Tag Archives: Riskalyze

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

FPPad Bits and Bytes for September 5

Posted on September 5, 2014 by in Bits & Bytes

On today’s broadcast, custodians are battling for your business with their technology solutions. Which one is coming out on top? Hacked celebrity photos have been posted all over the Internet. How are you protecting your cloud data so you don’t embarrass yourself in front of clients? And Box is thinking outside of the cloud file storage, uh, box. Find out which new initiatives offer the best efficiency gains for financial advisors.

So get ready, FPPad Bits and Bytes begins now.

(Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes on YouTube)

This week’s episode of Bits and Bytes is brought to you by Total Rebalance Expert, the industry’s largest, privately owned portfolio rebalancing software provider.

Total Rebalance Expert

Now available as a part of the Orion Advisor Services platform, TRX features tax-efficient rebalancing, an easy to use interface, and more, all at an affordable price. Learn how you can gain a half a million dollar return on your technology investment by downloading their latest white paper at fppad.com/trx

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

Tech Update: What the Big Custodians Now Offer from Financial Planning

[This week’s top story comes from Joel Bruckenstein and his article in Financial Planning magazine. This month, Bruckenstein covered technology updates that the four major custodians have introduced, or are planning to introduce shortly, to financial advisors.
First on the list is Pershing Advisor Solutions, which most recently unveiled a new client portal called NetXInvestor, designed to be the single resource clients can access to view their portfolio holdings, access documents stored in the online vault, and in the near future, collaborate with their advisor through a secure messaging system.

Next is TD Ameritrade Institutional and its rollout of the Veo Open Access dashboard, which Bruckenstein said is poised to have the “most far-reaching impact” for advisors. The dashboard aims to unify your experience when using CRM, portfolio management, document management and other technologies. So instead of bouncing around from window to window, the dashboard leverages deep integrations with over 75 vendor integrations including Redtail CRM, Orion Advisor Services, and MoneyGuidePro to review, edit, and update data without leaving the Open Access dashboard.

Third up is Schwab Advisor Services, as Bruckenstein highlighted incremental updates to its esignature support, streamlined trade uploads from the Tamarac rebalancing soft are, and the integration of Morningstar Office to Schwab’ OpenView Gateway. Of particular interest is Schwab’s upcoming PM squared portfolio management platform, a completely new online solution that, according to Schwab’s Neesha Hathi, should be in limited beta testing as we speak.

And finally, updates on Fidelity Institutional Wealth Services rounded out the review, as the company’s WealthCentral platform will soon offer account-opening integration with Redtail and Skience for Salesforce, single sign on and trade order imports from Tamarac, portfolio imports into Naviplan and MoneyGuidePro, and other enhancements.] Over the last several years, the four major custodians have done a good job of enhancing their technology platforms. While there are some clear differences across the industry, it is fair to say that today’s platforms are far superior to what was being offered a few years ago.

You’re Reacting to Celebgate Wrong from Yahoo! Tech

Download my free Defend against hacking, phishing, and spoofing attacks handout

[Next up is news on cloud security, as I’m sure you might have heard that compromising photos of celebrities were leaked, apparently accessed from mobile device backups in the cloud. The Internet blew up, saying “Apple was hacked” and “iCloud has a security flaw.” Well, maybe not.

Yes, many of the private photos were obtained from the cloud, including Apple iCloud, but the method by which they were obtained is pretty old fashioned. Hackers used brute force attacks to successfully crack passwords and then correctly answered security questions that were far too basic, and the rest is history. So what can you do to prevent the sensitive data you manage from falling into the wrong hands?

Use long passwords, use a unique password for each website, and obfuscate answers to security questions. Instead of answering using Honda Civic as the make and model of your first car, use the word green, which might have been the color of your first car.

I have a lot more tips on keeping your data safe in a free handout you can downloaded, which is linked along with this week’s top stories.] Ever since somebody released nude photos of female movie stars this week, the wild overreactions have been clogging the Interwebs. Most of the hysteria runs along one of a few lines, and a lot of it is plain wrong.

