Upside Advisor Archives

FPPad Bits and Bytes for May 13, 2016

Posted on May 13, 2016 by Bill Winterberg in Bits & Bytes

On today’s broadcast, learn about top advisor technology from the Finovate Spring 2016, two lessons you should learn from a Salesforce database outage, hear top technology tips from industry experts, and more.

So get ready, FPPad Bits and Bytes begins now!

(Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes on YouTube)

Today’s episode is brought to you by Riskalyze, the company that invented the Risk Number™ and twice named as one of the world’s 10 most innovative companies in finance by Fast Company Magazine.

Advisors use Riskalyze to show prospects they’re invested wrong and prove to clients they’re invested right. See how Riskalyze creates fearless investors by visiting riskalyze.com/fppad to book a guided tour.

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

Client Insight for Wealth Management from IBM, and

IBM Watson-infused robo wants to help advisers, not beat them from Financial Planning

Envestnet Advisor Now demo from Finovate Europe 2016

[This week’s top story covers the Finovate Spring 2016 event held earlier this week in San Jose, California. With over 70 demos spread across two days, here are my picks for the most promising solutions for financial advisors.

First is IBM, as the company demoed its Client Insight for Wealth Management solution, designed to deliver better insights about your clients powered by, you guessed it, IBM Analytics. The Client Insight dashboard segments your clients by their behavioral profiles, predicts the likelihood of clients experiencing a significant life event, and automatically generates a list of top actions clients should take to make progress on their financial goals.

The analytics-powered insight is great, but it’s not yet clear to me if the solution is something you can buy today or if it requires an integration with the technology providers that you use, particularly with your CRM software. One third-party example I can think of is the automated investment service from Marstone, which to me, still seems to be evolving and appears to be rolling out at a very measured pace. So, if you want to start seeing some of these cognitive-powered insights in the tools you use, I think you need to prepare to spend a little bit more on your technology to make these benefits a reality.

The second demo of note came from Envestnet, as the company highlighted Advisor Now, which is now being positioned as an online financial planning tool that can be white-labeled by financial institutions or you, the independent financial advisor.

Advisor Now’s capabilities are quite a bit different than this time last year when the solution was first announced, as Envestnet is further leveraging its technology acquisitions of Upside, Yodlee, and Finance Logix.

Next week I’m headed to the Envestnet Advisor Summit in Chicago where I plan to get more details on Advisor New, but in the meantime you can watch a recent Advisor Now demo from Finovate Europe] IBM offers you a whole new level of insight to serve your customers with the most relevant offerings that helps you drive new revenue. It enables you to segment your customers quickly and analyze their behavior to deliver cross sell/ up sell offers which helps increase loyalty, retention and customer satisfaction.

Salesforce outage persists across US, CEO wades in from ZDNet, and

The Burning Irony of Salesforce’s #NA14 Social Media Nightmare from Medium

[Next up is news on Salesforce, as the company unfortunately suffered a failure in one of its critical databases this week affecting several thousand of its customers in North America. The outage of the NA14 database lasted for about a day and a half, causing many users to publicly vent their frustrations on Twitter.

Closer to home, I didn’t hear from any advisors who were affected by the downtime, which is good, but there are still two lessons I want you to take away from this incident.

First, when you use any cloud-based system, especially a CRM, be absolutely certain that you have an offline backup of the critical information you need to take care of clients. Make it part of your process now to export data like names, phone numbers, and email addresses so you can stay in touch with clients if and when your online systems have extended downtime.

And second, make plans now for what you’re going to do when your firm experiences a crisis. How will you contact clients? Will you post information on your website, or provide updates on Twitter? Whatever you do, identify your process in your disaster recovery and business continuity plan, and if it’s been a while since you tested your communication in a crisis, well, you might want to do something about that.] A Salesforce database failure has left some clients unable to access their services across the United States, prompting the firm’s chief executive to step in.

