Quovo Archives

Plaid Acquires Quovo: Flash briefing for January 10, 2019

Posted on January 10, 2019 by Bill Winterberg 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

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.

Hackers Latest Trick to Steal Tax Refunds from Taxpayers: Flash briefing for February 21, 2018

Posted on February 21, 2018 by Bill Winterberg in Flash Briefing, Technology

Here are the links to today’s top stories:

IRS Scam Leverages Hacked Tax Preparers, Client Bank Accounts from KrebsOnSecurity.com

Quovo Announces “Cue,” a Data-Driven Alert Engine for Financial Services Firms from PRNewswire

What’s new from RIA in Box | 2018 fintech update from YouTube

[Note: I have provided creative marketing services to RIA in a Box in the last 12 months. See my full disclosures here]

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

Hackers Tricking Taxpayers Demanding Payments of False Tax Refunds

Hackers are using more elaborate techniques to steal money from taxpayers, according to a new report published by security researcher Brian Krebs. In this latest scheme, hackers are breaking in to tax preparation firms to file fraudulent tax returns that result in large refunds deposited directly into taxpayer bank accounts. The attackers then posing as debt collection agencies to contact the taxpayers, demanding that the tax refunds be returned. The demands appear very legitimate, as the hackers know the dollar amount of the refund because they created the phony tax returns. The IRS says that taxpayers who receive such inquiries should contact their financial institution to potentially close the affected accounts as well as their tax preparer who likely had their systems compromised.

Quovo Announces “Cue” System

In account aggregation news, Quovo recently announced the introduction of a new alerts feature called Cue, which applies data science to monitor connected accounts for changes in balances, significant money movements, and even identify the chances clients may have additional accounts that their financial advisers do not yet know about. Currently, the Cue system can generate email notifications for advisors or be integrated directly into CRM software by leveraging the Quovo API, and is currently in a pilot phase with several large financial institutions for a rollout later this year.

RIA in a Box Electronic Employee Trade Monitoring

And speaking of aggregation, how do financial advisers make sure they stay on top of their compliance requirements to monitor personal stock trading by employees? I recently spoke with GJ King of RIA in a Box to learn more about how the company is using technology so simplify trade monitoring for compliance:

Our latest new feature we’re rolled out in the last few months is what we call automated employee trade monitoring, and how we think about that is most advisory firms today, maybe they don’t want to admit this but it’s true, where most people are still tracking personal employee trading through paper brokerage statements. You walk into an advisor’s office, you’ll generally see a stack of paper statements, maybe hidden in the corner, but they exist, we’re trying to bring that into a digital experience. It’s not rocket science, but we’re taking what used to be a paper experience and making that all automated and electronic through our system.

For more details on employee trade monitoring by RIA in a Box, head over to fppad.com/flashbriefing to get all the links to today’s top stories.

I’m Bill Winterberg, and those are your fintech headlines for today from FPPad.com, be sure to check back in with me later for more fintech news.

What is Fidelity Access℠?

Posted on November 15, 2017 by Bill Winterberg in Technology

Fidelity Access℠ is an API-based account aggregation offering for Fidelity customers to grant permission to third-party financial websites and aggregation services and obtain account balances, holdings, and transaction information.

What is Fidelity Access℠ it and why it matters:

Fidelity Access℠ is a new API-based connection that enables third-party financial websites and account aggregation services to obtain information from Fidelity customer accounts, with the customer’s approval, without using customer login and password information in an attempt to “screen scrape” account information
Who’s onboard? Fidelity Access℠ is available now (November 2017), but no large account aggregation services (other than the obvious eMoney Advisor, a Fidelity company) as of yet have disclosed or announced their adoption of the Fidelity Access℠ API
Improved account security: Moving to API-based account aggregation reduces the number of times customers share their login credentials with third-party financial websites and aggregation services
Expect short-term frustration: Customers who leverage third-party financial websites will need to be patient as their providers transition away from using Fidelity login credentials to the new API. All providers must first meet Fidelity’s security and access requirements before connecting via the API. It’s quite possible that multiple aggregation providers and personal financial applications will not be approved by Fidelity to leverage Fidelity Access℠
What customers must do: All Fidelity customers will eventually have to manually enable account access to third-party financial websites using the Fidelity Access℠ dashboard when logged in to their Fidelity account
What financial advisers must do: Financial advisers who use data aggregated from clients’ Fidelity accounts will need to instruct clients to manually enable permissions through Fidelity Access℠ to the third-party aggregation services used by the financial adviser

Fidelity Investments announced the introduction of Fidelity Access℠, a new service that allows Fidelity customers to grant account access to third-party websites and aggregation services to obtain account balances, holdings, and transaction information using an API.

With Fidelity Access℠, Fidelity joins other financial institutions such as JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo (Gateway Channel) and others that have already introduced an API for third-party account aggregation as an alternative to “screen scraping” by logging in using a customer’s online account credentials.

Ending Online Credential Sharing

Historically, investors provided their financial account login credentials to popular aggregation and personal financial management apps like Intuit’s Mint.com, Personal Capital, Betterment, Wealthfront, Learnvest, Clarity Money, Quicken and more.

These services leveraged account aggregation functionality from providers such as Yodlee, Fiserv AllData, Finicity, Aqumulate, Plaid, Quovo, Wealth Access, and Morningstar ByAllAccounts to log in to financial accounts and obtain account balances and transaction data. (See How Intuit’s account aggregation shutdown may impact the fintech solutions you use)

One problem with sharing login credentials with third-party websites is the protection of the account login information and specifically the account password. Given the rapid increase in attacks on financial institutions, including the large security breach of Equifax affecting over 140 million customers in the U.S., hackers are obtaining passwords in record numbers for a variety of online logins that they then use in brute-force attacks to compromise online financial accounts. Many customers are at risk when they do not follow good online password hygiene by using the same password for multiple online accounts.

Cleaner Data

A few positives emerge from an API-driven connection like Fidelity Access℠. First, account authentication and data exchange is performed using well-defined protocols. Overall, security is enhanced as Fidelity Access℠ authentication is performed using the OAuth open standard.