Box’s Next Act: Box for Industries, Introducing Box Workflow, and BoxWorks 2014: New Ways to Collaborate in the Cloud from Box

[And finally, the online cloud file storage market is getting very crowded, so some of the top players are looking to set themselves apart from the competition. Case in point is Box, who this week announced several new initiatives, including Box for Industries, Box Workflow, and Box for Office 365.

Box for Industries expands on the Box OneCloud application marketplace and now highlights integrated solutions for verticals such as health care, education, and more, but notable absent is financial services. Box Workflow adds business process capabilities to firms by leveraging automation and document metadata. And Box for Office 356 better integrates Box with Microsoft’s online office suite which, if you’re not satisfied with OneDrive, opens up another cloud storage alternative.] Today… we’re announcing Box for Industries, a new initiative to accelerate business transformation in every business by combining tailored solutions leveraging Box’s metadata, workflow, compliance, and platform capabilities; industry-specific applications from curated third-party developers and partners; and world-class implementation services from Box and key system integrator partners.

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

Worth The Wait from Financial Advisor Magazine

It has taken much longer than anticipated, but Junxure CRM (www.junxure.com), a firm that integrates CRM technology, consulting and training for financial advisors, has finally announced the general release of “Junxure Cloud,” its comprehensive, cloud-based suite of CRM/office management products for financial advisors. After trying the application out for a few days, I’m happy to report that it was well worth waiting for.

Riskalyze announces Compliance Cloud to pinpoint risky portfolios from FPPad

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

Online Adviser’s New Target: Investors With $1 Million or More from the Wall Street Journal

One of those online firms, sometimes dubbed “robo advisers,” is edging into the business of providing wealth-management services to people with $1 million or more.

FPPad Bits and Bytes for September 5, 2014

FPPad Bits and Bytes for September 5, 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 May 9

Posted on May 9, 2014 by in Bits & Bytes

On today’s broadcast, a new risk tolerance questionnaire gets reviewed. How is it different from the existing solutions already on the market? Gamification is coming to a financial plan near you. Learn how one company is getting consumers to follow through with smart financial moves. And I have a bone to pick with Bob Veres. Find out what he said that I feel mischaracterizes how the future of the financial planning profession will evolve.

So get ready, FPPad Bits and Bytes begins now!

(Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes on YouTube)

This week’s episode of Bits and Bytes is brought to you by Total Rebalance Expert, the industry’s largest, privately owned portfolio rebalancing software provider.

Total Rebalance Expert

Now available as a part of the Orion Advisor Services platform, TRX features tax-efficient rebalancing, an easy to use interface, and more, all at an affordable price. Learn how you can gain a half a million dollar return on your technology investment by downloading their latest white paper at fppad.com/trx

Here are this week’s stories of interest:

New Test for Risk Tolerance from Financial Planning

Visit the Pocket Risk website

[This week’s top story is a review of a new risk assessment tool called Pocket Risk. Pocket Risk is the latest product that joins Riskalyse, Finametrica, Financial DNA and several others to assess client risk tolerance using an interactive questionnaire.

Clients go through a list of 20 questions regarding their personal definition of risk, preferences around investment volatility, and other introspective qualities to generate their risk tolerance score, measured from 0 to 100. If you’re curious about Pocket Risk’s specific methodology, the company posted technical details on their website. And Bruckenstein compliments Pocket Risk for its analysis report, calling it quote “short and sweet.”

A two-week free trial of Pocket Risk is available, and subscriptions begin at just $55 per month for one user.] Recently, a number of firms have come to market with standalone applications to measure risk tolerance. One is Pocket Risk, which has an intriguing pedigree and approach.

A new planning tool for advisers challenges clients to win a game from Investment News

[Next is a story about a company called FlexScore, which is using gamification to encourage consumers to make positive choices when managing their finances. Created by financial advisors Jeff Burrow and Jason Gordo, Flexscore creates a score for each user, ranging from zero to 1,000, based on how well they manage their personal finances.

It takes about 20 minutes to complete a profile and connect financial accounts using account aggregation, and users can increase their score by completing recommended action steps, which can be as simple as watching a view for a few points, or paying off debt for a lot more points.