2016 SSG Conference Technology Panel from YouTube

[And finally, wrapping up this week’s broadcast is news from Shareholders Service Group, as I attended their annual conference in San Diego a few weeks ago. One of the general sessions I attended was a panel discussion on technology opportunities that lie ahead for independent financial advisors, so I caught up with each of the panelists,

Greg Friedman of Private Ocean, Dave Welling of SS&C Advisory Market Group, Tim Welsh of Nexus Strategy, and Joel Bruckenstein of Technology Tools for Today, to get their main takeaways from the session and hear best advice for advisors from a technology perspective.

The full video from the event is embedded over on website along with a few additional stories that didn’t make this week’s broadcast.]

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

Docupace Closes on Management Buyback Transaction from BusinessWire

Docupace Technologies LLC, a premier digital compliance and cyber security company in the financial services industry, completed its planned repurchase of the majority interest in the company previously held by RCS Capital Corporation.

New Marketing Materials from Hidden Levers

HiddenLevers now provides pre-made marketing materials that can be used with clients. These include printable brochures, embeddable videos, website and signature plugins.

Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes for May 13, 2016

FPPad Bits and Bytes for June 5

Posted on June 5, 2015 by Bill Winterberg in Bits & Bytes

On today’s broadcast, Guide Financial gets scooped up by an insurance company, Fox Financial Planning Network wants to help you with your online investment service adoption, and WealthMinder raises fresh capital to give you an edge over robo advisors.

So get ready, FPPad Bits and Bytes begins now!

(WatchFPPad 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.

TRX now offers TRX Edge, a completely rewritten rebalancing platform optimized for the web as well as mobile devices. Sign up for a demo of TRX Edge by visiting http://fppad.com/trx

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

John Hancock Acquires Software Provider Guide Financial, Inc. As Part of Companywide Long-Term Innovation Plan from John Hancock

[This week’s top story comes from Guide Financial, because while I was enjoying clam chowder in a Boudin sourdough bowl in San Francisco, the company announced it was acquired by John Hancock, the life insurance, mutual fund, and retirement solution provider. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Now if you’re a regular viewer of FPPad Bits and Bytes, you should remember I highlighted Guide Financial in episode 124 when the company announced an agreement to white-label its solution for members of the Garrett Planning Network.

That was more than a year ago, and I’m told that the adoption of the white-labeled solution was below expectations. So fast forward to today on the heels of fintech acquisitions of eMoney Advisor, Upside, NestEgg Wealth, and LearnVest and you’ll quickly realize that industry behemoths like John Hancock are eager to cater to tech-savvy customers with slick, user friendly online experiences. Guide Financial is just one of the many online startups in this space building such a platform.

In the press release, John Hancock said that Guide Financial will operate as an independent group, so I can only speculate whether or not Guide Financial will remain independent or if some financial product upselling and/or cross marketing will weave its way into the solution. So stay tuned.] John Hancock announced today that it has acquired Guide Financial, Inc., a San Francisco-based software provider for financial advisors. Guide Financial builds software that enables investors to make better financial decisions and build wealth, utilizing artificial intelligence, behavioral finance, and seamless advisor integration. Terms were not disclosed.

Fox Financial Planning Network Launches AdvisorTouch Symphony from PRNewswire

[Next up is more news regarding online investment services, as the Fox Financial Planning Network recently announced a new program called AdvisorTouch Symphony. If you missed the news because you were out riding a cable car, AdvisorTouch Symphony is essentially a turnkey roadmap you can implement to add an online investment service to your business.

Under the program, you’ll receive step-by-step guidance on how to adopt these new tools, with Jemstep Advisor Pro being the first automated investment service of choice, and you can expect several other online services to be featured in the near future.

Pricing for firms with one to three advisors is a one-time fee of $5,500, and larger firms will be charged based on their size and need for customization.

This gets you the practice management resources, but this fee doesn’t include additional compliance guidance and resources available from National Regulatory Services, or the optional cybersecurity consulting from True North Networks which were both named in an alliance with AdvisorTouch Symphony. Whew! Got that?