Second, the quality of data obtained via API is much higher than “screen scraping” since the data is transmitted using conventional API functions. Such functions clearly identify datatypes being relayed over the API, so there’s no ambiguity over what pieces of data represent a security name, security symbol, transaction date, transaction amount, or total value of a holding.

Finally, institutions like Fidelity are able to reduce the bandwidth demands for websites customers use to log in to view account information, which were never intended to be accessed in high volumes by third-party aggregators.

Instead, institutions will now be able to shift the bandwidth required for account aggregation to separate services that support access over the API and reduce the demand on public website login page access.

Expect a Rough Transition

Sometime in 2018, Fidelity will no longer allow third-party account aggregation services to log in to customer accounts using shared online credentials and ultimately “break” the aggregation functionality.

At that time, Fidelity customers will need to manually enable account access via their own Fidelity Access℠ dashboard for each of the aggregation services they wish to continue to use.

The challenge here for customer satisfaction will be the rate of adoption among the dozens, if not hundreds, of third-party personal financial management apps into the Fidelity Access℠ program. It is possible that the transition will actually limit choice among customers as to which personal financial management apps can access Fidelity account information. Today, customers can enter their login credentials into any financial management app they wish to enable aggregation of Fidelity accounts without first obtaining Fidelity’s approval.

Also, many customers maintain relationships with multiple financial institutions for a variety of reasons, so as this trend of migrating to API-based aggregation plays out, customers will be required to manage account aggregation access not only for accounts they hold with Fidelity, but also with accounts at a variety of other financial institutions where the conduct business.

The common denominator for client satisfaction here is the aggregation provider that is able to quickly adopt as many of the institution-specific APIs as possible.

After all, what good is it to permission Fidelity Access℠ to the Personal Capital dashboard when Personal Capital is not approved to connect with other financial institution aggregation APIs? The incomplete aggregation decreases the value of the consolidated dashboard in services such as Personal Capital when it is not able to aggregate all of a user’s accounts.

Tepid Adoption

One other interesting take on the Fidelity Access℠ announcement is that none of the major aggregation providers were identified as adopting the new API (eMoney Advisor is, of course, onboard, which is expected as it is a Fidelity company). Other API introductions launched with at least one major aggregator on board, such as JP Morgan Chase and Intuit’s announcement in January 2017.

Eventually, adoption of Fidelity Access℠ will be very likely among the major aggregators, but I wonder what the thought process was behind the announcement of Fidelity Access℠ without also announcing which of the larger aggregation providers have already begun to leverage the API.

We’ll have to stay tuned for more updates here as the success of Fidelity Access℠ (and satisfaction of Fidelity customers) depends heavily on how widely adopted Fidelity Access℠ is among the major aggregation providers.

FPPad Bits and Bytes for September 30, 2016

Posted on September 30, 2016 by Bill Winterberg in Bits & Bytes

On today’s broadcast, get updates on hackathons hosted by Orion and eMoney, Motif Investing introduces subscription pricing, Betterment automates asset location preferences, and more.

So get ready, FPPad Bits and Bytes begins now!

(WatchFPPad Bits and Bytes on YouTube)

Today’s episode is brought to you by Envestnet | Tamarac, providers of Advisor Xi, an industry-leading fully integrated web-based suite for RIAs. Tamarac’s Advisor Xi unifies portfolio management, modeling, rebalancing, trading, billing, and reporting with a fully customizable client portal and enterprise-grade CRM.

On October 20th, two innovative and rapidly growing firms will share how they leveraged the Advisor Xi Suite in their business during an interactive webinar. Space is limited, so secure your spot today by visiting http://fppad.com/tamarac

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

Fuse 2016: Day One and eMoney Advisor Summit 2016: Hack-a-thon Day One

Now you’ve probably noticed that it’s been a few weeks since my last Bits and Bytes broadcast, and that’s because I’ve attended not one, but two hackathon events hosted by financial technology companies. The first was the Fuse event in Park City, Utah, where Orion Advisor Services assembled developers from dozens of companies to present innovative ways they leverage the Orion Notifications platform. My producer Steve and I vlogged each day of the event, which I highly recommend you watch to find out who claimed the coveted Best in Show award.
And then two weeks later, eMoney hosted their own hackathon event, which had a bit of a different structure from Fuse, as four groups of advisors teamed up with eMoney product, design, and engineering employees to build new planning experiences onto the existing eMoney platform. We made vlogs of this event, too, which I also think is worth your time to watch.
Now, I get that hackathons generate good PR and marketing buzz for the host companies, but quite honestly it’s exciting to see activities like these that promote innovation and experimentation with technology that’s all about helping you serve your clients AND be a better business owner.

Motif Enters Subscription Economy, Introduces Motif BLUE from BusinessWire

Now, moving on to top stories, let’s start with Motif Investing, as the company just introduced a new subscription-based service called Motif BLUE. If you remember back in December 2014, I awarded the Best Back-Office Technology to the Motif Advisor Platform, but that was before the company switched from a flat monthly fee per customer to an AUM-based fee schedule.
But with Motif BLUE, the monthly fee makes a comeback, as customers can pay up to $19.95 a month to invest in three motifs, get auto-rebalancing of professional motifs, and trade motifs three times per month commission free.
So my theory is, customers can use the Motif BLUE Starter plan at $5 a month to mimic one of the asset allocations of the popular automated investment services out there, but instead of paying an AUM-based fee of, oh, 25 to 35 basis points, customers pay Motif roughly $60 a year.
Do the math, and Motif is cheaper when assets go above about $20,000 versus an annual fee of 35 basis points. Now I admit, there are still other differences between Motif Investing and automated investment services, but I think you can sense I believe that fees for investing software should not be based on the size of the assets being managed, and I expect that trend to grow as customers gravitate towards subscription-based pricing models.

Tax-Coordinated Portfolio™: The Latest Breakthrough in Tax-Smart Investing from Betterment

But to up the ante, Betterment announced its own new offering called the Tax-Coordinated Portfolio service, where Betterment automatically implements asset location preferences across taxable and tax-deferred or tax-exempt investment accounts.
Now the concept of asset location preferences is nothing new, but what IS new is the ability to use software to automatically manage location preferences on the fly, such as when clients make one-time deposits or withdrawals across their various accounts. Betterment confirmed that this service will be available to Betterment for Advisors customers, so when I go back to that whole discussion around fees a moment ago with Motif Investing, one could argue that higher fees could be justified because of nuanced differences like automated asset location management.