While an advisor version of Flexscore isn’t available today, Flexscore just announced an advisor version of the product at Finovate Spring 2014, so I expect the application of gamification surrounding financial decision making to weave its way into the technology solutions you use with clients. So keep Flexscore on your radar and think about how gamaification might make sense in the technology you use with clients.]  Jason Gordo told me he was bringing FlexScore to Finovate because the online tool uses the popular tech trend of gamification to engage consumers in the process of goals-based wealth planning.

Watch Flexscore's Finovate Spring 2014 demo

Watch Flexscore’s Finovate Spring 2014 demo

Ten Ways the Next Generation of Financial Planners Will Change the Profession from Advisor Perspectives

[And finally, this week’s broadcast wraps up with commentary from the venerable Bob Veres, who writes at Advisor Perspectives about ten ways the next generation of financial planners are going to change the profession.

In his article, Veres highlights trends he sees among younger financial planners, which includes the complete outsourcing of investment management activity, charging clients a low-cost monthly subscription automatically paid by credit card, hosting videoconferences with Skype and Google Hangouts, and running through illustrations in financial planning software in real time with clients, either in the room or through a screen sharing programs.

But here’s the beef I have with Veres’ article: none of the ten characteristics are exclusive to younger financial planners. Whether you’re a new advisor or a veteran of the industry, you can use any of the ten techniques to streamline your business, add scalability, and enhance the experience you deliver to clients.

So if there’s one takeaway I have from Veres’ article, it’s the call to action of how quickly your business can implement useful technology and ultimately change the profession for the better.] Having interviewed a number of people who will attend the NexGen gathering, and others who are in their generational cohort, I have distilled the ten key themes that illustrate how the next generation of advisors will change the profession when they take the reins.

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

Ric Edelman: Stay Cutting-Edge on Technology or Fail from Think Advisor

Education is key to winning Next Gen assets from InvestmentNews.com

Five Easy-To-Use Tech Tools For Advisors from Financial Advisor Magazine

Motif Launches Products to Help Advisors Compete With Robo-Advisors from Think Advisor

 

Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes for May 9

Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes for May 9

FPPad Bits and Bytes for May 2

Posted on May 2, 2014 by in Bits & Bytes

On today’s broadcast, the Office of the Future has arrived. Find out what technology you should buy to be an advisor on the leading edge. Cybersecurity enforcement is coming from the SEC. How will you prepare your firm for this new round of exams? And, retirement illustrations get distilled down to two variables. How one company’s simplified tool can help clients make better investment choices, all in real time.

So get ready, FPPad Bits and Bytes begins now!

(Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes on YouTube)

Today’s episode is brought to you by Laserfiche, a leading document management provider to financial advisors.

Laserfiche Logo

Laserfiche helps increase business value by automating client onboarding and document filing processes, all while supporting regulatory compliance. Download a free copy of their ROI for RIAs white paper by visiting fppad.com/laserfiche

Here are this week’s stories of interest:

Fidelity® Opens New Office of the Future to Show Financial Advisors First-Hand How to Embrace Technology from BusinessWire

Launch the virtual tour of the Office of the Future at Fidelity.com

[This week’s lead story comes from Fidelity Investments, as the company unveiled a radical approach to the advisor’s workplace called the Office of the Future. Fidelity’s Office of the Future is actually a real place you can visit at the company’s campus in Smithfield, Rhode Island.

If you can’t visit the office in person, Fidelity provides a 360-degree virtual tour online, where you can view technology that emphasizes seven trends relevant to advisors, including pervasive video, big data, gamification, and more.

But a part of me feels that the Office of the Future label is bit of a misnomer, as you can buy just about every piece of equipment installed in the Office of the Future today. Nevertheless, if you updated your technology with the kinds of tools and devices seen in Fidelity’s example, I think you’ll have a good chance of attracting new clients that have increased expectations about their advisor’s technology and overall service experience.] Fidelity Institutional, the division of Fidelity Investments® that provides clearing, custody and investment management products to registered investment advisors (RIAs), banks, broker-dealers and family offices, today announced the opening of the Office of the Future on its Smithfield, Rhode Island campus.