So if you want someone else to show you how to add an online investment service to your business, this is one resource to be sure is on your radar.] Fox Financial Planning Network (FFPN) announced today the launch of AdvisorTouch Symphony, the only program of its kind to help financial advisory firms harness the power of combining robo-technology with practice management. FFPN created this program to demystify robo-technology for advisory firms and provide a detailed road map through every aspect of the implementation process to help firms maximize the benefits of its use.

This Reston startup raised $1.45M to bring financial advisers to the masses from BizJournals.com, and

Beyond the Robo-Advisor from Financial Advisor Magazine

[And finally, this week’s broadcast wraps up with news on WealthMinder, because while I was pillaging and plundering with pirates of the “you can’t say that on YouTube,” the company announced a new round of fundraising to the swashbuckling tune of $1.45 million.

WealthMinder is, surprise surprise, yet another while-labeled advisor solution for online service, only this one goes beyond basic asset allocation recommendations by incorporating goal planning. To get a deeper look at WealthMinder, coincidentally, Joel Bruckenstein reviewed WealthMinder in his column for Financial Advisor Magazine this month.

To cut to the chase, clients and prospects log in to WealthMinder and choose goals they’re planning for, they aggregate their investment accounts using an integration from Yodlee, and WealthMinder ultimately generates an initial financial plan based on some basic assumptions, and yes, the plan can include investment recommendations, too.

For you, the advisor, you can log in to your dashboard and view all the plans that clients have created, which includes their recommended actions, and then you can proactively offer your services to help clients implement the next steps. There are a reported 26 firms using the platform today, and the pricing to advisors comes in at $10 per month per client, but you can offset the cost by collecting a monthly subscription fee from clients who want to use the WealthMinder platform.] WealthMinder, a Reston-based financial marketplace that looks to connect financial advisers with people who aren’t considered wealthy, has secured $1.45 million in seed funding led by two West Coast venture capital firms — Green Visor Capital and Signatures Capital.

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

Morningstar to Add Portfolio Rebalancing Capability for Independent Financial Advisors, Powered by Total Rebalance Expert from Morningstar

Morningstar, Inc., a leading provider of independent investment research, is working with Total Rebalance Expert (TRX) to add rebalancing functionality to Morningstar Office, the company’s practice and portfolio management system for independent financial advisors.

Vestorly Announces the Integration of Its Smart Digital Content Technology on to Pershings NetX360® Platform from Marketwired

Vestorly today announced the integration of its smart digital content technology into Pershing’s NetX360® platform.

Tech Review: New Bet on Financial Health from Financial Planning

Consumers seem to be buying into the idea that these devices can help improve their physical health, so why not create similar mobile capabilities to track financial health?

Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes for June 5, 2015

The Best Financial Advisor Technology of 2014

Posted on December 19, 2014 by Bill Winterberg in Bits & Bytes

Welcome to this special edition of FPPad Bits and Bytes, the Best Tech of 2014! On today’s broadcast, this is my last show of the year, meaning it’s time to review the top technology news from the last 12 months that matters to your business. That’s right, it’s time for my Best Tech of 2014 awards.

So get ready, FPPad Bits and Bytes begins now.

(Watch the Best Tech of 2014 on YouTube)

Today’s episode is brought to you by ITEGRIA, providers of complete outsourced technology support, security, infrastructure and IT solutions exclusively for RIAs.

In their new book titled Red Flags, you’ll learn how to protect your firm from cyber-attacks, disasters, and IT compliance risks. Learn more about the Red Flags book by visiting fppad.com/itegria.

This week’s episode is all about my picks for the Best Technology of 2014. This is my fifth year highlighting top technology for financial advisors and wealth managers, and as always, I break down award winners into three categories: the best back office technology, the best client-facing technology, and the best overall innovation of the year.

Best Back-Office Technology

So let’s begin with the Best Back-Office Technology award winner, which is a product or service that boosts the overall efficiency and productivity of your back office and makes a direct impact to your bottom line.

The Best Back-Office Technology of 2014 award goes to (drumroll please) the Motif Advisor Platform.

