2019 TD Ameritrade Institutional National LINC coverage sponsored by Envestnet | Tamarac Sign up for a demo atĀ http://www.fppad.com/tamarac
PLAN-IT Wins Innovation Quest
Watch the finals of the inaugural Innovation Quest competition hosted by TD Ameritrade Institutional, where three companies each delivered a 15-minute pitch to an audience of some 2,000 independent registered investment advisors (RIAs) and panel of judges at the TD Ameritrade Institutional1 2019 National LINC conference.
Derrick Wesley of iMar Learning Solutions and his idea, Plan-It, are the grand prize winners of this year’s Innovation Quest. I spoke with Derrick after the award ceremony to learn about his inspiration for the financial literacy app and how TD Ameritrade Institutional helped him bring his idea to life.
2019 TD Ameritrade Institutional National LINC coverage sponsored by Envestnet | Tamarac Sign up for a demo at http://www.fppad.com/tamarac
I connected with technology executives from TD Ameritrade Institutional at the 2019 National LINC conference to get all the updates on how TD Ameritrade Institutional is pushing the envelope on Veo One, technology innovation, and enhancing the client experience.
Innovation and AdvisorClient Updates
First up is Jon Patullo, Managing Director, Technology Product Management for TD Ameritrade Institutional to discuss Innovation Alley, new TD Ameritrade Institutional skills for Alexa, and updates to the AdvisorClient user experience.
Growth of Veo Open Access
Then I met with Marcel Tsai, Senior Product Manager, Technology Solutions for TD Ameritrade Institutional to discuss the latest statistics of the Veo Open Access solution provider network and identify the vendors that are integrated with Veo One.
Veo OneĀ® Enhancements and Innovation Quest
Finally I met with Chris Valleley, Director of Technology Solutions for TD Ameritrade Institutional to discuss the functionality present in Veo One for financial advisers and highlight the new Innovation Quest competition being introduced at the 2019 National LINC conference.
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
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.
Iām Bill Winterberg, and those are your fintech headlines for today from FPPad.com. Check back in with me later for more fintech news.
Welcome to the FPPad fintech briefing, Here are the top fintech stories you need to know today.
Overstock.com Announces Automated Investment Service
You never know when you’ll have the urge to buy a new sofa, portable generator, and, oh I don’t know, a diversified portfolio of low-cost exchange traded funds? Well now you’re in luck, as online discount retailer Overstock.com announced plans to introduce an automated investment service to its customers powered by tZERO Advisors. The service promises to match investors to one of several Adaptive Dynamic Portfolios managed by FusionIQ, or investors can customize their allocation among the portfolios on their own, all for a flat monthly fee of $9.95 instead of a fee based on percentage of investor assets like in other automated providers.
XY Planning Network Offers Affordable Fiduciary Financial Planning to Americans
Speaking of affordable monthly fees, millions of Americans think they need to have hundreds of thousands of dollars in order to qualify for an engagement with a comprehensive financial planner, but that is just not true according to a New York Times article by Ron Lieber published over the weekend. Leiber highlights the XY Planning Network, an organization of nearly 600 financial planners who all agree to act in their clients’ best interest at all times, offer affordable recurring fees simialr to a cable bill, and be willing to work virtually with clients from anywhere in the United States.
Updates from the 2018Ā TD Ameritrade Institutional National LINC Conference
And to finish last week, I attended the 2018 TD Ameritrade Institutional National LINC Conference and connected with the technology strategy team to learn more about the latest enhancements to the company’s Veo One solution for financial advisors. Here’s Managing Director Jon Patullo with a key takeaway:
The feedback for Veo OneĀ Ā® has been tremendous, advisers really love the platform to be able to come to one place and do everything they need to do is a home run. They’re thrilled with it, we’re in the process of rolling it out to all of our advisers, it’s available to every single adviser today, and they’re continuing to adopt it. It’s been a huge home run and we’re really excited to demo it for advisers this week.
My full interview with Jon is on the FPPad YouTube channel, so visit fppad.com/flashbriefing to get all the links to today’s top stories.
Iām 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.
We met with TD Ameritrade Institutional’s Jon Patullo and Chris Valleley to update financial advisers on what’s new with Veo OneĀ® and the addition of FA Insights benchmarking information to support adviser growth.
Our coverage of the 2018 National LINC sponsored by Envestnet | Tamarac. Visit http://fppad.com/tamarac to sign up for a demo today.
Welcome to the FPPad fintech briefing, Here are the top fintech stories you need to know today.
Robinhood to Trade Cryptocurrencies
Cryptocurrency trading is coming to Robinhood, as the provider of the popular mobile app for commission-free stock trading announced a waiting list to sign up for access to trade Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Screenshots shared on social media last week show in-app price quotes for Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin, but no definitive announcement has been made just yet as to which cryptocurrencies will actually be available for trading when the app is expected to go live in February.
