Tag Archives: Orion

FPPad Bits and Bytes for April 3

Posted on April 3, 2015 by in Bits & Bytes

On today’s broadcast, Schwab Intelligent Portfolios gathers over $500 million dollars in its first few weeks, find out why Orion Advisor Services is regarded as one of the good fintech vendors, and personal dossier app Refresh gets acquired by LinkedIn.

So get ready, FPPad Bits and Bytes begins now.

(WatchFPPad Bits and Bytes on YouTube)

Today’s episode is brought to you by Wealthbox CRM. Be the first to see the release of Wealthbox version 1.8 with a ton of new features and integrations, including one with MoneyGuidePro.

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

Exclusive: Schwab robo-adviser crosses half-billion dollar mark from InvestmentNews.com

[For the second week in a row, this week’s top story comes from Charles Schwab, as the company told InvestmentNews that it gathered “considerably over” $500 million in assets in the new Schwab Intelligent Portfolios program.

Schwab Intelligent Portfolios was released to retail investors just three weeks ago, which you heard three episodes ago, and now they have over $500 million. And just four weeks ago, my broadcast covered Wealthfront’s news that they surpassed $2 billion dollars in assets under management.

So it took Wealthfront a little over three years to get to two billion dollars, and Schwab Intelligent Portfolios is on pace to do it in about two months. NOW who’s going to be the fastest growing and most trusted automated investment service in the world? I think that title’s up for grabs.

But hold on: there’s a deeper story here. Your business is experiencing grocery store econ 101. That’s right, it’s all about shelf space. You might have the best business in the world, but if you don’t have any shelf space, you don’t even have a chance to step up to the plate.

So all of these new solutions online are taking up shelf space and they’re crowding you out of the market. Sure, investors are getting low fees, rebalancing, even tax loss harvesting, but are they getting any REAL advice that actually matters? Not from what I can tell. But what I do see is that your shelf space is slowly being eroded, so you better start doing something about that today.

You can start by sharing this broadcast to your colleagues. Go on, the button’s down there, or up in the corner. Use it.] The Charles Schwab & Co. robo-adviser has crossed a symbolic threshold in just three weeks, raising more than half a billion dollars, the San Francisco-based firm told InvestmentNews on Monday.

What Makes Orion So Special? from Financial Advisor Magazine, and

Envestnet | Tamarac™ Rings in 2015 with a Record Year of RIAs Adopting its Portfolio and Client Management Platform from PRNewswire.com

[Next up is news on Orion Advisor Services, as this week Joel Bruckenstein highlighted the portfolio accounting service bureau for a number of the company’s innovations in financial technology.

Here are the most relevant updates from Bruckenstein’s column. Orion now serves over 570 advisory firms who collectively process over $200 billion in assets, and the company expects to add another 280 firms this year.

Bruckenstein highlights many of Orion’s innovations, including its free private labeled mobile app for advisors, video client statements powered by Engage, and trading sleeve capabilities in its order management system.

Bruckenstein also writes that Orion exhibits a company culture of innovation, which you saw first hand from my Fuse 2014 hackathon coverage, which is an event the company will repeat once again this September.

To be fair, Orion’s competitor Envestnet | Tamarac has also recently achieved some significant milestones, as the company now serves over 800 advisory firms with over $500 billion dollars on the platform, and they also offer a custom branded iPad app for use by advisors and clients. So remember what I said about shelf space and competition? Both of these companies, plus many other technology providers, will put you in a position to differentiate yourself in a crowded market.] When pondering this month’s column, I thought it might be interesting to focus on a single firm whose story involved all of these trends, Orion Advisor Services, which offers “software as a service” and portfolio accounting services to RIAs.

Refresh Joins the LinkedIn Family from Refresh

[And finally, I’m wrapping up this broadcast by revisiting Refresh, an app I told you about way back in episode 107. Refresh is an app that creates a real-time dossier about people you’re going to meet, pulling information from a variety of sources to help you, well, refresh your memory about your connections.

This week, Refresh announced that it will be acquired by LinkedIn (probably because of the Bits and Bytes bump!), so the company will soon be sunsetting its standalone app and rolling in its dossier capabilities into LinkedIn. I’m pretty happy about this move, because Refresh has been one of my go-to apps for a while, and I’m glad to see how the technology can enhance the value of LinkedIn as all of us continue to develop meaningful relationships with clients and colleagues everywhere.] Today, I’m excited to announce that Refresh has been acquired by LinkedIn.

Here are the stories that didn’t make this week’s broadcast:

External IT Upgrade Democratizes Access to User Activity, Improving Advisors’ IT Security and Workflow from ExternalIT

External IT, a cloud-based IT outsourcing firm that focuses on RIAs and Broker Dealers, today announced a new capability to be part of its best-in-class Cloud Desktop solution. The enhancement to the recently redesigned platform creates a visual and easily readable interface to view user activity that tracks login location, IP address, time and device, along with the specific applications launched.

FPPad Bits and Bytes for April 3, 2015

Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes for April 3, 2015

Orion Advisor Services parent company Northstar to be acquired by private equity firm TA Associates

Posted on February 9, 2015 by in Portfolio Management Software

TA Associates to acquire NorthStar Financial Services Group, parent company of Orion Advisor Services

Hot off the wires this morning (thank you FiComm) is news of another acquisition in the advisor fintech space.