Unveiled at Finovate Spring 2014 where it won Best of Show, the Motif Advisor Platform is a solution you can use to build, manage and rebalance your own motifs on behalf of clients. You can combine up to 30 stocks and ETFs into your own custom motif and trade the entire strategy for one flat fee.

Pricing for the Motif Advisor Platform starts at $20 per month per customer, so the Motif Advisor Platform takes top honors this year because it helps you be much more efficient when managing custom portfolios AND it saves your clients money in transaction fees that might normally be charged for trading individual securities and ETFs.

Honorable mention in this category goes to Riskalyze, for its enterprise Compliance Cloud risk-monitoring solution, and the TD Ameritrade Institutional Veo Open Access Dashboard, consolidating dozens of technology integrations into one highly-functional web-based screen.

Best Client-Facing Technology

Next up is the award for the Best Client-Facing Technology. Now the winner in this category must significantly enhance the client-facing elements of your business and facilitate your interactions with clients. Clients benefit from improved personalized service as well as an increased level of convenience when using such technology.

I think all of you will agree that the growth of online investment services has really upped the ante when it comes to the client-facing elements of your technology. So it’s no surprise that the winner in this category is part of the online investment providers, but for me, one of them just barely edged out the others in taking top honors.

This year’s Best Client-Facing Technology award goes to (wait for it) Betterment Institutional.

But like I said, Betterment Institutional just barely edged out the other solutions built for advisors like Guide Financial, Jemstep Advisor Pro, Upside Advisor, Oranj, Wealth Access and several more. Why?

Because Betterment has a solid track record on the consumer side with over 50,000 customers, plus it has the advantage of having Steve Lockshin providing direction for the company based on his experience in the independent advisor market with Fortigent and AdvicePeriod.

Now don’t get me wrong, I think the other advisor-focused solutions have an equal shot at significant growth in this space, which didn’t make the award selection process any easier. But the good news for you is that you have a number of choices in this low-cost online investment category when you’re ready to add this offering to your business model.

Honorable mention here goes to Estate Assist for its online safe deposit box that helps clients manage their growing digital assets.

Innovation of the Year

And finally, the third category in my annual Best Technology of 2014 awards is the Innovation of the Year. This award goes to a product or service that introduces a new business practice or service experience to your business. This innovative tool should transform the way you interact with clients, enhance your overall efficiency, or even enable the delivery of new services not possible or practical in the past.

The award for Innovation of the year goes to (thank you) Engage, from Orion Advisor Services.

Out of all the new products we’ve seen in 2014, Engage is one of those solutions that I feel breaks new ground.

It begins with videos you create to communicate with clients, which you really should think about doing in 2015, but what Engage allows you to do it customize the video content you send to clients in an automated fashion.

Engage integrates performance data from Orion, graphic elements from MoneyGuidePro, and calendar scheduling from Redtail CRM, and embeds the information directly in your videos. So you only need to record one video, but Engage makes it seem like you created hundreds of videos, each with graphics and information specific to your clients.

It’s pretty cool stuff, and that’s a technical term, and a little ahead of its time, as a lot of you just aren’t ready to communicate with clients using video, which is why I feel Engage from Orion deserves to be recognized for its innovation this year.

Closing out this year’s award is an honorable mention to Gladstone Associates for their new streamlined business valuation toolkit that uses technology integrations to efficiently gather data about your business.

Your Feedback

So what do you think about my choices for Best Tech of 2014? Did I make the right choices, or did I completely blow it?

You’ve got to let me know! Leave a comment below, send me a message on Twitter using @billwinterberg, or leave a comment on the FPPad YouTube channel.

Thank you so much for being a part of the FPPad community throughout 2014, and I wish you all the best in 2015!

Watch my broadcast on the Best Tech of 2014 for financial advisors

FPPad Bits and Bytes for October 17

Posted on October 17, 2014 by Bill Winterberg in Bits & Bytes

On today’s broadcast, Betterment Institutional releases its online investment solution for advisors. Will the industry rush to adopt this new digital solution for emerging clients? The SEC admits it doesn’t know where its laptops are. Could you be at risk of making the same mistakes committed by this industry watchdog? And, hackers claim to have stolen millions of passwords from Dropbox. Find out what you should be doing right now to protect the information you store online.