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations Cybersecurity Initiative from SEC.gov

[Now as all financial professionals use more technology in their businesses, the SEC is ramping up its oversight of the risks of all this technology through enhanced cybersecurity examinations.

Two weeks ago, the SEC released an extensive document covering dozens of items examiners may request when auditing the cybersecurity policies and procedures of a financial services firm, and that includes SEC-registered investment advisers.

Based on its list of requests, the SEC expects you to have a written security information policy, an inventory of hardware devices and software applications used in your business, details on when and how you conduct risk assessments, and a whole lot more.

It’s clear that enforcement regarding cybersecurity is about to get a lot tougher, which I feel is appropriate given the responsibility you have to keep your clients’ personal and financial account information safe from attacks.

So I recommend that whoever is responsible for addressing security in your firm review the nearly 30 individual items in the SEC’s sample request list and update your policies and procedures accordingly, and do it sooner rather than later.] OCIE is issuing this Risk Alert to provide additional information concerning its initiative to assess cybersecurity preparedness in the securities industry.

Introducing Retirement Maps from Riskalyze.com

[And finally, rounding out this week’s update is a new feature from Riskalyze called Retirement Maps. Now many advisors like to illustrate a client’s probability of success in funding their retirement goals projected many years into the future, but the extensive data entry required and time consuming Monte Carlo calculations performed by most software programs can often be a deterrent of doing so.

So the new Retirement Maps aims to significantly streamline this process. Here’s Riskalyze CEO Aaron Klien with more details:

Best of all, Retirement Maps is being offered as a free upgrade to all existing Riskalyze customers, and for a limited time, new Riskalyze customers will also receive a free lifetime upgrade as well.] After thousands of hours of research and development, our Core Technology team invented a new way to deterministically calculate the 95% probability years into the future. There’s no waiting for a long, slow recalculation: you get an interactive way to build a map for the client’s retirement right in front of their very eyes.

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

The new LinkedIn Compliance Program from LinkedIn

Our Certified Compliance Partners provide expert monitoring, archiving, and management of communications for enterprises in regulated industries. They help your social interactions remain effective while ensuring compliance with corporate governance policies and major regulations. 

Nashville wealth management startup raises $3 million from investors from Bizjournals.com

Wealth Access, a wealth management platform designed for financial advisers and high-net-worth clients, announced Wednesday that it had raised more than $3 million in a financing round that includes investments from a TNInvestco fund and a St. Louis financial technology accelerator.

XY Planning Network Adds Tech Partners from Financial Advisor magazine

XY Planning Network, the platform launched in early April by Michael Kitces and Alan Moore, announced Monday its list of “core” technology partners that will be available to current and new members of the platform, which is dedicated to helping young planners build a fee-only business targeting Gen X and Gen Y clients.

Orion Client Portal Goes Open Source from PRNewswire

Orion Advisor Services, LLC, the premier portfolio accounting service bureau, announces a complete redesign of the functionality and features of the client portal for its financial advisor clients. With this redesign, advisors have new capabilities to communicate more effectively with their clients, and give clients a complete snapshot of all their assets, whether managed by the advisor or not.

How the RIA business made a dent at the 2014 Finovate conference in San Jose from RIABiz.com

On the leading edge of financial services technology innovation, Personal Capital, Motif Investing, and more demo their latest features to change the way consumers engage with financial advisors.

 

Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes for May 2

Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes for May 2

FPPad Bits and Bytes for April 11

Posted on April 11, 2014 by in Bits & Bytes

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

So get ready, FPPad Bits and Bytes begins now!

(Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes on YouTube)

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

Wealthbox CRM

Sign up for a free trial today by visiting fppad.com/wealthbox

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

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

The Heartbleed FAQ for financial advisers from FPPad

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Advisor’s Technology Swiss Army Knife from Morningstar Advisor

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

Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes for April 11, 2014

Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes for April 11, 2014

FPPad Bits and Bytes for December 13

Posted on December 13, 2013 by in Bits & Bytes

On today’s broadcast, find out my picks for the best advisor technology of 2013, how building your own workflow with Internet services just got a bit easier, and how you can let prospects you’ve never seen before tour your office, virtually.