Today, private equity firm TA Associates announced an agreement to acquire a majority interest in NorthStar Financial Services Group, LLC.

Orion Advisor Services included in the deal

Orion Advisor Services

NorthStar has nine subsidiaries under the company, with Orion Advisor Services, LLC being the most recognizable to advisers interested in financial technology solutions for their business. Collectively, NorthStar and its subsidiaries manage and administer roughly $275 billion in assets, with Orion making up at least $180 billion of that amount (see: Orion Celebrates Fifteen Years of Serving Advisors With Record Growth from Marketwired.com)

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

This comes on the heels of two acquisitions announced last week. First, Fidelity announced a deal to acquire eMoney for a rumored amount of $250 million according to sources close to the deal, followed by an announcement by SS&C Technologies to acquire Advent Software for $2.7 billion.

With three M&A deals in one week, financial technology service providers are proving to be attractive targets for acquisition.

The Future of FinTech M&A

Looking to the future, these deals seem to validate two trends in the industry. First, independent advisory firms continue to seek ways to scale their operational efficiency, and trusted third party providers offer attractive solutions to achieve such goals. Outsourced portfolio management (Orion Advisor Services and Advent Software) and account aggregation, client portals, and streamlined financial planning (eMoney Advisor) give advisers the leverage they need to growth their business without having to add significant overhead or add to the headcount of the firm.

Second, independent advisory firms are poised to continue to attract business from clients and investors dissatisfied with traditional wirehouse and brokerage providers, which may lead to a significant shift in asset flows away from transaction- and product-oriented businesses to fiduciary advice offered by independent RIAs.

Since M&A activity has dramatically picked up in 2015, here’s my question to you:

Who’s next?

Veo One preview from the National LINC 2015 Conference

Posted on January 31, 2015 by in Conferences

I just returned from TD Ameritrade Institutional National LINC 2015 Conference in San Diego where I produced a couple of videos covering the technology updates from the event.

Veo® Vendor Village

First, you can get a glimpse of the “vendor village” TD Ameritrade Institutional configures for the technology providers that are integrated with the open access capabilities of the Veo® platform.

Nearly 40 of the 85+ integrated providers were on site providing demos of their technology to the thousands of advisors in attendance.

With over 85 integrated vendors, you may see several new companies that you haven’t heard of before, including Advizr, Vanare, and Upside.

Veo One™

Next up is a preview of Veo One™, TD Ameritrade Institutional’s updated online dashboard designed to be a single source for an advisor’s daily workflow.

Veo One is currently in a private testing period with select advisers, and the official rollout is anticipated in late summer or early fall of 2015.

The first five Veo One integrations will include DocuSign® and Laser App Anywhere for account opening, financial planning software from MoneyGuidePro™, Orion Advisor Services for portfolio management, and Redtail Technologies for CRM.

The Best Financial Advisor Technology of 2014

Posted on December 19, 2014 by in Bits & Bytes

Welcome to this special edition of FPPad Bits and Bytes, the Best Tech of 2014! On today’s broadcast, this is my last show of the year, meaning it’s time to review the top technology news from the last 12 months that matters to your business. That’s right, it’s time for my Best Tech of 2014 awards.

So get ready, FPPad Bits and Bytes begins now.

(Watch the Best Tech of 2014 on YouTube)

Today’s episode is brought to you by ITEGRIA, providers of complete outsourced technology support, security, infrastructure and IT solutions exclusively for RIAs.

itegria - providing a 360-degree, comprehensive approach to financial advisor IT needs

In their new book titled Red Flags, you’ll learn how to protect your firm from cyber-attacks, disasters, and IT compliance risks. Learn more about the Red Flags book by visiting fppad.com/itegria.

This week’s episode is all about my picks for the Best Technology of 2014. This is my fifth year highlighting top technology for financial advisors and wealth managers, and as always, I break down award winners into three categories: the best back office technology, the best client-facing technology, and the best overall innovation of the year.

Best Back-Office Technology

So let’s begin with the Best Back-Office Technology award winner, which is a product or service that boosts the overall efficiency and productivity of your back office and makes a direct impact to your bottom line.

The Best Back-Office Technology of 2014 award goes to (drumroll please) the Motif Advisor Platform.

Unveiled at Finovate Spring 2014 where it won Best of Show, the Motif Advisor Platform is a solution you can use to build, manage and rebalance your own motifs on behalf of clients. You can combine up to 30 stocks and ETFs into your own custom motif and trade the entire strategy for one flat fee.

Pricing for the Motif Advisor Platform starts at $20 per month per customer, so the Motif Advisor Platform takes top honors this year because it helps you be much more efficient when managing custom portfolios AND it saves your clients money in transaction fees that might normally be charged for trading individual securities and ETFs.

Honorable mention in this category goes to Riskalyze, for its enterprise Compliance Cloud risk-monitoring solution, and the TD Ameritrade Institutional Veo Open Access Dashboard, consolidating dozens of technology integrations into one highly-functional web-based screen.