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: Simple, social, and collaborative CRM for financial advisors.

If you’re considering switching your CRM, connect with Amber from Team Wealthbox to get a personal demo at Wealthbox.com.

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

Robo advisor Betterment works with Fidelity in RIA push from CNBC

[This week’s top story highlights Betterment Institutional, who this week announced the official release of an advisor-friendly version of its popular direct-to-consumer service that currently manages over $600 million in customer assets.

No doubt influenced by the guidance and financial investments from Steve Lockshin and Marty Bicknell, Betterment Institutional allows advisors to white label the Betterment platform and offer it to all clients for a cost of 25 basis points per year. Advisors can charge an additional fee if they so choose.

In addition, Fidelity Institutional Wealth Services announced that the company will include Betterment Institutional among a list of practice management resources it offers to advisors. But the use of Betterment Institutional is not exclusive to Fidelity, so whatever your custodial affiliation is today, you can begin to use Betterment Institutional if you’re seeking a low-cost automated investment solution for your emerging clients.

Betterment Institutional joins Upside Advisor, Guide Financial, JemStep and a few others as an advisor-friendly automated investment solution, and you’ll want to stay tuned for news following the Schwab IMPACT conference, as details on that custodian’s much anticipated free investment platform should be made public.] If you can’t beat the robots, join them. That’s what Betterment—the ultra-low cost, computer-driven personal portfolio service—hopes financial professionals will do with its new institutionally focused “robo-advisor” offering.

Missing SEC laptops risk release of nonpublic information, inspector says from Marketwatch

[Next up is an embarrassing revelation from the Securities and Exchange Commission, as the industry watchdog admitted that somewhere between 24 and 202 laptops were unaccounted for, opening up the risk that private, nonpublic information could be exposed. Is this when I should do a forehead slap?

Alright, so the SEC has its own data security issues to deal with, but I want to take a moment to challenge you about how you’re keeping your business and client information safe. Do you use full disk encryption on the laptops you use for work? You should.

Windows 8.1 Pro and Enterprise offers BitLocker drive encryption for free, and if you use Mac, FileVault 2 disk encryption is built right in to the operating system. All you need to do is turn the feature on and protect your laptop with a strong login password.

And don’t forget about your mobile devices. Every device you use should be protected with a login passcode, the longer the better, and in most cases, requiring a passcode automatically enables device encryption.] The inspector-general of the Securities and Exchange Commission said in a report that there’s at least 24 and as many as 202 laptops that are not accounted for, which risks the release of sensitive, nonpublic information.

Dropbox says it wasn’t hacked. But that doesn’t help users whose information was leaked from The Washington Post

[And finally, Dropbox made headlines this week as reports circulated that hackers claimed to have accessed over 7 million usernames and passwords to the popular online file storage service. Dropbox insists that its systems were not hacked, but rather the login credentials were obtained from unrelated companies and services.

Once again, it’s critical that you follow good online account protection practices: Use a unique password for each website, activate multi-factor authentication where possible, and consider managing login credentials in a reputable password management service like LastPass, 1Password, Meldium, and more.] Dropbox was the latest company under the gun on security, when a link on reddit surfaced a claim that hackers have nearly 7 million usernames — plus their passwords — from the storage service on Monday.

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

Canva Launches iPad App to Bring Amazingly Simple Design to Your Fingertips at Canva.com

We’re very excited to today announce the launch of the Canva app for iPad.

Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes for October 17, 2014

Betterment Institutional launches for financial advisers

Posted on October 15, 2014 by Bill Winterberg in Technology

Betterment gives financial advisers access to its popular low-cost, automated online investment solution

FPPad Quick Take:

Financial advisers can now offer Betterment Institutional as a white-labeled low-cost online investment service to emerging clients.
Betterment Institutional charges 25 basis points a year, advisers can charge an additional fee if they wish
Fidelity Institutional Wealth Services will list Betterment Institutional as a practice management solution in its list of resources for advisers

Betterment, a popular automated online investment service, today announced the expansion of its technology for use by financial advisers and an inclusion among Fidelity Institutional Wealth Services practice management solutions.

