Tag Archives: Mobile

The new iPad’s three best features for financial advisers

Posted on March 22, 2012 by in Technology


The new iPad’s been out for one week. Here are three features most relevant for advisers.

My new iPad arrived late Friday last week, and I’ve quickly acclimated to its updates and capabilities in the days since. Three features of the latest generation of Apple’s blockbuster tablet give financial advisers even more reason to adopt the device in their personal and business routine.

In today’s Morningstar Advisor Quickview, find out what three features they are and how advisers can get the most out of the latest iteration of the iPad.

Video Spotlight: Advisor Websites’ Co-founder Bart Wisniowski speaks to mobile browsing and website compliance

Posted on March 13, 2012 by in Video Spotlight

Most websites for financial advisers leave a lot to be desired. The “appification” of websites, largely a result of the proliferation of mobile devices, has changed the expectations of website visitors, and most financial adviser websites remain outdated.

In this video spotlight interview, Advisor Websites’ Co-founder Bart Wisniowski talks about the impact mobile browsing has on the design and usability of websites, but also covers compliance considerations advisers need to follow to satisfy regulatory requirements with website marketing material.

(click here to view on YouTube)

FPPad Bits and Bytes for March 9

Posted on March 9, 2012 by in Bits & Bytes

I released several new spotlight interview videos this week featuring Laserfiche reseller CitiesDigital, portfolio accounting service bureau AssetBook, and performance report platform AdvisoryWorld. Be sure the check them out and send me any feedback you have.

First, I’ve always been looking for services like Dropbox that are easy to use, but combine ease of use with robust security features. I think I found one of those possible solutions for advisers, so don’t miss this month’s column for Morningstar Advisor, A Document Vault Your Clients Might Actually Use.

Here are this week’s stories of interest:

Cabinet NG Announces CNG-SAFE 7.5 from Marketwire.com

[Not to be outdone by Laserfiche’s product announcements made at its user conference in January, Cabinet NG, another document management software solution for financial advisers, has updated its program with enhanced forms processing and additional Quickbooks integrations.] Cabinet NG, provider of electronic document management and workflow management software, today announced the release of CNG-SAFE 7.5, the latest version of its complete document management and workflow software product.

EFileCabinet Releases Mobile App from CPAPracticeAdvisor.com

[eFileCabinet is not a well-known name in the financial adviser market. However, this document management software company has fairly good adoption among CPAs, so it’s just a matter of time until they start branching out into the independent adviser industry.] eFileCabinet, Inc., a provider of enterprise content management solutions, recently released the eFileCabinet Online mobile app for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.

The Principal Financial Group® Chooses Actiance to Provide Social Media Monitoring Platform from Marketwire.com

[Erado, Socialware, and Arkovi have made a number of the last Bits and Bytes updates, but one that has been relatively quiet is Actiance. In this press release you’ll get some statistics on the inroads the company is making in the social media compliance market.] Actiance, helping organizations benefit from new forms of communications and collaboration, today announced that The Principal Financial Group® has deployed its Socialite platform to help meet regulatory requirements that allow the firm’s financial professionals to use social media for business purposes.

FPPad Bits and Bytes for January 27

Posted on January 27, 2012 by in Bits & Bytes

Today is the final day of Laserfiche Empower 2012, where I’m taking in all I can regarding the company’s latest updates to their document management platform. See my prior posts on the event here:

I also created three mini broadcasts of conference highlights from my phone. Listen to them on my FlipZu page: http://flipzu.com/billwinterberg

 

In the meantime, I’ve been collecting the best stories in financial planning technology from around the web this week. Here are this week’s stories of interest:

Mobile Apps: Clients Want Them, Wealth Managers Are Developing Them from Financial-Planning.com

[You can’t ignore the impact mobile devices are making in the way you run your business. I bet over half of your clients have some kind of mobile device, so are you ready to provide service to them using these new channels?] The wealth management industry is adjusting to clients who increasingly expect that they should have anytime, anywhere access to their account information, according to a new study.

Another tool to help re-balance the books from InvestmentNews.com

[Next to document management software, rebalancing software is likely a guaranteed triple-digit ROI for any financial planning firm performing decent trading volume. Here Davis Janowski scoops a new product called RebalanceMax that’s priced well below the market dominators like Tamarac and iRebal.] Financial adviser Rich Chambers set up a side business, Advisor Innovation Inc. (advisorinnovation.com), to finish development of RebalanceMax and begin selling it to advisers on a commercial basis.