So get ready, FPPad Bits and Bytes begins now!

(Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes on YouTube)

Today’s episode is brought to you by My Virtual COO, a leading practice management firm that helps advisors free up time so they can devote their energy to mission critical, profitable, and enjoyable activities.

mvcoo for blog

To find out how you can implement a lean operations plan, download their latest white paper titled “The Lean Solution to Becoming a More Profitable, High Growth Advisory Firm” by visiting fppad.com/myvirtualcoo

2013’s Best Tech for Advisors from Morningstar Advisor

[December has clearly arrived, as I, like many of you, have endured sub-zero temperatures while on the road, but it also marks the release of my column on my top advisor technology picks for the year. Each year I highlight what I feel is the best back office technology, the best client-facing technology, and the best overall innovation for the year.

So taking the honor as this year’s best back office technology winner are two recipients, LPL Financial and Fidelity Institutional Wealth Services. Both companies launched mobile check deposit support earlier this year using apps on mobile devices. While advisors using mobile devices to deposit client checks might not seem very sexy, the capability does reduce many of the challenges when dealing with paper checks deposited in the traditional ways.

Next up is this year’s best client-facing technology, which is awarded to Riskalyze. You’ve heard about Riskalyze before on several of my earlier broadcasts, as they’ve gained significant momentum among advisors seeking tools to objectively quantify each client’s unique risk tolerance. Their reasonably-priced tools allow you to better measure how your clients respond to market volatility, instead of leaving an assessment up to your own intuition and gut feelings.

Finally, this year’s innovation of the year award goes to Trade-PMR for its introduction their bold Fusion Advisor Workstation. This growing custodian delivered a shot across the bow of its larger competitors by pushing the envelope on the custodial technology interface. Its Windows 8-inspired design and touch responsive support unveils a completely new way to manage your client’s financial assets, so look for the competition to play catch-up next year to the new bar established by Trade-PMR.

There’s a lot more to my best technology picks of 2013, including products deserving honorable mention, so be sure to read the full article for all the details.] This is my fourth year positioned in the hot seat of a high-stakes evaluation process that can literally make or break the future of an advisor technology provider!

The Insider’s Guide to the New Zapier, now with 250+ Supported Services from Zapier.com

[Next up is an interesting development on connecting Internet services so you can build your own simple workflows. One service I wrote about last year is IFTTT, an acronym for If This Then That, which allows you to perform an action in one Internet service using a trigger from another.

A second service receiving a lot of attention this week is Zapier, which announced an extensive redesign of its interface and expanded support of over 250 integration partners. There’s no end to the number of cool things that can be done with these services, so be sure to read up on Zapier’s announcement to see how you might start using the service for your own clever workflows.] Today we’re launching a brand new web app and announcing that we now have over 250 integration partners.

Create your own Street View from Google Maps

[And finally, you know how handy it is to use Google Street View to check out unfamiliar places before you travel. Well did you know that you can now duplicate the experience by creating a virtual tour of your business for clients and prospects? Starting this week, Google announced that you can use your own photos from your Android phone or a digital SLR camera to construct a 360 degree photo sphere of your business.

While the direct financial planning applications of a photo sphere are pretty nonexistent, I think setting one up for your business is a very clever way to market yourself to prospects that want to work virtually with you, but still appreciate the environment and people you support that help contribute to their financial success.] Well, starting today, it’s now possible for you to build your own Street View experiences to do just that. Using a new feature in our Views community, you can easily connect your photo spheres to create 360º virtual tours of the places you love, then share them with the world on Google Maps.

 

Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes for December 13, 2013

Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes for December 13, 2013

FPPad Bits and Bytes for September 27

Posted on September 27, 2013 by in Bits & Bytes

On this week’s broadcast, one of the top portfolio management software providers tip-toes its way into the cloud, creating investment policy statements just got a whole lot easier, how a new app can create a real-time dossier about your clients, and more. So get ready, Bits and Bytes begins now.