Betterment for Advisers

Betterment Institutional is an expansion of the startup’s popular online investment service built for retail investors. As of June
10, 2014, Betterment reported $613,372,319 in assets under management in its regulatory filings.

According to Nick Gavronsky, product manager for Betterment, the company’s new offering allows financial advisers to white label the Betterment Institutional offering and brand it for their own business. Advisers using Betterment Institutional will receive a website hosted by Betterment that investors can use to create accounts, view statements and engage with an adviser.

Initially, end clients using Betterment Institutional will use the company’s Android and iOS mobile apps as they exist today, but adviser-branded apps are anticipated to be phased in as the offering matures, Gavronsky said.

Low Cost Investments

Betterment Institutional will allow financial advisers to set their own fee schedule for clients who choose to use the service. Betterment collects an annual fee of 25 basis points (0.25%) from accounts on the Institutional platform, and any additional fees above that amount are paid to the adviser.

Just as with the retail Betterment offering, accounts are held by Betterment LLC, an SEC Registered Investment Adviser, and securities transactions are cleared through Apex Clearing Corporation.

Custom Models Welcome

Investors using Betterment’s retail offering are familiar with the standard asset allocation models the company’s algorithms select for clients based on their answers to a risk tolerance questionnaire.

Betterment Institutional offers the same investment allocation models to financial adviser clients, but the company also permits advisers to create their own custom models.

Again, the same technology that powers the default models in Betterment’s retail platform is available to custom investment models created by advisers, Gavronsky said in an interview.

In addition, investors who have $50,000 or more managed with Betterment Institutional have access to the same Tax Loss Harvesting+™ feature found on the retail Betterment platform. Tax Loss Harvesting+™ is an automated, daily account rebalancing feature.

Fidelity Touts Practice Management

Also noteworthy in the Betterment Institutional announcement is the recognition that Fidelity Institutional Wealth Services, providing custody services to nearly 3,000 RIAs, now includes Betterment Institutional as one of the practice management solutions Institutional Wealth Services offers to its RIA clients and prospects, according to Erica Birke, vice president of communications and corporate affairs for Fidelity Institutional.

“Fidelity Institutional Wealth Services and Betterment share an interest in helping advisors realize that digital advice should not be perceived as a threat, but rather an opportunity to evolve their engagement models to better attract new business segments, particularly the emerging affluent, a segment that many advisory firms have historically under-served or not served at all,” wrote Birke in an email.

Fidelity does not have exclusivity over the Betterment Institutional offering to advisers; any adviser is free to engage Betterment Institutional as he or she wishes.

Financial Adviser Value

Betterment Institutional joins Upside Advisor and Guide Financial in an effort to provide a low-cost automated investment solution to financial advisers.

Upside Advisor recently made headlines by powering Liftoff, the low-cost investment solutions offered by high profile New York RIA Ritholtz Wealth Management. Liftoff offers a similar model portfolio management service for an annual fee of 40 basis points (0.40%).

FPPad Bits and Bytes for October 3

Posted on October 3, 2014 by Bill Winterberg in Bits & Bytes

On today’s broadcast, Upside Advisor teams up with a high-profile RIA. Will this partnership do anything to slow the growth of the $(!#-advisers? Redtail CRM previews the new version of its popular CRM. Will the design and feature changes be enough to attract advisors that are using aging systems? And, broker-dealers aren’t turning a blind eye to technology. Find out which firms are investing heavily to boost the efficiency of their representatives.

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. Version 1.6 is now available featuring automated workflows, templates for routine processes, and progress updates all on one screen!