ByAllAccounts Cannot Aggregate Fidelity Stock Plan Pages
In account aggregation news, ByAllAccounts just emailed its customers saying that the company can no longer access account information from Fidelity Stock Plan pages, according to an email screenshot shared online by Michael Kitces. The company said it is working with Fidelity on a long-term solution, but did not have any ETA on when account aggregation would be restored. Back in November, Fidelity announced plans to block screen scraping of customer account in favor of its new API-based Fidelity Accessā service to be rolled out throughout the year.
TD Ameritrade Institutional National LINC in the Spotlight
And thousands of advisors will be in Orlando this week for the TD Ameritrade Institutional National LINC conference. In addition to getting updates on Veo Open Access and Veo One from TD Ameritrade Institutional, my producer Steve Biermann and I hope to film interviews with ALL of the tech vendors in the Veo Village this year, so be sure to subscribe to the FPPad YouTube channel so you don’t miss our updates on the latest in advisor technology for 2018.
Welcome to the FPPad fintech briefing, here are the top fintech stories you need to know today.
Outsourcing investment management just got a little bit easier for advisors using TD Ameritrade Institutional, as this week the company announced the introduction of its Model Market Center. The Model Market Center features 62 different investment models from eight investment managers, with notable managers including Meb Faber’s Cambria Investments as well as WisdomTree Investments, who made fintech news a few weeks ago with its investment in AdvisorEngine’s acquisition of Junxure. Model Market Center joins a growing market of outsourced investment management solutions which includes Orion Advisor Services, Riskalyze, and Morningstar, and others.
Online 401(k) manager blooom is helping investors protect their accounts against fraudulent activity with its new Suspicious Activity Alerts feature. Investors can connect their 401(k)s and other employe-sponsored retirement accounts to blooom which continuously monitors for withdrawals or loans on account funds, notifying clients via text message when blooom detects any suspicious activity.
And tickets are selling fast to the 2018 Fearless Investing Summit brought to you by Riskalyze, which blends the latest in investment trends and fintech innovation in its three-day agenda. Last year’s inaugural summit eventually sold out, so you need to act quickly to make sure you don’t miss out on this year’s event. Secure your tickets today by visiting fppad.com/flashbreifing for the links on today’s stories.
Iām 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.
On todayās broadcast, Brian Shenson updates Schwabās technology roadmap, Riskalyze raises $20 million in capital, SS&C acquires Salentica, and more.
Todayās episode is brought to you by eMoney Advisor, who just announced their Fiduciary Framework initiative to help advisors and firms comply with the recent DOL Fiduciary Rule. The framework weaves DOL-friendly solutions into each stage of the advisor-client lifecycleālike client acknowledgments, event logs, best interest workflows, and moreāall within the existing integrated wealth management platform.
[Now first up, I attended Schwab IMPACT 2016 in San Diego last week and posted a few videos about Schwabās technology updates, including a detailed discussion with Brian Shenson about the phase out of Integrated Office, new providers in OpenView Gateway, and the much anticipated timeline of Portfolio Connect. Itās an informative interview, and stick around for the tour of OpenView MarketSquare where I Brian and I practiced our sprints in the massive exhibit hall.
And then on Monday this week, Riskalyze announced that the company secured $20 million in capital from FTV Capital to fuel its future growth. Hereās CEO Aaron Klein on how this additional capital will help Riskalyze execute on its mission.
Aaron Klein: āOur mission every day is making sure that weāre empowering those advisors to really build fearless investors, to align the worldās investments with each investorās Risk Number, and you know, for us finding the right partner to allow us to continue the incredible growth weāve seen so far was the right move.ā]
[Next up is news from SS&C Technologies, which you should recognize as the company that acquired Advent Software for $2.7 billion earlier this year. Last week, SS&C announced it acquired Salentica, a professional services firm known for customizing Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics CRM for institutions and large RIAs. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
So this acquisition is important for its vertical integration, as thousands of advisors who already use Advent or Black Diamond for portfolio management today should soon benefit from better integrations of Salesforce and Dynamics CRM all from the same provider. This also helps SS&C close the gap with a competitor like Envestnet | Tamarac, who has offered an all-in-one technology solution to advisors for several years.
But on the other hand, not all advisors want to be captive to an all-in-one provider, and prefer the best-of-breed approach to their technology, so with Salentica now under the ownership of SS&C, weāll have to see how the political aspects of this relationship play out in the near future. Nevertheless, Iām optimistic that SS&C will support Salenticaās integrations with a variety of portfolio management providers, but I definitely would proceed with a little more caution if my business used a solution other than Advent and Black Diamond.]Ā SS&C Technologies Holdings, Inc., a global provider of financial services software and software-enabled services, today announced its acquisition of leading CRM solution Salentica.