Quovo Unveils Advisor Dashboard, Arming Financial Advisors With Enriched Client Data Insights in an Intuitive User Interface from Marketwired

And look, if you want to effectively mange asset location preferences, you really need to see all of your clients’ assets and accounts, which leads me to my final story that comes from Quovo, as the company announced the release of the Quovo Advisor Dashboard. The dashboard allows advisors to quickly view information on both assets under management as well as held-away assets, easily synchronize new client accounts, and generate simple reports based on the data obtained by Quovo.
Now I know aggregating held-away assets has always come with its share of challenges (like expired account credentials), but with the Department of Labor fiduciary requirements coming in April next year, how will you be able to defend the advice you provide to clients if you don’t have a clear picture of their assets and liabilities?
You can certainly get those details without using account aggregation, but it just won’t be very efficient, and with direct-to-consumer providers like Personal Capital and Betterment including account aggregation in their solutions, well, these are the new table stakes for technology in your business. So if you’re not using solutions like Quovo or alternatives like Morningstar ByAllAccounts, Aqumulate, eMoney, Wealth Access, Yodlee and others, there’s still time to add one of these to the tools you use today.

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

Riskalyze Rolls Out Coverage for Individual Bonds from Riskalyze

It’s a request we’ve heard from a lot of advisors: make it simple to include individual bonds in a portfolio on Riskalyze. We’re excited to announce that coverage for over 30,000 individual corporate, government and municipal bonds will arrive on October 1.

Qumram launches fully-compliant WhatsApp social media record keeping from Qumram

Despite end-to-end encryption, Qumram enables financial services firms to meet client demand for social media interaction, via WhatsApp, without compromising compliance.

Save time with smart scheduling in Google Calendar from Google

If you’re using G Suite, “Find a time” already lets you set up meetings much faster in Calendar on Android. Today it’s coming to iOS and by the end of the year, the web.

Guide Financial to shut down operations on October 11

Posted on August 25, 2016 by Bill Winterberg in Technology

guide header

Guide Financial, the financial planning startup acquired by John Hancock in June 2015, told its users via email this week that the company plans to discontinue operations on October 11.

Intuit Aggregation Wake

Guide Financial is the first financial adviser technology provider that I know of that has decided to close its operations in the wake of Intuit’s announcement that it is discontinuing its Financial Data APIs for account aggregation. Those APIs will be maintained only for current production developers until November 15, 2016, Intuit said in an email to developers.

In a phone call with Guide Financial, I learned that the company first attempted to contact as many advisers as possible by phone to communicate the news, and those who were not able to be reached received an email with the details of the shutdown on Thursday.

In the email, the company noted that Intuit had recently announced the discontinuation of the account aggregation services that powered the Guide Financial Service. But in my post from March 2015, How Intuit’s account aggregation shutdown may impact the fintech solutions you use, Intuit told developers that Finicity would be providing façade APIs to facilitate the transition from Intuit to Finicity for aggregation services. Guide Financial did not comment on the option to transition to aggregation provided by Finicity.

No Data Exports

In the weeks prior to the shutdown, Guide Financial users will not have the ability to request an export of their data contained in the system. Generally, data on clients is limited to basic demographic information and is likely to be found in other systems used by advisers, such as CRM and portfolio management software, so an export of that data would not be useful in most circumstances. Guide Financial said that transaction data aggregated from financial institutions will not be made available.

Guide Financial has offered a brief FAQ on its website regarding the transition, and additional questions can be directed to support@guidefinancial.com

Alternatives

For alternatives to Guide Financial, I can think of a few financial planning and financial dashboard solutions that perform account aggregation to update financial plans. The list of the solutions are below:

eMoney Advisor, $1,944 to $3,888/year depending on features, including aggregation and an online client dashboard
Right Capital, under $1,000/year including aggregation
MoneyGuidePro, $1,295/year (I think aggregation is an additional $365/year, but I’m not 100% sure, and clients do not see an online dashboard for their outside accounts)

Note: I originally listed Balance Financial in the list of alternatives above, but I have not been able to connect with them for any updates. Also, their website’s terms and conditions have not been updated for two-and-a-half years (last updated January 28, 2014). Until I connect with someone at Balance, I’ll keep them listed in this note and not as a viable alternative to Guide Financial.

There are other solutions that perform aggregation (ByAllAccounts, Aqumulate, Quovo, Blueleaf, Wealth Access, etc.), but they generally don’t also have financial planning capabilities built directly in to the program.

If you can think of other solutions that should be on this list, contact me (or tweet me @billwinterberg) and I will update this list.

Last updated: August 30, 2016 at 11:54 AM ET

FPPad Bits and Bytes for July 29, 2016

Posted on July 29, 2016 by Bill Winterberg in Bits & Bytes

On today’s broadcast, it’s a robo free-for-all, so put on your best robo accessory, because FPPad Bits and Bytes begins now!

(Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes on YouTube)

Today’s episode is brought to you by Envision Consulting, providers of IT management and support, cloud computing, and cybersecurity services to RIAs. This October, Envision is hosting a cybersecurity event with Kevin Mitnick, the World’s Most Famous Hacker, where you can find out how to leverage Kevin’s knowledge of the latest hacking techniques to protect your business from attack.

Space is limited, so secure your registration today by visiting topsecurityshow.com, and if you use my promo code, FPPad, you’ll save 15% off the price of your registration.

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

Fidelity Launches Automated Investment Advice Service from WSJ.com

Fidelity Go Vs. Pokemon Go: Be A Low-Cost Investor Or AR Zombie from Investor’s Business Daily

Better Together: Automated Investing with Professional Guidance from BusinessWire

TD Ameritrade Earns $240M in Quarter; Says Retail Robo Is Coming from ThinkAdvisor

TD Ameritrade Institutional, XY Planning Network Launch Program to Cultivate Next-Generation RIAs and Investors from TD Ameritrade

Wells Fargo Plans to Start Robo-Advisory in 2017, Sloan Says from Bloomberg

Big News for the Quantopian Community: Managing External Capital from Quantopian

[Get ready for the robo news, as this week’s top stories come from Fidelity Investments and TD Ameritrade, as both financial institutions recently announced online investing solutions for the retail investor. A few days ago, Fidelity officially rolled out Fidelity Go, specifically targeting digitally savvy customers in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, with investment assets in the low six figures.