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

Upside Powers Ritholtz Wealth Management’s New Digital Offering, Called Liftoff from Upside Advisor

[First up this week is an announcement from Ritholtz Wealth Management, the New York RIA headed by The Big Picture blogger Barry Ritholtz and Josh Brown, aka The Reformed Broker, who released a new web-based offering to emerging clients called Liftoff. Liftoff is a white-labeled version of the $(!#-adviser solution, uh, ok, online investment solution from Upside Advisor, which I introduced to you back in episode 136.

For around 40 basis points, Liftoff provides automated asset allocation recommendations to clients who want to get started with investing, but don’t yet have enough assets to qualify for a one-on-one relationship with Ritholtz’s advisors. Upside Advisor is just the latest $(!#-adviser, oh, right, online investment provider to join this space, as they’re going up against competing solutions like Wealthfront, Personal Capital, Betterment, Learnvest, Guide Financial, JemStep, Orion Discover; I can’t keep them all straight!

So today you’re faced with a choice: will you sit on the sidelines to see how these low-cost automated solutions play out, or will you partner with a low-cost provider to offer an investment solution for your emerging clients?] Upside, a technology company providing a digital advisor platform to investment advisors, today announced a new partnership with Ritholtz Wealth Management (RWM).

Tech Review: Redtail’s New Edition from Financial Planning

[Next up is a review of Redtail CRM and its third major product update to its software called Project Tailwag. In his October column for Financial Planning magazine, Joel Bruckenstein gives a very favorable review of the redesign and feature enhancements to the industry’s most widely used CRM.

Users will soon have access to a clean, flat design that’s easier to use, and it’s also responsive, as it adjusts to screens of any size from desktops to smartphones. Contact records feature a timeline of client interactions, and important details like contact information and activities and workflows are just a single click away.

Whether you use Redtail CRM or an alternative solution such as Junxure, Salesforce, Wealthbox, and others, these are the types of features and functionality you’re going to need if you expect to cultivate meaningful relationships with clients and differentiate yourself from the $(!#-advisers, uh, I mean, online investment providers.] Redtail Technology just released a major upgrade to its popular CRM application. Dubbed Project Tailwag, this version of Redtail — only the third upgrade in the company’s 12-year history — offers a host of new enhancements.

Racing Ahead from Financial Advisor

[And finally, Joel Bruckenstien once again wraps up this week’s top stories with a technology update from the nation’s leading broker-dealers firms. In his column for Financial Advisor magazine, Bruckenstein highlights LPL Financial’s announcement of ClientWorks, the successor to the existing BranchNet platform that I covered in episode 137, an updated portfolio reporting solution and Client Center dashboard from Raymond James, updates to Commonwealth Financial Network’s Client Household 360 Dashboard and Practice360 business dashboard, and the AIG Advisor Group’s pending release of a mobile version of Salesforce and with integrated Salesforce work flows.

Clearly these broker-dealer firms are investing heavily in technology to boost the capabilities of their representatives, especially as they face increasing competition from all of the $(!#-adviser, ugh, online solutions out there.] The pace of technological innovation has never been greater. Independent broker-dealer firms continue to invest to keep up with the competition, offering advisors and end clients a better experience.

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

Risk Tool Smackdown: FinaMetrica vs. Riskalyze from Financial Planning

I tested myself using two of the more popular risk tolerance instruments: Riskalyze and FinaMetrica.

Smarsh Introduces Enhanced Archiving Support for Instagram from BusinessWire

Smarsh®, the leading provider of hosted archiving solutions for compliance and e-discovery, today announced the Smarsh Archiving Platform now offers enhanced support for Instagram.

Personal Capital integrates Zillow home estimates from Personal Capital

For those of you with property, Personal Capital has come out with a great new feature that will help you keep track of your real estate investments with Zillow.

Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes for October 3, 2014

FPPad Bits and Bytes for August 8

Posted on August 8, 2014 by Bill Winterberg in Bits & Bytes

On today’s broadcast, online investment advisors are coming to an RIA new you. Find out who the latest company is to enter this growing market. JemStep is another provider that’s white-labeling its technology to RIAs. Learn how one RIA is using the platform to serve its emerging clients. And Joel Bruckenstein is concerned about the future of advisor technology. Find out what issues keep this technology expert up at night.

