Tag Archives: Robinhood

Robinhood Rescinds “Checking and Savings” Feature: Flash briefing for December 17, 2018

Posted on December 17, 2018 by in Flash Briefing

Disclosure: Wealthbox and its owner Starburst Labs have purchased marketing services from Bill Winterberg in the last 12 months. See all disclosures here: fppad.com/disclaimer

Here are the links to today’s stop stories:

Robinhood’s options trading stopped working, and customers are furious over the money they say they lost from Business Insider

Robinhood Will Offer Checking Service Promising 3% Interest from Bloomberg

and Robinhood Will Retool Checking Product Following Scrutiny from Bloomberg

TD Ameritrade Institutional and Wealthbox CRM Collaborate to Automate Account Openings for RIAs from PRNewswire

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

Robinhood Outage Impacts Options Trading

It was a tough week for Robinhood, the zero-commission stock and cryptocurrency trading app, as the company first suffered a significant outage related to stock option trading on Wednesday December 12th.

According to a Business Insider article, a Robinhood spokesperson said the outage impacted “a smaller percentage of customers” and trading was limited, “as a precautionary measure.”

Nevertheless, a number of Robinhood users voiced their frustration on Twitter, posting a series of tweets showing rejected option trades in their accounts and complaining of losses they felt they realized due to the outage in trading.

Robinhood Rescinds “Checking and Savings” Feature

Then on Thursday, Robinhood announced a new brokerage feature it called “Checking and Savings,” that promised a 3% interest rate on cash, support for bill pay and direct deposit, all of which Robinhood claimed was insured under SIPC protection.

But in response to swift industry backlash, Robinhood removed all of its marketing material for “Checking and Savings” just 36 hours later and replaced it with a reference to potential “cash management” features to be released at a later time. The most concerning feedback surrounding the feature launch came from SIPC president and CEO Stephen Harbeck, who went on the record to say that he doubted cash deposited for the Checking and Savings feature would be covered and insured under the non-government member agency’s rules and requirements.

TD Ameritrade Institutional and Wealthbox CRM Automate Account Openings

And switching gears to fintech news for financial advisers, Wealthbox, the provider of CRM solutions for advisers, announced a new automated account opening feature integrated with TD Ameritrade Institutional’s Veo platform.
The integration allows advisers using Wealthbox CRM to pre-fill client information into Veo and Veo One account-opening forms directly from the contact record page in Wealthbox.

Here’s Wealthbox CEO John Rourke with more:

Wealthbox continues to fathom the depths of Veo One integration resulting in fewer steps.
For advisers to help investors the Wealthbox app is a breeze.
From millennials to empty nesters, opening new accounts is now done with ease.

For more information on this news and more, head over to FPPad.com/flashbriefing to find the links to today’s top stories.

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.

Robinhood raises $363 million in new capital: Flash briefing for May 11, 2018

Posted on May 11, 2018 by in Flash Briefing, Technology

Here are the links to today’s top stories:

Robinhood, With No-Fee Trading App, Sees Valuation Soar To $5.6 Billion from Forbes

BlackRock, world’s biggest investing company, is planning to nickel-and-dime you from CNBC.com

BlackRock and Acorns Partner to Expand Financial Participation Among the Next Generation of Investors from PRNewswire

Live with Arcons Technology: Demo of ClientPort and BillPort technology solutions from YouTube

(Promotional consideration for the demo was provided by Arcons Technology. See my full disclosures by clicking here.)

Welcome to the latest FPPad fintech briefing, here are the top fintech stories you need to know today brought to you by Morningstar.

Register today for the 2018 Morningstar Investment Conference and see how they’ve helped lead the investing discussion for 30 years.