[And finally, Iām wrapping up with two updates involving TD Ameritrade, starting with the announcement of the acquisition of Scottrade for $4 billion dollars, then followed up by the soft launch of Essential Portfolios, the companyās own automated investment service for retail investors.
First, the Scottrade acquisition is likely to affect advisors with under $10 million in assets under management, as Scottrade has historically been welcoming of advisors with smaller accounts. So over the next year or two, Iād expect smaller advisors to be under pressure to grow their assets under management, or find another custodian altogether like Shareholders Service Group, or join a membership group like the XY Planning Network that leverages the size of its network to facilitate business with TD Ameritrade Institutional. Either way, I think it means structural changes are on the horizon for dozens of smaller advisory firms.
And the second story about Essential Portfolios adds yet another retail-facing automated investment solution to the crowded marketplace. It features a $5,000 account minimum, fees of 30 basis points, and offers just five model portfolios, each made up of five ETFs, with allocations recommended by Morningstar Investment Management that are automatically rebalanced.
Look, clients are getting bombarded with all this marketing about low-cost, automated, intelligent investing services from nearly every provider in the business. So unless your marketing pockets are as deep as theirs, youāre going to have to craft a message that your technology rivals that of the automated services, and that you offer advice and services that go way beyond what the low-cost solutions provide. Not only do you have to say it, but you have to do it.]Ā TD Ameritrade announced on Monday that it would acquire Scottrade Financial Services, a rival discount brokerage, for $4 billion, in a bid for scale at a time when small investors are losing their taste for stock trading.
Here are the stories that didn’t make this week’s broadcast:
Twenty Over Ten, an unparalleled, compliant website-builder, today announced its formal public launch. Cofounded by Penn State Associate Professor of Graphic Design Ryan Russell and Designer and Developer Nick Dimatteo, Twenty Over Ten helps financial advisors create beautiful and compliant websites tailored to their unique brands.
PIEtechā , Inc., creator of the leading financial planning software, MoneyGuideProĀ®, announced today that it is building a multi-faceted, deep integration with Riskalyze, the risk alignment platform founded upon the Risk NumberĀ®.
Junxure, the industry leading CRM solution and technology company for financial advisors, this week announced new enhancements to its cloud-based CRM platform, Junxure CloudĀ®. As part of its ongoing work to integrate with leading platforms serving advisors, Junxure Cloud has partnered with Riskalyze, the industry-leading risk alignment platform and inventor of the Risk NumberĀ®, to integrate the two popular systems.
Iām thrilled to announce that, starting today, you can use LastPass on any device, anywhere, for free. No matter where you need your passwords ā on your desktop, laptop, tablet, or phone ā you can rely on LastPass to sync them for you, for free.
After an amazing tour of duty, Adam Nash is handing the baton back to me [Andy Rachleff]. While Nash will be transitioning out of an operating role at the company, he will continue to play a strategic role as a member of our Board of Directors.
FOLIOfn, Inc. announced today that it has acquired First Affirmative Financial Network, one of the nation’s most prominent registered investment advisor firms specializing in sustainable, responsible, impact (SRI) investing.
Digital wealth management technology provider Invessence announced today that it has partnered with PrairieSmarts, an innovative risk analytics firm, to provide risk assessment tools for financial advisors and their clients. Enhancing Invessenceās comprehensive digital wealth platform, the robust risk tools from PrairieSmarts will assist advisors in calculating, documenting and managing the alignment of a clientās risk profile with a compliant portfolio recommendation.
Today’s episode is brought to you by Envision Consulting, providers of IT management and support, cloud computing, and cybersecurity services to RIAs.Ā 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 Kevinās 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, youāll save 15% off the price of your registration.
[Get ready for the robo news, as this weekās 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 Investorās 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 āto other services like Fidelity’s Portfolio Advisory Services.ā
Ok, ok, but advisors arenāt completely left out, as Fidelity did promise details about an automated service itās developing for financial advisers by year-end. Thatās, 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 ThinkAdvisorās interview with incoming CEO Tim Hockey, he said that the company will be using Amerivestās tech enhancements āto launch a new robo for the self-directed clientās needsā 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 ātarget referralā 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 Institutionalās custody services. Thatās good, itās 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 donāt like todayās 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.
Thatās it, all I hear all day long is how great robos do this, or how wonderful robos do that: robo, robo, robo!]
[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 Viewā¢ 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.]Ā Envestnet | Tamarac has completely redesigned the client portal in its Advisor Viewā¢ 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.
[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 youāre concerned about compliance with the pending fiduciary rule from the DoL, expect more tools like Best Interest Scout to come to market.]Ā 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 donāt 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, soĀ links to those stories are below:
Wealthfront, founded in 2008, is experiencing its first big talent exodus ā a flurry of departures that includes some C-suite titles and a Unicorn shepherd.