When asked by Investor’s Business Daily what happens when Fidelity Go customers get older and wealthier, Rich Compson, head of managed accounts at Fidelity, responded that customers would be referred “to other services like Fidelity’s Portfolio Advisory Services.”

Ok, ok, but advisors aren’t completely left out, as Fidelity did promise details about an automated service it’s developing for financial advisers by year-end. That’s, details, by year-end.

And a few weeks ago, TD Ameritrade announced it had completed updates to its Amerivest Managed Portfolios retail offering, including a digital overhaul for better goal setting, performance tracking, and more.

In ThinkAdvisor’s interview with incoming CEO Tim Hockey, he said that the company will be using Amerivest’s tech enhancements “to launch a new robo for the self-directed client’s needs” scheduled for sometime in 2017.

When asked about referrals to RIAs who custody with TD Ameritrade Institutional, Hockey added that retail clients with $1 million dollars or more are the “target referral” for affiliated RIAs.

That comment came out at the same time the company announced a program with the XY Planning Network to provide dedicated service and no minimum asset requirement to use TD Ameritrade Institutional’s custody services. That’s good, it’s gotta be awkward knowing TD Ameritrade is going to target digitally savvy investors, aka potential XYPN clients, with their own retail robo solution.

On top of all that, Wells Fargo also announced that it, too, is entering the robo market, with a solution expected also sometime in 2017.

And if you don’t like today’s current robo solutions, you can go build your own robo algorithm with Quantopian, who just received fresh venture capital this week from hedge fund investor Steve Cohen.

That’s it, all I hear all day long is how great robos do this, or how wonderful robos do that: robo, robo, robo!]

Envestnet | Tamarac to Roll Out Client Portal 2.0 from PRNewswire

[Now in NON-robo news, how about an update from Envestnet | Tamarac, as the company released the latest version of its client portal to advisors who use the Advisor View™ application. If you watched my coverage of the Envestnet Advisor Summit earlier this year, you would have seen a preview of the updated client portal, plus the key enhancements highlighted by Brandon Rembe. So click right here so you can watch that video.] Envestnet | Tamarac has completely redesigned the client portal in its Advisor View™ portfolio management and performance reporting application. The new client portal will be implemented as part of Tamarac’s July 2016 technology release, and seeks to help RIAs create highly customizable client portal experiences to engage their clients and appeal to the next generation of investors.

MoneyGuidePro creator releases DOL fiduciary-focused software from InvestmentNews.com

[Also, MoneyGuidePro recently released a utility called Best Interest Scout, intended to gather information about client goals, expectations, and investment details in one place. This should help you from a workflow perspective, but the tool should also be helpful in identifying when you must engage in a Best Interests Contract with a client. If you’re concerned about compliance with the pending fiduciary rule from the DoL, expect more tools like Best Interest Scout to come to market.] PIEtech, the creator of financial planning software MoneyGuidePro, has built a tool to see how well clients’ portfolios are aligned with their best interests, including retirement goals and concerns, insurance needs, and health-care costs.

Now since I took a few weeks off, I just don’t have time to cover all the stories in my backlog, including news on the talent exodus at Wealthfront, the Betterment for Business 401(k) offering surpassing 200 plan sponsors and $5 billion in AUM, Quovo, Riskalyze and more, so links to those stories are below:

Talent exodus hits Wealthfront including heads of product, marketing and operations from RIABiz.com

Wealthfront, founded in 2008, is experiencing its first big talent exodus — a flurry of departures that includes some C-suite titles and a Unicorn shepherd.

Betterment for Business Surpasses 200 Plan Sponsors from PRNewswire

Betterment for Business, the only turnkey 401(k) service that includes personalized investment advice for all participants, announced today that it has successfully added 200 plan sponsors to the platform in the last six months.

Betterment Becomes First Independent Robo-Advisor to Surpass $5B of Assets Under Management from PRNewswire

Betterment announced today that it is the first independent robo-advisor to reach $5 billion in assets under management. The company now helps more than 175,000 customers intelligently manage and grow their wealth.

Apex Clearing to Offer Vanare’s Digital Advice Platform from PRNewswire

Apex Clearing Corporation will begin offering to its broker dealer and RIA clients the ability to digitally manage investments using Vanare’s digital advice platform. Vanare offers a wealth management technology platform with a highly customizable white labeled Roboadvisor.

Advisor Software, Quovo Partner to Strengthen Goals-Based Planning Capabilities for Wealth Managers from PRNewswire

Advisor Software, Inc. has teamed up with Quovo to provide wealth managers with seamless access to aggregated client financial data, which can help put together an all-encompassing financial picture for every client.

Marstone and Quovo Announce Partnership from MarketWired.com

Marstone, an innovative digital wealth company, and Quovo, a financial data science company for the wealth management industry, today announced that they have completed a partnership to enhance Marstone’s digital wealth solutions with Quovo’s industry-leading data aggregation.

Riskalyze Autopilot for Retirement Plans from Riskalyze

LastPass introduces Emergency Access from LastPass

With the Emergency Access feature, you can give trusted family and friends access to your LastPass account in the event of an emergency or crisis.

Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes for July 29, 2016

FPPad Bits and Bytes for April 29, 2016

Posted on April 29, 2016 by Bill Winterberg in Bits & Bytes

On today’s broadcast, Redtail is the beneficiary of two announcements, MoneyGuidePro releases G4, and see the latest audio and video solutions to enhance your online content

So get ready, FPPad Bits and Bytes begins now!

(WatchFPPad Bits and Bytes on YouTube)

Today’s episode is brought to you by Kaleido, introducing their new flexible marketing services that turn your marketing plan into action.

Learn how Kaleido can help you implement the marketing projects you’ve been putting off by visiting fppad.com/kaleido.

