Tag Archives: Personal Capital

New iPad app from Personal Capital ups the ante for online advice delivery

Posted on March 14, 2012 by in Technology

Personal Capital just upped the ante for financial advisers looking to connect with Gen X and Gen Y via mobile devices.

In an email delivered to subscribers today, Personal Capital announced the release of its free iPad app. For full details about the app, view the entry in the iTunes store.

The app delivers a lot of what clients and advisers have seen in the past from other online financial platforms such as Mint.com. Users can view account balances, see investment account allocation, and manage cash transactions in checking, savings, and credit card accounts.

But the potential killer feature of Personal Capital’s iPad app is its integration with FaceTime, the video calling app created by Apple. From the email:

You can also have a conversation with your advisor via FaceTime. It’s one-on-one interaction to help you better understand your financial situation, initiated by a simple screen tap.

Users now have the ability to tap and talk to their personal adviser directly from their iPad. No more phone calls, no more triaging by the front desk manager, no unanswered voice mails. That, I feel, is real disintermediation of financial advice delivery.

How are you prepared to compete?

 

[PODCAST] Competing Against “Robo Advisors:” Delivering Advice in a New World from T3 2012

Posted on February 23, 2012 by in Podcast, Practice Management, Technology

Yesterday I posted two YouTube videos from the session from T3 2012 titled Competing Against Robo Advisors. I know that many of you prefer to download content like this to your media player of choice (i.e. iPhone) and listen to it on your jog or your commute home.

Using the audio from the Robo Advisor session, I created my first podcast. I’m currently going through the approval process with iTunes, but in the meantime you can listen and download the podcast directly from FPPad.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

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[VIDEO] Competing Against “Robo Advisors:” Delivering Advice in a New World from T3 2012

Posted on February 22, 2012 by in Conferences, Practice Management

Watch the session from T3 2012 titled Competing Against Robo Advisors to understand how your business must change in the face of disruptive, well-funded startups.

On Saturday, February 18 at the Technology Tools for Today (T3) conference in Dallas, TX, I moderated a panel discussion featuring John Prendergast, Co-founder and CEO of Blueleaf, and Alex Murguia, Co-founder of inStream. The session was titled Competing Against Robo Advisors: Delivering Advice in a New World, which addressed the rising trend of online startups who are launching low-cost financial advice platforms.

Companies like Personal Capital, Wealthfront, and LearnVest are encroaching on the independent financial adviser’s value proposition, and are leveraging their internal talent and well-funded venture capital to disrupt this industry.

I feel that the topic deserves attention from advisers, particularly for those who actively seek to attract wealth accumulators in their 30s and 40s. John sent me a text an hour before our session asking if I could film it to share with you. I did, and uploaded the session in two parts to YouTube so you can watch it.

Here is Part 1:

And here is Part 2:

Robo advisers are here: What you need to do to adapt

Posted on January 31, 2012 by in Conferences, Practice Management

Robo Advisor

January 2015: Note that this was the first instance of “robo adviser” I used on FPPad to refer to the automated advice investment providers emerging in 2011 and early 2012, but it’s not the first utterance of the term according to this Business Insider article.

If you don’t know already, your business is being targeted by online, low-cost financial advice and investment platforms.

Witness the advent of startups and applications like Personal Capital, Wealthfront, LearnVest, and more last year. Some advisers may have dismissed these platforms as “robo advisers,” which will never match the personal attention and relationship a human being can deliver.

While a compelling proposition, I don’t think that dismissing the competition is a wise strategy for advisers. I’m not alone in this line of thinking. Just this week, Alex Murguia, managing principal of McLean Asset Management and CEO and founder of inStream Solutions, said pretty much the same thing.

In an interview for Financial-Planning.com, Murguia had this to say:

While they [online advice platforms] are not currently a direct threat, they are becoming more popular and have significant financial backing. In addition, many advisors are doing themselves a disservice by just providing “set it and forget it” model portfolios. Could you blame consumers for not fully understanding the true value of independent financial advice, in this context?

Competing Against Robo-Advisers

So you want to adapt and separate yourself from the robo adviser competition. Where to begin?

Here is a session from the 2012 Technology Tools for Today conference (T3) held at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas, TX. I moderated a panel discussion featuring Murguia as well as John Prendergast, CEO of Blueleaf on this exact issue. The session is titled Competing Against Robo Advisors: Delivering Advice in a New World and it delivered several gut-checks as you think about where your business is headed in the next five years.

Here is Part 1 of the session:

Here is Part 2:

 

Personal Capital launches with the potential to undermine advisers’ business

Posted on September 20, 2011 by in Software, Technology

If your advisory firm’s value proposition consists of personalized investment advice tailored to your clients’ individual needs, your business might be in trouble.

Today, Personal Capital launched its website where consumers can log in and view a financial dashboard of all their aggregated accounts. Backed by former Intuit chief executive Bill Harris, Personal Capital is the latest effort to deliver personalized investment advice to the masses using scalable web and mobile applications.

I’ve included the introductory video of Personal Capital’s benefits below (click to view on Vimeo.com)

In addition, Jessica Toonkel highlights more details of Personal Capital’s launch, including their proposed fee structure, for Reuters.

Click here to read Internet entrepreneur dives into wealth management at Reuters.com.