Best Client-Facing Technology

Next up is the award for the Best Client-Facing Technology. Now the winner in this category must significantly enhance the client-facing elements of your business and facilitate your interactions with clients. Clients benefit from improved personalized service as well as an increased level of convenience when using such technology.

I think all of you will agree that the growth of online investment services has really upped the ante when it comes to the client-facing elements of your technology. So it’s no surprise that the winner in this category is part of the online investment providers, but for me, one of them just barely edged out the others in taking top honors.

This year’s Best Client-Facing Technology award goes to (wait for it) Betterment Institutional.

But like I said, Betterment Institutional just barely edged out the other solutions built for advisors like Guide Financial, Jemstep Advisor Pro, Upside Advisor, Oranj, Wealth Access and several more. Why?

Because Betterment has a solid track record on the consumer side with over 50,000 customers, plus it has the advantage of having Steve Lockshin providing direction for the company based on his experience in the independent advisor market with Fortigent and AdvicePeriod.

Now don’t get me wrong, I think the other advisor-focused solutions have an equal shot at significant growth in this space, which didn’t make the award selection process any easier. But the good news for you is that you have a number of choices in this low-cost online investment category when you’re ready to add this offering to your business model.

Honorable mention here goes to Estate Assist for its online safe deposit box that helps clients manage their growing digital assets.

Innovation of the Year

And finally, the third category in my annual Best Technology of 2014 awards is the Innovation of the Year. This award goes to a product or service that introduces a new business practice or service experience to your business. This innovative tool should transform the way you interact with clients, enhance your overall efficiency, or even enable the delivery of new services not possible or practical in the past.

The award for Innovation of the year goes to (thank you) Engage, from Orion Advisor Services.

Out of all the new products we’ve seen in 2014, Engage is one of those solutions that I feel breaks new ground.

It begins with videos you create to communicate with clients, which you really should think about doing in 2015, but what Engage allows you to do it customize the video content you send to clients in an automated fashion.

Engage integrates performance data from Orion, graphic elements from MoneyGuidePro, and calendar scheduling from Redtail CRM, and embeds the information directly in your videos. So you only need to record one video, but Engage makes it seem like you created hundreds of videos, each with graphics and information specific to your clients.

It’s pretty cool stuff, and that’s a technical term, and a little ahead of its time, as a lot of you just aren’t ready to communicate with clients using video, which is why I feel Engage from Orion deserves to be recognized for its innovation this year.

Closing out this year’s award is an honorable mention to Gladstone Associates for their new streamlined business valuation toolkit that uses technology integrations to efficiently gather data about your business.

Your Feedback

So what do you think about my choices for Best Tech of 2014? Did I make the right choices, or did I completely blow it?

You’ve got to let me know! Leave a comment below, send me a message on Twitter using @billwinterberg, or leave a comment on the FPPad YouTube channel.

Thank you so much for being a part of the FPPad community throughout 2014, and I wish you all the best in 2015!

 

Watch my broadcast on the Best Tech of 2014 for financial advisors

Watch my broadcast on the Best Tech of 2014 for financial advisors

FPPad Bits and Bytes for December 12

Posted on December 12, 2014 by in Bits & Bytes

On today’s broadcast, Financial Planning magazine’s annual tech survey is here. Find out who makes up this year’s winners and losers in advisor technology. Fidelity announces a new collaboration with LearnVest. How will this partnership help you with your digital advice delivery to clients? And, Wealthfront fires the first salvo at the separately managed account industry. Does this new service have the potential to put pricing pressure on the SMAs you use today?

So get ready, FPPad Bits and Bytes begins now.

(Click to watch on YouTube)

Today’s episode is brought to you by the 2015 T3 Conference, Advisor Edition, exclusively designed for the technology needs of independent financial advisors.

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You can get $50 off the regular registration rate by using the promo code “2015T3FPPAD,” so reserve your spot to the event Michael Kitces calls the Best for Advisor Technology by visiting technologytoolsfortoday.com

Now here are the links to this week’s top stories:

Tech Survey 2015: What’s New Now? from Financial Planning

[This week’s top story comes from Financial Planning magazine, as technology columnist Joel Bruckenstein revealed the results of the publication’s annual technology survey of financial professionals. The first surprise of the survey involves tools advisors use to assess client risk tolerance.

For the longest time, the risk assessment category has been dominated by FinaMetrica, the Australian-based firm that launched its client profiling tools back in 1998. Today, assessment tools from Riskalyze and PocketRisk have gained respectable adoption among advisors. But roughly 50% of survey respondents admitted that they don’t use any risk profiling tools, so if you’re part of that 50%, you might want to consider adding one of these solutions to your technology plan for 2015.

Also gaining traction are portfolio rebalancing solutions, as these tools are now in use by more than half of all survey respondents, a first for the category. TD Ameritrade Institutional’s iRebal earned top honors, with Envestnet|Tamarac and Orion Advisor Services rounding out the top three solutions in use today. And with all of the low-cost online investment solutions touting their rebalancing and tax-loss harvesting attributes, I expect to see rebalancing software adoption to continue to grow as advisors match the rebalancing capabilities of the online providers.