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

Morningstar and Redtail Technology Announce Expanded Agreement, Adding Redtail’s Robust CRM Functionality to Morningstar Office for Financial Advisors from PRNewswire, and

Zapier integration with Redtail CRM is now available from Redtail Technology

[This week’s top story is a two-for-one about Redtail Technology, as the CRM provider was first mentioned by Morningstar as the company is further expanding its integration with the popular CRM for advisors. Two years ago, Redtail users started accessing Morningstar research and analytics directly in the CRM, and with the latest integration, users of both solutions can transfer data between the two systems, reducing the amount of manual data entry as well as synchronizing client and account data viewed in Redtail CRM.

The second story from Redtail is the announcement of a new integration with Zapier, a popular web automation application. The connection with Zapier means that Redtail users can use triggers in Redtail, such as a new activity or a new contact in the CRM, to create an action in another program, which includes over 500 popular services like Slack, Google Docs, MailChimp and many more.

Other providers, including Wealthbox CRM, have been hinting at soon-to-be-released integrations with Zapier and others for several months now.
So if you’ve been frustrated with the lack of direct integrations within your CRM, you’ll soon be able to build your own custom trigger and action workflows using apps like Zapier.] Redtail CRM is now available publicly in Zapier’s App Directory in beta version.

PIEtech, Inc. Releases 4th Generation of MoneyGuidePro – Helping Firms Deliver Higher Quality Plans in a Scalable Manner from PRWeb

[Next up is news from MoneyGuidePro, as the financial planning software provider officially released the fourth generation of its software, aptly named G4. Advisors will definitely notice an updated look and feel to the user interface, but G4 largely retains many of the core features present in the prior version, G3, such as the Play Zone, Social Security Maximization, and the What Are You Afraid Of? modules.

One of the more significant changes is the addition of five pre-built workflows called “conversations” which are used to streamline the creation of an initial financial plan. Advisors can complete the conversation data entry alone or together with clients in a meeting, or decide to grant clients access to an online portal where they enter data completely on their own.

The pre-built workflows limit the amount of data needed to create a plan so that the entire process isn’t overly tedious. With a preliminary plan created, advisors can then drill down into more specific areas of the plan.] PIEtech’s vision, “Everyone needs and deserves a quality financial plan,” has never been truer – for both advisors and clients. Today, PIEtech released the fourth generation of MoneyGuidePro® to help financial advisors develop and deliver quality financial plans on an unprecedented scale.

Watch the G4 video tutorial on the MoneyGuidePro website.

FPPad Coverage from the 2016 NAB Show on YouTube

[And finally, I want to wrap up this week’s broadcast with a heads up about the videos Steve and I made at the NAB Show last week. We featured the top video, audio, and technology gadgets, as well as whatever that thing is, from over 1,800 exhibitors that you can use to start making your own online content. You’ll learn about 360º cameras, wireless microphones, lighting, production resources and more that are all affordable and easy for you to use.]

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

Quovo and Vanare Partner to Help Financial Firms Provide Better Client Experience from PRNewswire

Advisors striving to improve the client experience by providing offerings tailored to their entire financial picture can now seamlessly aggregate their client’s data into a fully customized online wealth management platform.

Data Points Releases Its Behavioral Finance Assessment Platform from PRWeb

Data Points announced today the release of its Predicting Wealth™ platform, which provides the financial services industry a scientific way to identify clients with the highest potential for building wealth across all market segments. The platform delivers analytics on the financial behaviors of clients and predictive assessments to drive financial success.

United Capital Announces FinLife Partners: a White Label of Firm’s Integrated Advice, Investment Management, Technology and Coaching for Advisers from BusinessWire

Today, United Capital Financial Advisers, LLC (“United Capital”), a Financial Life Management firm, announces the launch of FinLife Partners, a turnkey advice and planning platform that allows independent advisers access to the firm’s proprietary Financial Life Management system, including adviser-branded client experience tools, digital workflow technology and personalized on-demand coaching.

SEC Warns More Cyber Enforcement Actions Coming from Nasdaq.com

The SEC has a long to-do list, but ensuring that advisors and other registrants are protecting clients’ sensitive information from cyber threats is right at the top, and more enforcement actions are expected.

PayPal leads $30 million round in Acorns investing app from TechCrunch

Acorns, the investing app, is announcing a $30 million strategic investment from PayPal, with participation from the Rakuten FinTech Fund. This brings the team’s total funding to $62 million.

Katch is shutting down May 4th from Katch

After 12 months of building the best way to save and discover mobile live streams, it is with great disappointment that we must announce that Katch will be shutting down.

Docupace Announces Independence from RCS Capital (RCAP) from BusinessWire

Docupace Technologies LLC, financial services’ premier digital compliance and cyber security company, announced today that it will pursue growth independently of investment from RCS Capital Corporation

Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes for April 29, 2016

How Intuit’s account aggregation shutdown may impact the fintech solutions you use

Posted on March 24, 2016 by Bill Winterberg in Technology

Intuit’s Financial Data API looming shut down will have a ripple effect across popular account aggregation providers

Intuit’s looming Financial Data API shut down will have a ripple effect across popular account aggregation providers

Quick Take:

Intuit is discontinuing its Financial Data APIs widely used for financial institution account aggregation
Account aggregation providers using Intuit feeds (e.g. Blueleaf, Quovo, Wealth Access, Plaid and more) may need to transition to an alternate account aggregation provider
Intuit identified Finicity as a suitable account aggregation provider, but Finicity has issues around its business that raise concern for me
For advisors, your clients will have to reauthorize any accounts aggregated using the Intuit APIs as various companies phase out their use of the Intuit data feed

On March 15, 2016, Intuit announced they have decided to discontinue the Financial Data APIs (formerly CAD). No new direct Financial Data API (CAD) developers will be allowed to move into production.

The API will be maintained only for current production developers until November 15, 2016 to enable time for migration.

In the wake of Intuit’s decision, Guide Financial became the first adviser fintech provider to announce they are shutting down their service later this year. See Guide Financial to shut down operations on October 11.

Intuit identified Finicity as a solution that will provide a “façade” API interface that translates Intuit-structured API calls into Finicity-structured API calls.

Financial Data API Backstory

The Financial Data APIs from Intuit allow developers to link to end-users’ banking accounts from within their application.

In September of 2012, Intuit announced that it was opening up the technology that powered Intuit products like Mint.com, Quicken, and QuickBooks to the developer community via a library of APIs that it called Customer Account Data (CAD).