(Watch on YouTube)

This week’s episode of Bits and Bytes is brought to you by Mimic Technologies, providers of complete outsourced technology support, security, infrastructure and IT solutions exclusively for RIAs.

Mimic Technologies

To learn how you can keep your data safe from attackers, download a free copy of their white paper on Data Privacy and Protection by visiting fppad.com/mimic.

Advent unveils Advent Direct™ — An Innovative Cloud Platform — At AdventConnect from Advent Software

[Leading off is an update from Advent Software, which recently celebrated its 30th year in business last week at the company’s AdventConnect conference in San Francisco. The highlight of Advent Connect is the expansion of Advent Direct™, a cloud-based platform which Mike Golaszewski, Black Diamond’s head of product development, says is an abstraction layer on top of the company’s core product offerings.

While Advent Axys will remain a desktop-based solution for the foreseeable future, it will not be completely isolated from the cloud due to the online and mobile access available through Advent Direct.

And while the news of Advent Direct seems hot off the presses, it’s not entirely new, as Advent has offered an app to iPad users since April of this year for mobile access to client portfolio information.

Advent also unveiled the Advent Direct™ Community, a private online forum that’s part customer service portal and part discussion board, no doubt inspired by collaboration options found on other social networks. Yes, the Advent Users Group on LinkedIn, I’m talking about you!

But the one big unknown regarding Advent Direct is pricing. It remains to be seen how much Advent users will need to pay to route their Axys data into Black Diamond to benefit from enhanced reports.] Advent Software, Inc., a leading provider of software and services for the global investment management industry, today commenced its annual AdventConnect conference taking place September 18 – 20, 2013 at the San Francisco Marriott Marquis.

A One-Click Roadmap for Your Clients from Riskalyze

[Next up is an update from a startup that deserves to be added to your technology radar. The company is called Riskalyze, based in Sacramento, California, which offers patented Risk Number technology in an attempt to quantify client risk tolerance and align it with suitable investment portfolios. This week, Riskalyze expanded its feature set by offering a single-click option to create an Investment Policy Statement.

Whether you believe in the validity of Investment Policy Statements or not (and Stark and Stark’s Tom Giachetti comes to mind), it still doesn’t get any easier than using a single click to generate an IPS document.

So if simplifying your client risk assessment process is important to you, you should learn more about Riskalyze’s offering.] Today, we’re excited to announce that Riskalyze now makes it possible to create this roadmap for your clients with a single click.

Surface Pro 2: hands-on with Microsoft’s new tablet powerhouse and Amazon’s Kindle Fire HDX: Power, With A Helping Hand, both from The Verge

[Now I bet you’ve noticed changes in the air, meaning Fall has arrived, complete with shorter days, football on the weekends, and a deluge of new product announcements. So on the heels of Apple’s new iPhone 5S and 5C announcement two weeks ago, Microsoft announced updates to its floundering line of Surface tablets to compete with the market-dominating iPad. Not to be left out, Amazon also announced a refresh of it’s low-cost Kindle tablets, with a new HDX line of Android-powered tablets starting at just $229.

But the unexpected surprise from all the hardware announcements actually came in the form of a new feature on the Kindle HDX called Mayday. Mayday is an icon on the Kindle users can touch to get free technical support anytime they need it, complete with video conferencing and screen sharing.

While its definitely a cool feature for Kindle users, Mayday actually creates a slippery slope for you as an advisor, as I think it won’t be too long before your clients start to expect a similar easy, on-demand way to access you as their trusted financial advisor.

So if you’re not yet up to speed on using video chat services like Skype, FaceTime, Google Hangouts and more, now is the time to add these tools to your technology portfolio.]

Refresh – The Instant Dossier from Refresh

[Finally, updates to FPPad have been few and far between this month because of the amount of time I’ve been spending on phone calls and meetings. I’ve been speaking with dozens of people, and it’s unrealistic for me to think that I can keep all the details about each relationship straight in my head.

That’s why I’ve turned to a new app called Refresh, (full disclosure, they gave me a free T-shirt), but the app truly helps me keep all the details about my contacts organized in one place.