Other than that, this year’s survey is pretty similar to the one from 2013, with TD Ameritrade Institutional taking top honors in advisor satisfaction, MoneyGuide Pro cited as the most popular financial planning software, and Junxure, Salesforce, and Redtail duking it out once again for top honors among CRM software depending on how you slice the data.] In the advisor technology sphere, it used to be enough to look for evidence of change. What’s different now is the velocity of the action.

Fidelity Institutional Announces New Collaboration with LearnVest from Fidelity Institutional

[Speaking of online investment solutions, the next story comes from Fidelity Institutional, as the company recently announced a new collaboration with LearnVest, the online technology-enabled financial planning provider. This news follows Fidelity’s announcement last month of a similar collaboration with Betterment Institutional, where Fidelity will list the online investment service in its list of resources advisors should consider as they contemplate ways to attract the next generation of investors.

Under the collaboration, advisors can publish what’s called a “financial wellness” micro website that features educational content produced by LearnVest. In addition, advisors can offer the LearnVest planning program to their clients under a preferred pricing agreement.

Now I’m all in favor of advisors embracing digital advice delivery at an affordable price, buy why should you be piggybacking off of LearnVest’s content? Shouldn’t YOU be the one delivering valuable financial planning content to your clients and prospects? If you have the resources, you should be building your own website, creating your own content, and training yourself and your colleagues to deliver your message with compelling video content. Yes, it takes time and a nominal financial investment, but I bevel the potential reward is worth it.

However, if you don’t have the talent or the resources to make this happen, then the LearnVest collaboration at least gives you a starting point to bridge the gap between your current service model and the technology-enabled relationships that emerging clients are demanding.] Fidelity Institutional, the division of Fidelity Investments® that provides clearing, custody and investment management products to registered investment advisors (RIAs), retirement recordkeepers, broker-dealers, family offices and banks, today announced a new collaboration with LearnVestTM, as well as additional resources to help advisors explore options to digitize their practices.

Direct Indexing: The Next Generation of Index Investing from Wealthfront

[And finally, it seems like I can’t stop talking about online investment services this week, as this time it’s Wealthfront making headlines, as the company just announced a new offering called Direct Index investing. Starting with an account minimum of $100,000, Wealthfront will purchase individual securities and ETFs on behalf of its customers that are benchmarked against the Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF. Holding individual securities instead of funds and ETFs allows Wealthfront to track the performance of the index, but harvest individual gains and losses from individual in securities to be more tax efficient.

If this sounds a lot like separately managed accounts, or SMAs, that advisors use today, that’s because it is. So while Direct Index Investing isn’t anything new, Wealthfront is now able to offer the service with very low account minimums and charges its low annual management fee of just 25 basis points, which could very well put pricing pressure on many of the SMA providers you use like Parametric, Envestnet, Nuveen, and more.] Today, we are very excited to announce the expansion and improvement of our unique direct indexing technology. With this release, the Wealthfront Direct Indexing Platform will extend the benefits of direct indexing to broader sets of clients, with increased tax benefits and lower costs.

Here are the stories that didn’t make this week’s broadcast:

Junxure Expands Relationship and CRM Integration with Advent Software

Junxure CRM, an industry-leading practice improvement firm for financial advisors that integrates CRM technology, consulting, and training, today announced the expansion of its relationship with Advent Software, a leading provider of software and services for the global investment management industry. Advent’s Black Diamond(SM) wealth management platform now offers an integrated experience with Junxure Cloud, Junxure’s cloud-based CRM/office management solution. 

 

Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes for December 12, 2014

Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes for December 12, 2014

Riskalyze announces Compliance Cloud to pinpoint risky portfolios

Posted on September 3, 2014 by in Compliance, Software, Technology

Riskalyze announces the launch of Compliance Cloud for broker-dealers and large RIAs

Riskalyze announces the launch of Compliance Cloud for broker-dealers and large RIAs

Riskalyze Compliance Cloud aims to single out portfolios that drift outside a client’s risk tolerance

In a press release today, Riskalyze, the provider of client risk tolerance quantification tools, announced the anticipated launch of Compliance Cloud, a utility that identifies portfolios that are outside their risk tolerance ranges established for individual investors.

Compliance Cloud was first announced by Riskalyze CEO Aaron Klein at the Laser App 2014 conference last month in San Diego. Today’s press release sheds additional light on the benefits Compliance Cloud offers to its institutional users.

Pinpoint Risk

Compliance Cloud aims to reduce the number of unsuitable portfolio allocations applied to client accounts by automatically screening allocations advisors establish for clients and compares the amount of risk in each portfolio with each client’s risk score (likely the Risk Number™ generated by a Riskalyze assessment).

“Fortunately, with Compliance Cloud, the era of the ‘random account spot-check’ is officially over.” Aaron Klein, Riskalyze CEO

“Fortunately, with Compliance Cloud, the era of the ‘random account spot-check’ is officially over.” Aaron Klein, Riskalyze CEO

Any portfolios found to significantly exceed the client’s risk tolerance (or be significantly below) will be flagged by Compliance Cloud for further review. Not only is this automated risk scanning useful to individual advisers and broker-dealer representatives, Compliance Cloud will be a welcome feature for any institutional compliance officer responsible for oversight on thousands of the institution’s representatives.