Customer Account Data, which was rebranded Financial Data APIs, is composed of two separate products: the Transactions API and the Identification API Beta.

The Transactions API offered connections to roughly 20,000 US and Canadian financial institutions, enabling third-party developers to quickly and cost-effectively deploy aggregation functionality to a wide array of financial sources.

The Identification API Beta facilitated customer’s identity and banking account verification using banking credentials. Developers were able to configure ACH connections via the API instead of relying on microdeposits (a series of deposits under $1 that the customer verifies) and a process called “fatfingering.”

FinTech Floodgates

The general availability of the Intuit Financial Data APIs opened the floodgates of all sorts of new B2C fintech startups that featured the aggregation of users’ financial accounts. These startups included popular names such as LearnVest, SaveUp, Hello Digit, BillGuard, and more.

A similar increase has taken place among B2B account aggregation providers, with companies like Blueleaf, Wealth Access, Quovo, Plaid, and Right Capital all appearing with some type of advisor aggregation fintech solution over the last four years.

Prior to the new wave of account aggregation providers, advisor solutions were dominated by four key players:

Yodlee, acquired by Envestnet, completed in November 2015 for $538 million
Cash Edge, acquired by Fiserv in June 2011 for $465 million and available to advisors through partnerships such as Aqumulate
ByAllAccounts, acquired by Morningstar in April 2014 for $28 million
eMoney Advisor, acquired by Fidelity in February 2015 for a reported $250 million

Intuit Gave, Intuit Hath Taken Away

So now that Intuit is going to shut down access to its APIs, several fintech aggregators should find themselves scrambling for a suitable replacement before November.

Based on my research, many companies I mentioned earlier are going to have to fill the gap left by Intuit’s hole in the marketplace. They include:

Guide Financial (which will shut down later this year, see Guide Financial to shut down operations on October 11)
Blueleaf
Wealth Access
Quovo
Plaid
Betterment (retail and Institutional, based on their use of both Plaid and Quovo)

Note: Prior to August 30, 2016, I had Right Capital in the list above. After connecting the Right Capital co-founder Shuang Chen, I learned the company had considered Intuit’s API for aggregation at one time, but ultimately decided to engage Yodlee for account aggregation. Therefore, Right Capital will not be affected by the Intuit API shutdown.

In its press release, Intuit identified Finicity as an alternate provider of aggregation services.

We have identified a new aggregation partner, Finicity, for whom this service is a core part of their business. Finicity can offer long-term benefits and service for our aggregation customers. To minimize developers’ engineering work to switch APIs, Finicity will provide a façade API interface that translates Intuit-structured API calls into Finicity-structured API calls.

The “façade API interface” means that developers with existing code that calls on Intuit APIs will not need to change their codebase. Instead, Finicity will publish an API interface that is 100% compatible with existing calls to the legacy Intuit APIs and return data to the developer’s application as if Intuit’s APIs never went away.

Who is Finicity?

For me, Finicity is a newer name in aggregation that came to my attention last year while monitoring Quora for details on Yodlee despite founding the business in September 2000.

While the Finicity compatibility endorsed by Intuit sounds good for existing developers, there are certainly other issues to consider before building a business on top of Finicity services, and that absolutely should factor into the due diligence process of advisors.

Finicity has a relatively unremarkable profile in CrunchBase, but a few more details about adoption and marketshare come from Finicity co-founder Nicholas Thomas from this Quora question:

2015 has been a good year for Finicity. We’ve signed hundreds of Fintech and Financial Institutions to build their solutions on our API, have quietly launched over a dozen partners, and are launching dozens more in 2016. Our partners tell us that our broad native data source coverage and our fanatical agg support teams are the primary reasons why they love us.

-Nicholas Thomas

So with relatively little marketing (e.g. as I published this, their most recent tweet was on October 27, 2015), Finicity managed to sign up “hundreds” of customers, launched “over a dozen” partners, with more on tap in 2016.

Is account aggregation Finicity’s only play in the industry? No.

To see what other lines of business Finicity offers in addition to their aggregation services, their website lists two other divisions: Mvelopes and Money 4 Life Coaching

Mvelopes from Finicity

Mvelopes is a software application for personal budgeting and has extremely high ratings for its apps in the app stores. Surprisingly high, actually (more on this later).

Mvelopes allows users to create virtual envelopes for different spending categories and allocate money to them accordingly. The idea is that throughout the month, users refer to the amount of money left over in each envelope after paying bills in order to preventing overspending. Transactions are aggregated from connected accounts, and transactions are automatically deducted from applicable virtual envelopes of available cash.

The service is free to use with a limit of four aggregated cash flow and credit accounts (here’s the Finicity aggregation connection). To access unlimited accounts, users subscribe to the Mvelopes Premier plan for $95/year.

Money 4 Life™ Coaching

Where things get more controversial for me is Finicity’s division called Money 4 Life™ Coaching. The Mvelopes pricing page makes the first mention of coaching services and describes how customers can benefit from one-on-one coaching customized for individual needs.

Finicity coaching snapshot

So I looked into this coaching services with a quick Google search and came across quite a few consumer complaints (36 to be exact) about the services on the Better Business Bureau website.

Most of the complaints seem to be centered around the Money4Life coaching including allegations of no contact by coaches for months at a time and allegations of cancellation difficulties.

Most complaints listed on the BBB site appear to reach a satisfactory conclusion once customers initiate the dispute process (which results in an overall BBB rating for Finicity of A+) , but it is surprising that many customers feel that they need to involve BBB in the first place in order to reach a resolution.

Also, the Mvelopes mobile app ratings are overwhelmingly positive, but many of the five-star reviews have no details in the description or come from users with no other app reviews other than Mvelopes. It’s eyebrow raising.

Critical Mvelopes app reviews such as the one below from iTunes are enlightening:

mvelopes app review

I contacted Finicity for comments and have not yet heard back from the company, so I will update this post accordingly.

What’s Next?

So what’s next? Given Finicity’s connection to awkward customer experiences under the Money4Life coaching program, how likely are the younger aggregation providers to migrate their API calls to the Finicity API? Or will there be a trend to simply abandon the aggregation of financial institutions currently covered by Intuit?