10 Top Tech Trends for BDs: FSI OneVoice 2012 from AdvisorOne.com

[James Green provides a decent, but short, list of ten tech trends discussed in a heavyweight panel discussion at FSI OneVoice 2012. Some trends are succinct and all-too-familiar to RIAs, but it’s a good list to keep in the back of your mind. “Integration” appears twice, and Salesforce Chatter is not a social media tool for use with clients; rather, it’s for internal discussion with firm team members.] At the annual Financial Services Institute’s OneVoice conference in Orlando, Fla., on Tuesday, Spenser Segal, CEO of ActiFi, moderated a discussion meant to inform the attending independent broker-dealer executives about the 10 top technology trends that are affecting IBDs already and those that are likely to do so in the near future.

Fidelity WealthCentral Mobile now available for iPad

Posted on December 19, 2011 by in Technology

In February this year, Fidelity released its WealthCentral Mobile app for iPhone and iPod touch. Ever since, advisers have been eager for an iPad app that fully utilizes the larger screen of the popular tablet.

Today, the Fidelity WealthCentral app is now available for iPad.

Click here to view the app in the Apple app store.

You can view several screenshots of the app’s features in the store listing.

FPPad Bits and Bytes for December 2

Posted on December 2, 2011 by in Bits & Bytes

It was a slow week in financial planning technology news, but thankfully, December marks the release of the annual Financial Planning Technology Survey. Joel Bruckenstein’s review of what tools and technology advisers are using dominates this weeks update. Otherwise, companies must be entering that post-Thanksgiving quiet period in advance of the December holiday season.

Here are this week’s stories of interest:

Tech Survey from Financial-Planning.com

[Redtail leaps ahead of CRMs, advisors flock to iPads, and firms still operate without any form of real document management. Read this and other insights in Bruckenstein’s annual review.] From iPads to Androids to cloud providers, technology evolves oh-so-fast, and FP’s annual tech survey reveals that advisor technology usage is changing rapidly too.

Advisor Tech Survey: Tablets Are What’s Hot Now from Financial-Planning.com

[When I spoke to a room full of advisers at NAPFA Connections in Dallas last month, over 80% of them raised their hands when asked if they owned an iPad. How much more proof does one need?] For financial advisors, the introduction of iPad over the past year has changed everything. Notoriously resistant to new technologies, advisers have become envious of the remarkable advancements taking place in the consumer tech market.

UBS Gets Serious About Mobile With iPad App Test Drive from Financial-Planning.com

[Financial advisers affiliated with UBS Wealth Management Americas will soon have access to the UBS FA Mobile app for iPad. Perhaps the intro sentence would be better if the hope was to create more effective engagements with clients. AUM growth is just a side effect of that.] Some 60 UBS Wealth Management Americas financial advisors will kickoff a three-month test drive this week of an iPad application designed to make it easier to interact with clients and access research reports — all in the hope of generating more assets under management.

The Mitigator from Financial-Planning.com

[How do you manage $300+ million AUM with just a staff of three? Get Tamarac Advisor X and leverage ByAllAccounts.] When a Midwestern regional bank bought the independent firm financial planner Marc Henn worked for in 2002, his clients questioned where their interests ranked on the firm’s list of priorities. “My clients encouraged me to start my own firm,” Henn says. In 2008, he did, founding Harvest Financial Advisors of West Chester, Ohio.

FPPad Bits and Bytes for November 25

Posted on November 25, 2011 by in Bits & Bytes

I hope you and yours had a Happy Thanksgiving!

If you find yourself in a turkey-induced coma or in a daze from midnight doorbuster shopping, you might want to take a moment before you dive into this week’s stories of interest:

Endorsing B.Y.O.D.: Save Money, Gain Productivity from Securities Technology Monitor

[As an adviser, you are probably already using your own personal mobile device in your practice. But this excellent article explores your options for encouraging your employees to bring their own devices into the fray (and what you can do on the technology side to protect and secure device communication).] iPhone 4S sales are off the charts, even with its battery issues. iPad sales are similar. Android now is the most popular operating system for mobile phones. So why aren’t you encouraging your employees to bring their own devices to work?