‘Big Data’ for broker-dealers and institutions

Compliance Cloud is intended for use by broker-dealers and large registered investment advisory firms. Once again, these institutions typically have oversight over thousands, and potentially millions, of investor accounts, and manually identifying risk characteristics of investor portfolios is costly and inefficient.

Riskalyze takes advantage of the general adoption of “big data,” where useful insight and information is extracted by processing large volumes of disparate data spread across multiple systems. In Compliance Cloud, Riskalyze uses risk analytics obtained from millions of individual client portfolios and compares the data with risk tolerance data identified during the client data gathering and on-boarding process.

Historically, financial institutions and compliance officers lacked the tools to programmatically assess millions of holdings each day. Instead, client portfolios were selected at random and then spot-checked against the client’s (often incomplete or outdated) risk tolerance information.

Orion Advisor Services Integration

According to the Klein, Compliance Cloud has been in beta testing for several months with the general release of the product anticipated in October this year.  In addition, Orion Advisor Services, the nation’s largest privately held portfolio accounting service bureau, was identified by Riskalyze as “the premier launch partner” of the Compliance Cloud solution.

Compliance Cloud will be made available directly to Orion Advisor Services’ RIA clients where advisers can take advantage of the integration of reconciled portfolio accounting data, avoiding duplicate or manual entry of client holding information into Compliance Cloud.

Pricing for Compliance Cloud was not disclosed in the company press release, so check back in here at FPPad for more updates as this product enters the market.

FPPad Bits and Bytes for August 8

Posted on August 8, 2014 by in Bits & Bytes

On today’s broadcast, online investment advisors are coming to an RIA new you. Find out who the latest company is to enter this growing market. JemStep is another provider that’s white-labeling its technology to RIAs. Learn how one RIA is using the platform to serve its emerging clients. And Joel Bruckenstein is concerned about the future of advisor technology. Find out what issues keep this technology expert up at night.

So get ready, FPPad Bits and Bytes begins now.

(Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes on YouTube)

Today’s episode is brought to you by ITEGRIA, providers of complete outsourced technology support, security, infrastructure and IT solutions exclusively for RIAs.

itegria - providing a 360-degree, comprehensive approach to financial advisor IT needs

To learn how you can keep your data safe from attackers, download a free copy of their latest white paper on social engineering attacks by visiting fppad.com/itegria.

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

Upside Raises $1.1M To Help Investment Advisers Compete Against Wealthfront, Betterment And Co. from TechCrunch

[This week’s top story comes from Upside Advisor, the latest startup to join the class of online investment advice providers. But unlike the direct-to-consumer startups like Wealthfront and FutureAdvisor, Upside Advisor is specifically targeting financial advisors who can white label Upside Advisor’s platform to provide a low-cost managed account solution to their emerging clients.

Upside’s platform offers paperless account opening using a DocuSign integration, automated trading and rebalancing, a client portal, and more, and just raised $1.1 million in new funding to continue to enhance its features for advisors. Upside comes on the heels of the introduction of Guide Financial, a similar advisor-focused solution I highlighted back in March in episode 124, giving you one more solution to offer a low-cost, high-tech automated solution to compete with the algorithm-based competition.] Upside, which today announced that it has raised a $1.1 million funding round led by Cultivation Capital, gives financial advisers a white label solution that’s very similar to what other robo-advisers offer.

Upside Advisor video

Traditional advisory firm hammers out deal with robo-adviser from InvestmentNews

[Now another online investment provider also dipping its toe into the RIA waters is JemStep, which just recently announced a partnership with Redhawk Wealth Advisors based in Minneapolis. Under the agreement, the RIA is able to white label the JemStep platform as Redhawk Online Advisor, where investors can sign up online, connect their financial accounts, and receive investment recommendations for a fee ranging from $17 to $69 dollars a month based on the amount of assets under advisement.

It’s important note that while JemStep offers investment recommendations, it does not automatically execute trades on behalf of its users. Actually following through on JemStep’s recommendations is the responsibility of either the advisor or the end-user, which could pose an implementation challenge as the platform gains momentum with RIAs.] Redhawk Wealth Advisors, a registered investment adviser with a wealth management practice, and Jemstep Inc., also an RIA but with an algorithm-driven account aggregation and investment advice platform, have become partners, bringing online advice to help Redhawk’s retail clients manage their investments, including funds held in their 401(k) accounts.

Things That Keep Me Up At Night from Financial Advisor Magazine

[And finally, all this news about competition from online investment advice providers might give you cause for concern, and it’s also one of the topics that keeps technology consultant Joel Bruckenstein up at night, too. In his latest column for Financial Advisor Magazine, Bruckenstein expresses his anxiety over the state of affairs in financial advisor technology.

He highlights complacency, insufficient integrations, and competition from automated online advisors as significant threats to the growth and success of the independent advisory industry. Fortunately, Bruckenstein cites vendors like Envestnet|Tamarac, Orion Advisor Services, Ornaj, Advyzon, and more who can equip independent advisors with technology solutions that not only rival those of the competition, but can also live up to the increased expectations from today’s tech-savvy clients and prospects.] Over the last several months, I’ve traveled thousands of miles, met hundreds of advisors and spoken with numerous representatives of custodians, broker-dealers and software vendors. Although I’m generally rather upbeat about the future of this industry, there are some things that concern me about current affairs.