Robinhood Raises $363 Million in New Capital

Several investing apps announced new rounds of fundraising this week, with the biggest announcement coming from Robinhood, the commission-free stock and cryptocurrency trading app. Robinhood said it officially raised $363 million in Series D funding, valuing the company at $5.6 billion, confirming a report published by the Wall Street Journal earlier in March. Robinhood says it now services more than 4 million stock trading accounts and has rolled out cryptocurrency trading to users in ten states, although the company declined to say how many users pay for the Robinhood Gold premium membership or whether the company is profitable.

Acorns Raises $50 Million in Round Led by BlackRock

Another company raising new capital is Acorns, as the spare change investing app announced it raised $50 million in a round led by Blackrock, the world’s largest asset manager with more than $6 trillion dollars in assets under management. According to a company press release, Acorns now has over 3.3 million investment accounts on its platform and says Blackrock’s participation won’t influence the allocations among the exchange-traded funds in customer portfolio allocations, which include a mixture of ETFs from Vanguard and Blackrock.

BillPort Supports Complex Adviser Fee Billing

And with all these free apps available for investing, consumers are getting much more sensitive to paying fees, including the they pay for financial advice from their financial advisers. So if you’re a financial professional, how are you managing the different fee schedules you want to support overwhelming your staff with custom spreadsheets to monitor your billing. I recently connected with Hemant Moré to learn more about how his solution called BillPort can address nearly every method an adviser wants to use to calculate fees:

There are some clients who like to prorate the fees, there are some clients who like to provide credits, write offs, discounts, minimum fees, maximum fees, minimum or maximum fees on tiers. So there is a whole different kind of way that each firm behaves, and BillPort can handle many of those situations.

To view the full promotional demo of the BillPort solution, visit fppad.com/flashbriefing for the links to today’s top stories

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.

Robinhood to raise another $350 million: Flash briefing for March 16, 2018

Posted on March 16, 2018 by in Flash Briefing, Technology

Here the the links to today’s top stories:

Investing app Robinhood is raising $350 million, valuing it at $5 billion from FastCompany.com

Salesforce launches simpler small business product, will discontinue Desk.com and SalesforceIQ from cnbc.com

Vote Now for the 2018 IA25 from ThinkAdvisor.com

Welcome to the FPPad fintech briefing, Here are the top fintech stories brought to you by Morningstar

Register today for the 2018 Morningstar Investment Conference and see how they’ve helped lead the investing discussion for 30 years.

Robinhood to Raise Additional $350 Million

Robinhood, the popular for commission-free stock trading app, could be raising another $350 million in venture funding, according to a Wall Street Journal article, valuing the company at $5.6 billion, more than four times its valuation barely one year ago in April 2017. The Journal reported that the funding is likely provided by DST Global, which also led Robinhood’s previous funding round of $110 million. Robinhood reportedly has over 4 million accounts enabled for free stock trading and has begun rolling out Robinhood Crypto to some users, allowing transactions in cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum.

Salesforce Launches Salesforce Essentials

Salesforce announced the launch of a simpler version of its CRM software called Salesforce Essentials, targeted to small business owners who have complained that the company’s main CRM solution is too complex and expensive for their needs. Starting at $25 per user per month, Salesforce Essentials includes Einstein Activity Capture that automatically tracks emails, calls, and meeting activity with contacts and, functionality can be expanded by apps built specifically for Salesforce Essentials on the AppExchange, but many financial advisers may find that existing tools they use, like portfolio management software, are not yet compatible with Salesforce Essentials, and require the more robust, and expensive, Salesforce CRM.

Vote for the 2018 IA25

And finally, who do you think is a key influencer in the financial services industry? It’s time to make your voice heard, as voting is now open for the 2018 IA25 list of most influential people in the industry to be published in the May edition of Investment Advisor magazine. Votes can be cast among six segments which includes Investment Advisers, Independent broker-dealers, Political and Regulatory figures, and Financial Technology, which would be perfect to recognize someone using Amazon Alexa to, oh, I don’t know, provide financial technology updates to investors and financial advisers!

To cast your vote, 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. Check back in with me later for more fintech news.