Tag Archives: Fortigent

FPPad Bits and Bytes for April 11

Posted on April 11, 2014 by in Bits & Bytes

On today’s broadcast, a serious security flaw impacts two-thirds of the Internet. How this may affect the information you store online. Betterment announces the launch of an Institutional platform. Will they start winning turnkey asset management business from advisors? And learn how a new integration between Redtail and Riskalyze will help you monitor client portfolios to keep them in line with your client’s risk tolerance.

So get ready, FPPad Bits and Bytes begins now!

(Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes on YouTube)

Today’s episode is brought to you by Wealthbox CRM. Wealthbox is collaborative, social, and outrageously simple CRM for financial advisors.

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

Here’s everything you need to know about the Heartbleed web security flaw from Gigaom, and

The Heartbleed FAQ for financial advisers from FPPad

[Leading off this week’s broadcast is news of a critical security flaw in a web browser encryption standard called OpenSSL, in use by an estimated two-thirds of all the servers connected to the Internet.

To summarize, the flaw, called “Heartbleed,” allows an attacker to use messages called “heartbeats” to trick a server into passing along sensitive information from its memory, which could include account passwords or the server’s private encryption keys. When hackers get access to that information, really bad things can happen.

So what can you do in response to the Heartbleed vulnerability? In all honesty, not too much. Assume the worst-case scenario, that an attacker has compromised your online passwords, so consider updating your passwords for affected websites to one that’s longer and more difficult to crack. You should also activate multi-factor authentication for any service where it is supported.] Researchers have discovered a serious flaw known as Heartbleed that affects the security software that runs on about two-thirds of the servers on the internet and could expose user data, including passwords. Here’s what you need to know about it

Tiburon CEO Summit extrudes big news: Betterment Institutional is born from RIABiz.com

[Next is an update from the online investment advice category, as this week Betterment revealed plans to introduce an institutional version of its technology to financial advisors.

In a fascinating report, RIABiz detailed how plans for Betterment Institutional were made public this week at the Tiburon CEO Summit in New York, as Betterment CEO Jon Stein and new Betterment partner and investor Steve Lockshin, known for founding Fortigent and Convergent Wealth Advisors, were both in attendance.

The soon-to-be-released offering from Betterment takes direct aim at existing turnkey asset management platforms, or TAMPs, which include well-known names like SEI, Envestnet, Adhesion, and even Fortigent itself, with an ultra-low cost offering of around 35 basis points all in.

Cut-throat pricing isn’t the only attraction of Betterment Institutional, as both advisors and clients will likely benefit from access to Betterment’s slick online dashboards and mobile app support for Android and iPhone.
So if you’ve considered outsourcing your investment management and reporting to a TAMP, Betterment Institutional will be a solution that deserves your close attention over the coming months.] Steve Lockshin lays out his plans for TAMP-like venture and how Michael Kitces, a public critic of the Betterment CEO, very much fits in

Redtail and Riskalyze Launch Next-Generation Integration Partnership from Riskalyze.com

[And finally, rounding out this week’s update is news of a new integration between Redtail Technology and Riskalyze. Redtail, known for its CRM, email, and imaging solutions now synchronizes client assets with Riskalyze, a client risk tolerance assessment tool and my pick for best client-facing technology of 2013, on a nightly basis.

In the other direction, Riskalyze updates client risk scores based on the synchronized account information and pushes them along with the client Risk Numbers over to the client’s profile in Redtail CRM. This is a time-saving upgrade as users of both solutions will no longer have to manually switch back and forth to keep assets or Risk Numbers up to date.] Redtail, the industry leader in advisor CRM, email and imaging, and Riskalyze, the company that invented the Risk Number, today announced a next-generation integration partnership that delivers incredible tools for advisors to grow their practices.

And here are stories that didn’t make this week’s broadcast:

The Advisor’s Technology Swiss Army Knife from Morningstar Advisor

One advisor technology startup combines a suite of disparate business-development tools into one effective solution.

Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes for April 11, 2014

Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes for April 11, 2014

FPPad Bits and Bytes for January 6

Posted on January 6, 2012 by in Bits & Bytes

Happy New Year! I’m on the road already, traveling to Atlanta and Omaha over the next week, followed by Las Vegas for the AICPA Advanced PFP conference. Here are this week’s stories of interest:

The Largest RIAs Race to Scale from Financial-Planning.com

[So you want to be a $1 billion firm: what do you need to do to get there? Hire great talent, differentiate yourself from your competition, and scale your technology. Easier said than done, based on feedback from some of the largest RIAs in the industry gathered by FP’s Ann Marsh.] Over the past 30 years, the fee-based RIA space has grown by leaps and bounds, from zero to close to $2 trillion in cumulative assets under management. That number is still dwarfed by the $9.3 trillion that research firm Cerulli & Associates estimates is in the hands of full-service brokerages, insurers, trust companies and banks. But the figures look poised to eventually flip as RIAs work to address their top challenges: boosting their efficiency, customizing their technology and differentiating themselves from the competition.

LPL makes big advance into the RIA business with Fortigent acquisition from RIABiz.com

[Why should RIAs cater to high-net-worth individuals? Well, that’s where the money (e.g. revenue) is. Let us hope that after LPL’s acquisition of Fortigent, the company can truly apply its newly-acquired service model ‘down market’ in the words of Brooke Southall.] After a month of rumblings, LPL Financial made official its intent to acquire Fortigent, LLC, a top outsourcer of high-net-worth solutions and consulting services to RIAs, banks and trust companies.

Who’s Afraid of Social Media? from Financial-Planning.com

[Look, satisfying compliance requirements when using social media does not require a degree in rocket science. Yes, regulatory requirements might be ambiguous, but by applying common sense principles and some clever uses of technology (e.g. automated archiving services), advisers can successfully engage in this new dialogue without fearing the regulatory hammer.] Social media compliance is a subject that elicits a range of reactions from planners, from groans to cautious, curious questions. But Leia Farmer, the deputy chief compliance officer at Securities America, is excited about it.