Here are the stories that didn’t make this week’s broadcast:

Advent’s Black Diamond Platform Surpasses 500-Client Milestone from Advent

Advent Software, Inc., a leading provider of software and services for the global investment management industry, today announced that Black Diamond, an independent business group of Advent, has surpassed 540 clients and exceeded $245 billion in assets on its portfolio management, reporting, and rebalancing platform.

Wealth Managers Enlist Spy Tools to Map Portfolios from the New York Times

Some of the engineers who used to help the Central Intelligence Agency solve problems have moved on to another challenge: determining the value of every conceivable investment in the world.

Vestorly Partners With Advisor Websites to Enhance Client Engagement and Lead Generation from PRWeb

Vestorly, a leading client engagement and lead generation platform, and Advisor Websites, a leading provider of websites to advisors, announced today a joint venture to develop highly engaging websites that build advisors’ brands with investors, as well as generate qualified leads for marketing purposes.

Announcing our new release from Guide Financial

At Guide Financial, our core mission is to help America’s next generation achieve a secure financial future. We are excited to roll out a new release that underscores our commitment to advisors serving the next generation. The new release is now available to currently subscribed advisors and will become more broadly available in the coming weeks.

Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes for August 8, 2014

Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes for August 8, 2014

FPPad Bits and Bytes for March 28

Posted on March 28, 2014 by in Bits & Bytes

On today’s broadcast, cybersecurity takes center stage at FINRA and the SEC, what you need to do to protect your business from attacks. Amazon launches its cloud desktop service to the public. Does this mark the end of plain old desktop in your business? And two growing providers form a new joint venture to take your portfolio management efficiency to the next level.

So get ready, FPPad Bits and Bytes begins now.

(Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes on YouTube)

Today’s episode is brought to you by Orion Advisor Services, the nation’s largest privately held portfolio accounting service bureau.

Orion Advisor Services

Providing full-service data reconciliation, advisory fee billing, Salesforce integration, mobile apps and more, Orion believes it’s time for you to enjoy your business again. Visit fppad.com/orion for more information.

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

Top Cybersecurity Threats for BDs, Advisors from ThinkAdvisor, and

SEC Cybersecurity Roundtable Webcast from SEC.gov

[Leading off today’s broadcast is an update from FINRA and the SEC highlighting cybersecurity threats faced by advisors and broker-dealers. In a roundtable event held in Washington DC this week, regulators and industry representatives acknowledged that the number one cybersecurity threat to firms of all sizes is the unauthorized account takeover.

This happens when a hacker compromises an investor’s username and password credentials, or manages to take control of an investor’s email account. The hacker then proceeds to liquidate holdings and transfer money to outside accounts, or even poses as a client with a convincing story to get advisors to transfer funds to an outside account, a clever tactic known as spoofing.

Both FINRA and the SEC acknowledge they must play a role in this area, but neither provided details on what exactly that role should be, and if any advisor exams are to include cybersecurity audits, they are likely to start in the fall of 2014 at best.

Until then, here’s what I recommend you do: First, update your compliance manual with policies for what you do when faced with a cybersecurity attack.

Second, train everyone in your organization so they’re familiar with the common tactics from hackers, including phishing, spoofing, and reverse social engineering. And finally, invest in technology to boost your security, like activating multi-factor authentication, deploying firewalls, and even using phishing simulation software that I highlighted in episode number 115.] The top risks broker-dealers face in dealing with cybersecurity threats are operational risk, “insider” risks posed by rogue employees and hackers penetrating BD systems, Daniel Sibears of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority said Wednesday at the Securities and Exchange Commission’s cybersecurity roundtable.

Amazon WorkSpaces, Amazon’s Cloud Desktop Service, Launches To Public Along With New Sync Client from TechCrunch, and

Amazon WorkSpaces from Amazon

[Next up is news from Amazon, as the company announced the general release of its virtual desktop solution to the public called WorkSpaces.

WorkSpaces is squarely aimed to take on other virtual desktop providers like Citrix, VMWare, and Microsoft, and with pricing ranging from $35 to $75 per month for each user, WorkSpaces is roughly half the price of the competition. If you’re looking to get rid of your aging server and move all of your core software to the cloud, Amazon WorkSpaces just became a very compelling option.

Plus, with the introduction of a new WorkSpace Sync application, you can backup and synchronize up to 10GB of documents between your WorkSpaces, the Amazon Simple Storage Service, and even your local desktop computer. This gives you a secure and reliable document storage alternative to consumer services like Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, and Microsoft OneDrive that you might be using today.] Amazon WorkSpaces, the company’s virtual desktop computing environment introduced last fall at the AWS re:Invent conference, is today available to the public.

Orion Advisor Services, LLC and Total Rebalance Expert (TRX) Form Joint Venture; Announce Technology Integration from PRNewswire.com

[And finally, two popular providers in portfolio management and rebalancing software, Orion Advisor Services and Total Rebalance Expert, announced a new joint venture this week called the “Total Technology Platform.”