Impeccable Timing is One Sign of a Mature Firm from Financial-Planning.com

[Here’s a vignette of ARGI Financial Group with some interesting takeaways:

    • According to the article, they clear about $6 million in revenues. On their Form ADV Part 2, they list assets under management of $207 million. Do the math and the average fee collected across all accounts is 2.9%. Wow. They disclose fees of 2.5% for accounts under $1 million and 2.0% for accounts between $1 and $5 million. There must not be much competition in Kentucky if they can easily charge 2+% on assets.
    • Next is their change of custodians. Note that under TD Ameritrade, they’ve been fairly successful in growing to the point where they are. Ok, no surprise.
    • But the third’s the kicker. ARGI uses Interactive Advisory Software, or IAS. It’s been a long time since I’ve heard of firms with revenues of this size who are actively using IAS. Wow.]

Louisville, Ky.-based ARGI Financial Group’s business is running smoothly now. The firm has two other offices in Bowling Green, Ky., and Cincinnati. It serves about 800 families, with an average net worth of about $1 million. But it wasn’t easy to get to this level — the firm had to overcome some operational hurdles before business really took off.

Download the Schwab IMPACT® 2011 mobile app

Posted on October 19, 2011 by in General

Schwab IMPACT® 2011, one of the industry’s largest conferences, is set to kick off in less two weeks. On Thursday November 3, I’ll be appearing on a panel along with Daniel Bernstein of MarketCounsel and Mike Byrnes of Byrnes Consulting in a session titled Building a Compliance-Friendly Social Media Strategy.

While preparing for the session, I discovered that Schwab just released a mobile app for the conference for iPhone and iPad. The mobile app contains some useful resources such as the entire conference agenda, maps of the venue and expo area (though they open websites when clicked, so one will need an Internet connection to view maps), and exhibitor and sponsor information.

Conference attendees with a valid login can view and update their personal schedule from within the mobile app (though I personally had issues removing events from my schedule while testing the app). Session surveys can also be completed using the mobile app, eliminating the need to drop paper forms at the back of the room at the conclusion of a session.

Click here to open the Schwab IMPACT® 2011 mobile app in the App Store.

A compelling portable scanner for mobile advisers

Posted on October 18, 2011 by in Efficiency, Technology

I was on the road last week, so I didn’t get my latest Morningstar Advisor column added to Bits and Bytes for October 14.

In this month’s column, I conducted my first hardware review of a Fujitsu ScanSnap S1100 portable scanner. For advisors seeking a mobile document capture solution, I think the S1100 offers a compelling package. Check it out.

Click here to read Capture Documents While on the Road (at MorningstarAdvisor.com).

FPPad Bits and Bytes for August 5

Posted on August 5, 2011 by in Bits & Bytes

I spent much of the week attending a retreat to help plan the future of the financial planning profession. Add to that my commitments for Morningstar, Blueleaf, and the Journal of Financial Planning and I had a nose-to-the-grindstone schedule.

But still, you can count on my Friday updates to deliver the best tech related articles from around the financial planning industry. Here they are:

Ebix may hit a CRM sweet spot for some RIAs from RIABiz.com

[I used SmartOffice CRM from E-ZData back in 2006-2007, now part of the Ebix family. It has the potential to grow in the financial adviser space, but the CRM has a lot of work ahead of it.] For advisors looking for a happy medium, say a company with some heft whose people – and maybe even the inner workings of its computers – know the difference between an advisor and a carpet wholesaler, Ebix might be worth a look.

VirtualPlanning from Financial-Planning.com

[Think you need to meet clients in your office all the time? Think again. Here are some spotlights of advisers using remote tools like Skype and RingCentral to meet with clients on their terms.] In an era when clients can easily reach their accounts online, many planners are cutting overhead and staff and working remotely.

The Mobile Advisor from Financial Advisor

[Another article on advisers working remotely, only this time the focus is on eliminating operating overhead and infrastructure, rather than identifying specific technology to facilitate remote working.] In the wake of economic pressures on financial advisory practices, some have chosen to dramatically downsize their firms, opting to fire staff, work without an office or even give up certain types of clients.

CRM: An Untapped Engine for Growth from AdvisorOne.com

[Schwab Advisor Services VP Neesha Hathi explores survey results on advisers using (and not using) CRM effectively.] By taking advantage of these key untapped growth drivers in CRM, advisors can boost their success in three areas.