Refresh connects my contacts, calendar, and social media accounts to create a real-time dossier about the people I’m going to meet. Refresh automatically connect the dots of what my contacts are doing and sharing online so I don’t have to waste time gathering this intelligence on my own.

A beta version of the app is available for iPhone, but Android users will need to sign up to be notified when the app is released to the Google Play store.]

Watch Bits and Bytes for September 27, 2013

Watch Bits and Bytes for September 27, 2013

FPPad Bits and Bytes for May 3

Posted on May 3, 2013 by in Bits & Bytes

I’m in San Diego presenting at the Shareholders Service Group 2013 conference, then headed out to Palm Springs tomorrow for FPA Retreat 2013. Grab me and introduce yourself if you’re attending either event!

Here are this weeks stories of interest:

How to secure mobile devices against “WiFi honeypots” from FPPad

[This is important, so I’m sharing it in the first spot this week. WiFi honeypots are hardware devices that fool your laptop and/or mobile device into thinking its connected to a trusted WiFi network. But its not, and unknowingly connecting to a WiFi honeypot exposes you to a man-in-the-middle attack. Read this article now to learn how you can increase your defenses against WiFi honeypots.] Most of the time, you’re likely not at risk of having data you send over WiFi intercepted by someone else. But a number of software programs and hardware devices for sale on the Internet allow users to do just that; sit on public WiFi and eavesdrop on unencrypted data being passed back and forth.

Pershing Broadens the Accessibility of NetX360 to run on Microsoft’s Surface Pro Tablet from PRNewswire

[Ok, the race to support Windows 8 is on. Pershing starts off the PR campaign by announcing its NetX360 custodial platform is now supported on Windows 8. By definition, that means NetX360 also runs on Surface Pro tablets, which run Windows 8. BUT, what I haven’t seen yet is the user interface, and I doubt there have been any major changes to the interface that correspond with the tiles UI (formerly Metro) featured so prominently in Windows 8. I’d reach out to Pershing for comment, but I’m 35,000 feet in the air as I write this.] Pershing LLC, a BNY Mellon company, today announced that the company’s industry-leading technology platform for advisors, NetX360®, now runs on Microsoft’s new Surface™ Pro tablet. The availability and compatibility of NetX360 on the Surface Pro will help advisors manage their business more effectively and efficiently while working in the office or on the road.

Building a Smarter Portfolio from Financial-Planning.com

[Joel Bruckenstein reviews Riskalyze, a web-based tool that uses questionnaires to determine a quantifiable number for a client’s risk tolerance. With the “magic” number in hand, advisers can design portfolios around the client’s appetite (or lack thereof) for risk. Sound familiar? As Bruckenstein mentioned, providers like MoneyGuidePro and FinaMetrica have similar features in their respective programs. But the fresh graphics and appealing user interface give Riskalyze a leg up on the usability factor, so this is one worth watching as they mature.] I recently tried a new cloud-based product called Riskalyze Pro that provides advisors with both risk-assessment and portfolio-construction tools. The tool was developed by Riskalyze Advisors, a new company whose proprietary platform provides risk assessment, portfolio construction, analytics and investment discovery.

eMoney And Zumbox Announce Strategic Partnership To Offer Digital Postal Mail To Clients from PRNewswire

[Here’s an interesting combination. Zumbox is an alternative to paper mail you get every day. Instead, Zumbox scans all your paper mail and delivers it to you through a secure portal. That worked well five years ago when everything came in the mail. I don’t know about you, but today, I get virtually everything electronically, including bank statements, credit card statements, brokerage account trade confirms. Even my tax return this year was 100% electronic. So why eMoney chooses to partner with Zumbox for electronic document delivery over more prevalent providers (say, ShareFile, Box, etc.)? I’m going to connect with eMoney soon, so I’ll report back what I learn.] eMoney Advisor (“eMoney”), the only wealth-planning system for financial advisors that offers transparency, security, mobile access and superior organization for everything that impacts their clients’ financial lives, has announced a strategic partnership with Zumbox to offer Digital Postal Mail to clients whose advisors use the eMoney platform.