The two companies first integrated their solutions back in October of 2012, enabling the import of account, transaction, and tax lot data from Orion directly into TRX with a single click.

But this latest venture goes beyond bidirectional integration, as users of Orion will now be able to access TRX directly from within the Orion platform. At the same time, both companies said they are committed to maintaining open-architecture platforms rather than hold advisors captive to one bundled solution.

Orion users can still take advantage of integrations with Blaze Portfolio, iRebal from TD Ameritrade Institutional, and Rebalance Express from RedBlack Software, and TRX users can continue to import data from Morningstar Office, Portfolio Center from Schwab Performance Technologies®, Advent’s Black Diamond Performance Reporting and more.] Total Rebalance Expert (TRX) and Orion Advisor Services, LLC (Orion) announced today a joint venture between the two companies to provide a “Total Technology Platform” designed to simplify and streamline the portfolio management process.

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

Box Unveils First Standalone Product And New API Pricing At Inaugural Dev Conference from TechCrunch

New Kitces Network to Target Planners for Gen X & Y from Financial Planning

Office 2 HD for iPad is now Citrix ShareFile QuickEdit, drops $7.99 price to become free via iTunes

 

Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes for March 28, 2014

Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes for March 28, 2014

FPPad Bits and Bytes for February 28

Posted on February 28, 2014 by in Bits & Bytes

On today’s broadcast, iPhone and iPad users on high alert; what you need to do right now to fix a huge security flaw, how Schwab Advisor Services plans to give thousands of advisors a presence in the popular app stores, and what’s the next hot technology you might see coming from the industry’s largest independent broker-dealer?

So get ready, FPPad Bits and Bytes begins now.

(Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes on YouTube)

Today’s episode is brought to you by Redtail Technology, providers of cloud-based CRM for financial professionals since 2003.

Redtail Technology

Check out their popular CRM, document imaging, and complaint email solutions and sign up for a 30-day free trial by visiting fppad.com/redtail.

Behind iPhone’s Critical Security Bug, a Single Bad ‘Goto’ from Wired, and

Apple Patches Critical OS X ‘Gotofail’ Security Hole from PC Magazine

[This week’s top story is for all of you who use iPhones and iPads in your business. In case you haven’t heard, Apple quietly rolled out a new update to iOS this week to patch a critical flaw in the way secure Internet connections are handled.

It’s been dubbed the “gotofail” flaw, as the operating system’s source code had an inadvertent goto command, essentially bypassing the final steps in the security authentication process.

So what you need to do right now is to turn on your device, open the Settings app, tap General, and then tap Software Update to start the download process. The same bug also affects Mac users, so be sure to perform a Software Update on your Mac to patch this security hole.] Like everything else on the iPhone, the critical crypto flaw announced in iOS 7 yesterday turns out to be a study in simplicity and elegant design: a single spurious “goto” in one part of Apple’s authentication code that accidentally bypasses the rest of it.

Schwab OpenView Mobile launches, allows RIAs to create branded mobile apps for iOS and Android from FPPad

[Next up is another story about mobile devices, only this one comes from Schwab Advisor Services. In a press release this week, Schwab announced that it officially rolled out Schwab OpenView Mobile, a service that allows advisors to publish native mobile apps branded for their business. Schwab OpenView Mobile lets advisors perform limited customization of things like logos, contact details, and color schemes and publish the app in the iTunes App Store as well as Google Play.

But Schwab isn’t the first to offer custom branded apps for advisors, as both Orion Advisor Services and Trust Company of America have both been offering this service to their clients for several years at no additional charge. The Faulkner Media Group also publishes branded mobile apps for advisors at a reasonable price.

But for a cost of of $5,000 up front plus $2,000 in annual maintenance, Schwab OpenView Mobile might prove to be a bit too expensive relative to the other third party app solutions currently on the market. I’ll come back in a few months to report on the overall adoption of OpenView Mobile by Schwab’s advisors, so stay tuned.] Schwab OpenView Mobile officially launches, allowing RIAs to publish branded mobile apps to the iTunes App Store and Google Play

LPL Financial to deploy Microsoft Lync for enterprise messaging from Twitter

[And finally, wrapping up this week’s broadcast is a little inside information on how LPL Financial hopes to make its advisors a bit more efficient when collaborating with the home office. According to my sources, aka a tweet from Jamie Cox, LPL will soon be deploying an instant messaging and video chat service from Microsoft called Lync.

Now I know several RIAs have been experimenting with collaboration platforms like Yammer, Google Chat, and Salesforce Chatter, but this is the first I’ve heard of an independent broker’s plans to roll out an enterprise-wide messaging app. Retail pricing for Lync is $2 per user per month, but I don’t have details on what the final cost will be to LPL representatives, if any.
While the apps might seem a little funky at first, it’s clear that realtime messaging and collaboration is really gaining momentum in the enterprise, so if you aren’t at least experimenting with some of these apps, you might want to put them on your technology roadmap for this year.]

 

 

Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes for February 28, 2014

Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes for February 28, 2014

T3 2014: How a $5 billion RIA’s Laserfiche conversion generated time savings of 40%

Posted on February 18, 2014 by in Efficiency, Software

Jim Anderson of CLS Investments, LLC: "We were living on borrowed time."

