018 by in Flash Briefing

Here are the links to today’s top stories:

Introducing Retirement Paycheck from Personal Capital

RightCapital Launches Innovative Student Loan Functionality from iReachContent.com

Fuse 2018 Begins in Miami from Orion Advisor Services

Welcome to the FPPad fintech briefing, here are the top fintech stories you need to know today brought to you by Orion Advisor Services, helping advisors experience integrated independence so you can enjoy your business again.

Personal Capital Releases “Retirement Paycheck” Feature

Optimizing retirement income just got a little easier for some investors, as Personal Capital recently announced the introduction of a feature called Retirement Paycheck to its popular online Retirement Planner tool.
Retirement Paycheck is designed to optimize how money can be withdrawn from a mix of investment and retirement income accounts which includes pensions, 401(k)s, traditional and Roth IRAs, social security benefits, and even rental and freelance income, so you get the most dollars in your pocket and pay the least amount in taxes.

Retirement Paycheck is available exclusively to Personal Capital’s advisory clients which requires a minimum account balance of $100,000 dollars.

Right Capital Adds Student Loan Planning Capabilities

The financial planning software from Right Capital recently expanded its functionality to include capabilities around student loan repayment plans. Financial advisers using Right Capital with their clients will be able to illustrate a variety of student loan repayment scenarios based on different loan types, income-driven repayment plans, Public Service Loan Forgiveness, and more.

The student loan capabilities expand on Right Capital’s popular tax planning features with the ability to generate hypothetical 1040 federal tax forms for any client with a financial plan.

Fuse 2018 Begins in Miami This Week

And finally, I’m headed to Miami this week to be a judge once again for this year’s Fuse fintech innovation event hosted by Orion Advisor Services. This will be my fifth year judging the fintech submissions, and I’ll hope to capture some of the key innovations and commentary to include in my future flash briefings.

I’ll be posting videos from Fuse next week, so be sure to subscribe to the FPPad YouTube channel so you don’t miss a thing.

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.

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.

Robinhood raises $363 million in new capital: Flash briefing for May 11, 2018

Posted on May 11, 2018 by in Flash Briefing, Technology

Here are the links to today’s top stories:

Robinhood, With No-Fee Trading App, Sees Valuation Soar To $5.6 Billion from Forbes

BlackRock, world’s biggest investing company, is planning to nickel-and-dime you from CNBC.com

BlackRock and Acorns Partner to Expand Financial Participation Among the Next Generation of Investors from PRNewswire

Live with Arcons Technology: Demo of ClientPort and BillPort technology solutions from YouTube

(Promotional consideration for the demo was provided by Arcons Technology. See my full disclosures by clicking here.)

Welcome to the latest 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.

Robinhood Raises $363 Million in New Capital

Several investing apps announced new rounds of fundraising this week, with the biggest announcement coming from Robinhood, the commission-free stock and cryptocurrency trading app. Robinhood said it officially raised $363 million in Series D funding, valuing the company at $5.6 billion, confirming a report published by the Wall Street Journal earlier in March. Robinhood says it now services more than 4 million stock trading accounts and has rolled out cryptocurrency trading to users in ten states, although the company declined to say how many users pay for the Robinhood Gold premium membership or whether the company is profitable.

Acorns Raises $50 Million in Round Led by BlackRock

Another company raising new capital is Acorns, as the spare change investing app announced it raised $50 million in a round led by Blackrock, the world’s largest asset manager with more than $6 trillion dollars in assets under management. According to a company press release, Acorns now has over 3.3 million investment accounts on its platform and says Blackrock’s participation won’t influence the allocations among the exchange-traded funds in customer portfolio allocations, which include a mixture of ETFs from Vanguard and Blackrock.

BillPort Supports Complex Adviser Fee Billing

And with all these free apps available for investing, consumers are getting much more sensitive to paying fees, including the they pay for financial advice from their financial advisers. So if you’re a financial professional, how are you managing the different fee schedules you want to support overwhelming your staff with custom spreadsheets to monitor your billing. I recently connected with Hemant Moré to learn more about how his solution called BillPort can address nearly every method an adviser wants to use to calculate fees:

There are some clients who like to prorate the fees, there are some clients who like to provide credits, write offs, discounts, minimum fees, maximum fees, minimum or maximum fees on tiers. So there is a whole different kind of way that each firm behaves, and BillPort can handle many of those situations.

To view the full promotional demo of the BillPort solution, visit fppad.com/flashbriefing for 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.