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 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 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, 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, 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.
On todayās broadcast, Betterment takes heat for suspending customer trades, TD Ameritrade Institutional hosts its annual technology summit, and more.
Today’s episode is brought to you by Orion Advisor Services, the industryās premier portfolio accounting service provider for advisors. Orion integrates with several automated investment platforms, but youāre not sure if now the right time to add a robo element to your firm.
Find out if youāre ready, or not, to add your own solution by downloading a free copy of the Orion pre-robo checklist today by visiting fppad.com/robochecklist.
[This weekās top story is all about Betterment, because in the wake of last weekās Brexit vote, the company notified financial advisors on the Betterment Institutional platform that it had suspended trading from 10am to 12pm Eastern on June 24th, citing their expectation of āhighly unpredictable volatility,ā a decision which has triggered all sorts of discussions across the investment community.
First, a primer. Betterment uses ETFs for all customer portfolios, and when trading gets volatile, ETF pricing can get significantly disconnected from the value of the ETFās underlying securities. Remember the flash crash of August 2015? ETF pricing was all over the map, especially for lightly traded and illiquid ETFs.
So, when Bettermentās team identified undesirable trading conditions, they suspend all trading. And as a discretionary advisor to retail customers, they can totally do that. Itās disclosed right there on page 65 of the retail agreement, which every customer acknowledges they read by checking the I agree box next to the Sign Up button. <wink wink>
But the exact same language is on page 70 of the Institutional Agreement, and I couldnāt find anything that said trading *authorized by the Advisor* would be treated any differently. In the RIABiz coverage of the event, Michael Kitces said that treating financial advisors the same as clients ācreates operational channel conflicts.ā
And thereās the rub. If youāre an advisor using Betterment Institutional for your clients, when you authorize trades, you need to know whether those trades will be subject to Bettermentās suspension criteria.
But thatās one risk of using ETFs in Betterment Institutional, or any automated investment service for that matter. Sometimes the pricing gets out of whack, and you wonāt always know in advance when that happens.
So on a volatile day, you need to understand that, as of today, your trade authorizations might not be processed right away, and your trades will be in limbo for who knows how long until Betterment decides itās ok to resume trading. I suspect that policy might soon be changing for Betterment Institutional users.]Ā Betterment, LLC, a pioneer in the world of automated investing, made an unusual move and suspended all trading Friday morning as markets were roiled by the U.K.ās vote to leave the European Union.
[My next story highlights TD Ameritrade Institutional, as I attended the custodianās 7th annual technology summit in Dallas, and I made a vlog about it so you can get a glimpse of what the event is like, so be sure to check it out.
At the summit, executives offered updates on Veo Open Access, which now features 104 integrated solution providers, announced the introduction of Veo Advanced Alerts, and reiterated the pending release of the Veo One platform for late fall of this year.
There werenāt very many advisor dashboards available when Veo One was first announced in January of last year, but recently several tech providers have invested heavily in their own all-in-one dashboards, with notable names like Envestnet|Tamarac, supported by Envestnetās acquisitions of Finance Logix and Yodlee, Salesforce, with its rollout of Financial Services Cloud happening now, and Fidelityās Wealthscape platform anticipated by the end of this year, which will include technology from the eMoney acquisition.
So Veo One will go up against some stiff competition when it is rolled out later this year, so I recommend you make plans now to refresh what you know about the dashboard options for your business in the second half of this year.]Ā A growing community of technology innovators, which has collaborated with TD Ameritrade Institutional1 to make Veo Open Access one of the industryās leading platforms for independent registered investment advisors (āRIAsā), is again coming together to drive significant new enhancements to Veo and accelerate the pace of future Veo One integrations.
Here are the stories that didn’t make this week’s broadcast:
Junxure, the industry leading CRM solutions and technology company for financial advisors, this week announced new enhancements to its cloud-based CRM platform, Junxure CloudĀ®. As part of its ongoing work to integrate with leading platforms serving independent registered investment advisors (RIAs), Junxure Cloud has expanded its integration with VeoĀ®, TD Ameritrade Institutional’s comprehensive trading and account management platform.
Vestorly Inc., the leading content marketing and relationship analytics platform in the financial services industry, today announced a unique partnership with Dow Jones that will enable all Vestorly users to access Dow Jones content, including The Wall Street Journal, in order to engage clients and generate leads.
Today, the company behind one of the more popular solutions for helping consumers manage their online accounts, Dashlane, is making its move into the enterprise.
Pershing LLC, a BNY Mellon company, today launched a suite of technology enhancements that provide wealth management firms with greater flexibility to digitally transform their business.