Jim Anderson of CLS Investments, LLC: “We were living on borrowed time.”

One $5 billion RIA converted 1.5 million documents to Laserfiche in less than a year, saving the company 40% of its collective time

One of the more practical general sessions at T3 2014 was presented by Jim Anderson, Chief Systems and Project Creator at CLS Investments, LLC.

CLS Investments is a third party investment manager and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of NorthStar Financial Services Group.

You may recognize NorthStar for its Orion Advisor Services, LLC subsidiary, serving advisers’ needs as a portfolio management service bureau for more than a decade.

On the investment side of NorthStar, CLS Investments is an SEC-registered investment adviser and maintained more than $5.6 billion in assets under management as of mid-2013.

“Living on Borrowed Time”

So what was the most appealing part of Anderson’s general session presentation? He detailed the process of transitioning out of an aging IBM FileNet enterprise content management system to a more robust platform powered by Laserfiche (see How Laserfiche is used in the family office environment).

“We were living on borrowed time,” Anderson said to a room full of T3 Conference attendees.

What frustrated employees of CLS Investments the most was the fact that documents could only be retrieved based on their metadata, or document descriptions, added Anderson.

Should a document get misfiled or labeled incorrectly, it was as if the document had been permanently deleted with no possibility of retrieval.

According to Anderson, FileNet was that much of a black hole that employees didn’t have any confidence in the system.

Laserfiche Rises to the Top

As Anderson and other project leaders surveyed the content management marketplace, Laserfiche was the one solution that consistently offered answers to CLS Investment’s many requirements.

CLS Investments wanted a platform that could push the administration and management of documents back to each business unit in the organization. Roles-based workflow, integrated compliance functions, and full-text search capabilities were also must-have requirements.

Accelerated Information Systems was the Laserfiche value-added reseller selected by CLS Investments

Accelerated Information Systems was the Laserfiche value-added reseller selected by CLS Investments

While the product was promising, Laserfiche is primarily sold through a network of value-added resellers, or VARs. Anderson knew that the success of the pending project would largely be determined by the quality of the Laserfiche VAR.

“We wanted to work with a partner who thinks like we do and speaks our language,” said Anderson.

And in its search for a Laserfiche VAR, CLS Investments selected Accelerated Information Systems based in the New York City metro area.

Doubling Licenses Twice in One Year

As CLS Investments was just beginning its due diligence on Laserfiche, Zaheer Master, founder of Accelerated Information Systems, invited Anderson and his colleagues to attend Laserfiche Empower, the content management provider’s annual conference (watch Laserfiche Unveils Product Roadmap at Empower 2014).

Zaheer Master

Accelerated Information Systems founder Zaheer Master: “It’s not what you don’t know that can hurt you; it’s what you can’t find.”

Anderson commented that after seeing the size of the worldwide Laserfiche community as well as the network of add ons, plugins, and third party developers, he and his team had much more confidence that Laserfiche could be the best fit for CLS Investments.

Anderson originally planned to start with 25 licenses for the pilot phase of Laserfiche implementation, but based on his conference experience, he doubled the pilot size to 50 licenses.

Nine months into the implementation, CLS Investments once again doubled its number of licenses to 100.

“The growth of Laserfiche at CLS is a result of the successful change management process applied by the CLS project team and Accelerated Information Systems,” said Master.

“By addressing the most visible pain points early on in the project, we gained momentum for bringing the benefits of Laserfiche to more departments,” he added.

“Everyone’s Hair Was On Fire”

Nevertheless, not all employees of CLS Investments were completely sold on Laserfiche. Any change can be challenging, said Anderson, but changes that affect everyday workflow and habits are especially hard to embrace.

But one scenario in the middle of implementation acted as the pivot for Laserfiche adoption.

Anderson described that one day, accounting had an urgent need for a fee schedule, but was unable to find any trace of the document in its legacy systems.

“You’ve all seen it before. It was as if everyone’s hair was on fire in a mad scramble to find the missing fee schedule,” Anderson said.

But during the conversion of more than 1.5 million records from FileNet to Laserfiche, Accelerated Information Systems applied optical character recognition, or OCR, to every single record.

“With full-text search, we found the fee schedule and everyone calmed down. It was then that our managers knew that we had the right tool,” he said.

The scenario is not too uncommon among Accelerated Information Systems’ clients, says Master, adding, “It’s not what you don’t know that can hurt you; it’s what you can’t find. CLS now knows they can find every document, every single time, even if it’s filed in the wrong folder.”

A 40% Time Savings

Throughout the implementation process, Anderson described how CLS Investments was able to create workflows to compliment and streamline existing processes, not interrupt them.

Also, as an enterprise user of Salesforce, CLS Investments is able to leverage the Laserfiche integration that allows users to view their Laserfiche repository directly from Salesforce.

Anderson closed with an impressive statistic about the return on investment CLS Investments has realized in the year since its initial Laserfiche implementation.

“By leveraging the workflow rules to structure processes and validate steps along the way, we estimate that we’ve saved roughly 40% of our time by switching to Laserfiche,” said Anderson.