No matter what, as the aggregation vendors make their decisions behind the scenes, advisors’ clients will need to reauthenticate their usernames and passwords once a migration to a new aggregation service is implemented.

For some firms that have a handful of aggregation accounts, this may be a non event, but for larger firms with thousands of aggregated accounts, the issue could take weeks or months to resolve as all clients work through their accounts to reauthenticate their login credentials.

FPPad Bits and Bytes for March 11

Posted on March 11, 2016 by Bill Winterberg in Bits & Bytes

On today’s broadcast, heads is for Salesforce, tails is for Betterment.

(Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes on YouTube)

Today’s episode is brought to you by RightCapital, innovative financial planning software that creates real plans for real people. RightCapital offers both cash flow and goals-based planning along with easy to use tools for retirement planning, budgeting, stress testing, Social Security optimization, Roth conversion strategies, and even pro forma tax forms, all built right in.

Subscriptions start at just $50 a month, so sign up for a free trial of RightCapital today by visiting fppad.com/RightCapital.

Salesforce Announces General Availability of Financial Services Cloud — The World’s #1 CRM, Reinvented for Financial Advisors from Salesforce.com, and

Orion Advisor Services Rolls Out Salesforce Financial Service Cloud Integration; Introduces New Billing and Payment Capabilities from Marketwired.com

Advisor Software Extends Capabilities of Salesforce Financial Services Cloud with New Suite of Customizable Apps from PRNewswire.com

LiquidHub Extends Reach of Salesforce Financial Services Cloud with Pre-built Wealth Management Conversion Packages from BusinessWire.com

Smarsh Extends Capabilities of Salesforce Financial Services Cloud with The Archiving Platform™ from BusinessWire.com

[Alright, my coin flip came up heads, so this week’s top story comes from Salesforce, as the world’s largest provider of CRM software officially released Salesforce Financial Services Cloud. Earlier this week, the company hosted a live broadcast with United Capital CEO Joe Duran to demo the new platform.

I used Periscope to broadcast myself watching the Salesforce broadcast and gave my real-time reactions to what I saw, so if you’re a subscriber, look for the link to that video in my email newsletter. If you’re not a subscriber, well?

So let me cut to the chase. The CRM is built on the all new Lightning product, which for you means the Lightning Experience delivers the same look and feel of a fresh, modern interface across any device you use. Lightning also simplifies the creation of new apps, because third party developers build those apps around the Lightning Design System that enforces consistency across the platform. That’s good.

But, did I see any new features in the demo that Salesforce doesn’t already have today? No. What I saw is more data, in really tiny font size, consolidated into customizable dashboards.

Look, Financial Services Cloud is the framework, the foundation, for new features, but there’s nothing that I saw out of the box that screams “oh my gosh I must have this right now!”

And on top of that, Duran said that United Capital will be releasing a their own version of Salesforce that advisors can white label. What?

So if I understand that correctly, you subscribe to Financial Services Cloud for $150 per user per month, but then you’ll need to get a white labeled version to take advantage of features United Capital built for RIAs? How much will that cost?

And then you have a number of other third party providers announcing their own extended capabilities for Financial Services Cloud, which includes Orion Advisor Services, Advisor Software, LiquidHub, Smarsh, and many more.

I have got to be missing something here because it’s just not adding up for me. Will any of this news be enough to attract conversions from advisor-focused providers like Redtail, Junxure, Wealthbox CRM?

I don’t know, you can read all about Financial Services Cloud and the third party extensions over on the website at fppad.com/182, then send me a tweet, I’m @billwinterberg, and tell me what you think.] Salesforce, the Customer Success Platform and world’s #1 CRM company, announced today the general availability of Salesforce Financial Services Cloud.

Help Your Clients See All of Their Wealth in One Place from BettermentInstitutional.com

[Moving on, my next story comes from Betterment, as the automated investment service announced this week that it is rolling out account aggregation capabilities to users of both the retail and institutional platforms.

This means that Betterment customers can now connect their held-away investment accounts like 401(k)s and 403(b)s as well as their bank, credit card, mortgage, and personal loan accounts to the automated service and see everything in one place, all for no additional fee.

The aggregation is powered by Plaid and Quovo, which, if you follow me on Twitter, the latter is a partnership I tipped my hand about back in November. Is this the part where I brag about my predictions? That’s right, that’s not my style.

Anyway, this doesn’t outright replace other PFM services like Mint.com, YNAB, Personal Capital, or LearnVest because those services aggregate individual transactions, where Betterment aggregates only balance and holding information. Well, at least for now.

But it does mean that more and more investors are going to expect to see all their assets and liabilities in one place. If you’re not using solutions like Morningstar ByAllAccounts, eMoney, Wealth Access, Aqumulate, Quovo, or Yodlee inside of MoneyGuide Pro, well, you’re at a competitive disadvantage.

And Betterment isn’t adding aggregation out of the kindness of their heart. It’s totally an asset gathering strategy because they’re telling customers they have too much idle cash sitting in a bank account or the mutual funds held in a brokerage account have high fees.

Oh, I can only imagine what those pop ups might look like. That reminds me, click to pop up to sign up for the FPPad newsletter!

Alright, alright, that’s enough snark for one episode, so let me wrap up by saying this. You are in a technology arms race, and I want you to keep reinvesting in your business and adding the right technology, which is why I make FPPad Bits and Bytes to keep you up to speed.] Now when your clients sync their outside accounts with Betterment Institutional, you can see details about all of their investments, including fund allocations, holdings, fees, and cash.

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

Envestnet | Tamarac Implements Integration with Pershing’s NetX360® Platform from PRNewswire.com

Envestnet | Tamarac has integrated its web-based, custodian-agnostic Advisor® Xi suite with Pershing LLC’s open-architecture platform, NetX360®.

Inaugural Personal Capital Spending Report Reveals Financial Habits Nationwide from PRNewswire.com

To help people identify new ways to save for retirement and change problematic spending behaviors before it’s too late, Personal Capital, the leading online financial advisory firm, has issued its inaugural Spend Report.

Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes for March 11, 2016

FPPad Bits and Bytes for November 6

Posted on November 6, 2015 by Bill Winterberg in Bits & Bytes

On today’s broadcast, Financial Engines acquires the Mutual Fund Store, updates from the T3 Enterprise conference, ShareFile integrates with Smarsh, and more.

So get ready, FPPad Bits and Bytes begins now.

(Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes on YouTube)

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

Financial Engines to Acquire The Mutual Fund Store to Expand Independent Advisory Services for 401(k) Plan Participants from Financial Engines

[Financial Engines, a leading independent investment advisor, today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire The Mutual Fund Store, LLC, a prominent nationally-branded independent Registered Investment Adviser, from Warburg Pincus and management for total consideration of approximately $560 million, including cash and stock.

First up this week is late-breaking news that Financial Engines, one of the original automated asset allocation tools for 401(k) accounts, announced it acquired the Mutual Fund Store, a $9.8 billion dollar RIA based in Kansas City.

Financial Engines is paying roughly $560 million in cash and stock, and will gain 345 employees spread across 125 retail locations that advise over 39,000 households. This deal adds a salvo of human advisers to Financial Engines’ online tools which, for now, are centered around retirement assets.

So, if you don’t have the technology that supports your own digital advice delivery to clients, you are falling behind. However, you are in a position to add value because you advise your clients on their total financial picture, not just their retirement accounts, so use this as your advantage while it lasts.] Financial Engines, a leading independent investment advisor, today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire The Mutual Fund Store, LLC, a prominent nationally-branded independent Registered Investment Adviser, from Warburg Pincus and management for total consideration of approximately $560 million, including cash and stock.

In bed with giants, T3 software entrepreneurs go to Florida to swear they are still more independent than thou from RIABiz

T3 Enterprise 2015 live interview replays on Katch.me

[Now I want to transition to a quick recap of the T3 Enterprise conference held in Weston Florida earlier this week, where fintech veteran Joel Bruckenstein assembled 45 of the industry’s top technology providers to demonstrate their solutions for the broker-dealer and enterprise RIA marketplace.

Some of the significant news includes Riskalyze CEO Aaron Klein, who introduced the Real-Time Wealth Management Enterprise™ ecosystem, which combines Riskalyze, Autopilot Enterprise, and Compliance Cloud all into one solution and updates from eMoney’s Drew DiMarino who confirmed the company will be unbundling the eMoney dashboard and financial planning components.] MoneyGuidePro’s Bob Curtis flipped the bird at potential VC cash-bearers as Fidelity-owned eMoney vowed it was still a scrapper

ShareFile + Smarsh = Better compliance and convenience from ShareFile.com

[Next up is news from ShareFile, as the online collaboration provider announced an integration with Smarsh, widely known for their email and social media archiving platform. Under the new integration, Smarsh can now automatically archive documents exchanged via ShareFile without any manual intervention or paying for a separate solution that handles those online documents.

So, why is this important? Because when you send a document to clients, regulators want to make sure you have an archive of that document that you can’t modify after the fact, something ShareFile calls “immutable retention.”

If you don’t somehow archive documents you send to clients, you could be getting into some pretty hot water if you changed, say, a fee schedule document, after delivering a prior version to your client. That’s why the immutable retention is so important.] Need a more robust and complete way to archive? ShareFile has a new integration with The Archiving Platform™ from Smarsh, the popular comprehensive archive platform, to create the only solution that meets the regulatory requirements for both online file sync and share and immutable retention.

Blueleaf Partners With Quovo to Deliver Smarter Data to Financial Advisors Nationwide from Marketwired.com, and

Jefferson National Partners with Quovo to Provide RIAs and Fee-Based Advisors with High Quality Data Aggregation for Tax-Advantaged Investing from Jefferson National

[And finally, wrapping up this week is news from Quovo, as the account aggregation provider, strike that, data science company announced it has partnered with Blueleaf, a financial relationship management platform.

This news comes on the heels of a partnership with Jefferson National announced a few weeks ago, allowing Quovo to obtain direct data feeds of variable annuity sub account information which, based on what I hear from you, has traditionally required manual data gathering because aggregation couldn’t handle similar sub account names that had different prices based on the annuity wrapper.] Blueleaf, a financial relationship management platform for advisors and their clients, today announced its partnership with Quovo, the leading financial data science company that addresses the needs of the wealth management industry. Blueleaf has selected Quovo as their data partner for the smarter aggregation of their clients’ held-away accounts.

Big Banks Lock Horns With Personal-Finance Web Portals from WSJ.com

[And speaking of account aggregation, let me finish by pointing out a Wall St. Journal column on account aggregation issues affecting Chase and Wells Fargo customers. Sites like Mint.com couldn’t aggregate those accounts for over a week, and I’m afraid that if these institutions don’t like the idea of third-party aggregators accessing their customer data, then high quality aggregation might get harder to come by, become more expensive, or both, so I’m going to keep an eye on this developing story and let you know what else you need to know as this story develops.] J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Wells Fargo & Co. are snarling the flow of data to popular websites that help consumers manage their finances, according to people familiar with the matter.

Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes for November 6, 2015

1 2 Next →

FPPad

Plaid Acquires Quovo: Flash briefing for January 10, 2019

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Hackers Latest Trick to Steal Tax Refunds from Taxpayers: Flash briefing for February 21, 2018

Hackers Tricking Taxpayers Demanding Payments of False Tax Refunds

Quovo Announces “Cue” System

RIA in a Box Electronic Employee Trade Monitoring

What is Fidelity Access℠?

What is Fidelity Access℠ it and why it matters:

Ending Online Credential Sharing

Cleaner Data

Expect a Rough Transition

Tepid Adoption

FPPad Bits and Bytes for September 30, 2016

Guide Financial to shut down operations on October 11

Intuit Aggregation Wake

No Data Exports

Alternatives

FPPad Bits and Bytes for July 29, 2016

FPPad Bits and Bytes for April 29, 2016

How Intuit’s account aggregation shutdown may impact the fintech solutions you use

Financial Data API Backstory

FinTech Floodgates

Intuit Gave, Intuit Hath Taken Away

Who is Finicity?

Mvelopes from Finicity

Money 4 Life™ Coaching

What’s Next?

FPPad Bits and Bytes for March 11

FPPad Bits and Bytes for November 6

Bill Winterberg’s Tweets

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