So get ready, FPPad Bits and Bytes begins now.

(Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes on YouTube)

Today’s episode is brought to you by ITEGRIA, providers of complete outsourced technology support, security, infrastructure and IT solutions exclusively for RIAs.

To learn how you can keep your data safe from attackers, download a free copy of their latest white paper on social engineering attacks by visiting fppad.com/itegria.

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

Upside Raises $1.1M To Help Investment Advisers Compete Against Wealthfront, Betterment And Co. from TechCrunch

[This week’s top story comes from Upside Advisor, the latest startup to join the class of online investment advice providers. But unlike the direct-to-consumer startups like Wealthfront and FutureAdvisor, Upside Advisor is specifically targeting financial advisors who can white label Upside Advisor’s platform to provide a low-cost managed account solution to their emerging clients.

Upside’s platform offers paperless account opening using a DocuSign integration, automated trading and rebalancing, a client portal, and more, and just raised $1.1 million in new funding to continue to enhance its features for advisors. Upside comes on the heels of the introduction of Guide Financial, a similar advisor-focused solution I highlighted back in March in episode 124, giving you one more solution to offer a low-cost, high-tech automated solution to compete with the algorithm-based competition.] Upside, which today announced that it has raised a $1.1 million funding round led by Cultivation Capital, gives financial advisers a white label solution that’s very similar to what other robo-advisers offer.

Traditional advisory firm hammers out deal with robo-adviser from InvestmentNews

[Now another online investment provider also dipping its toe into the RIA waters is JemStep, which just recently announced a partnership with Redhawk Wealth Advisors based in Minneapolis. Under the agreement, the RIA is able to white label the JemStep platform as Redhawk Online Advisor, where investors can sign up online, connect their financial accounts, and receive investment recommendations for a fee ranging from $17 to $69 dollars a month based on the amount of assets under advisement.

It’s important note that while JemStep offers investment recommendations, it does not automatically execute trades on behalf of its users. Actually following through on JemStep’s recommendations is the responsibility of either the advisor or the end-user, which could pose an implementation challenge as the platform gains momentum with RIAs.] Redhawk Wealth Advisors, a registered investment adviser with a wealth management practice, and Jemstep Inc., also an RIA but with an algorithm-driven account aggregation and investment advice platform, have become partners, bringing online advice to help Redhawk’s retail clients manage their investments, including funds held in their 401(k) accounts.

Things That Keep Me Up At Night from Financial Advisor Magazine

[And finally, all this news about competition from online investment advice providers might give you cause for concern, and it’s also one of the topics that keeps technology consultant Joel Bruckenstein up at night, too. In his latest column for Financial Advisor Magazine, Bruckenstein expresses his anxiety over the state of affairs in financial advisor technology.

He highlights complacency, insufficient integrations, and competition from automated online advisors as significant threats to the growth and success of the independent advisory industry. Fortunately, Bruckenstein cites vendors like Envestnet|Tamarac, Orion Advisor Services, Ornaj, Advyzon, and more who can equip independent advisors with technology solutions that not only rival those of the competition, but can also live up to the increased expectations from today’s tech-savvy clients and prospects.] Over the last several months, I’ve traveled thousands of miles, met hundreds of advisors and spoken with numerous representatives of custodians, broker-dealers and software vendors. Although I’m generally rather upbeat about the future of this industry, there are some things that concern me about current affairs.

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

Advent’s Black Diamond Platform Surpasses 500-Client Milestone from Advent

Advent Software, Inc., a leading provider of software and services for the global investment management industry, today announced that Black Diamond, an independent business group of Advent, has surpassed 540 clients and exceeded $245 billion in assets on its portfolio management, reporting, and rebalancing platform.

Wealth Managers Enlist Spy Tools to Map Portfolios from the New York Times

Some of the engineers who used to help the Central Intelligence Agency solve problems have moved on to another challenge: determining the value of every conceivable investment in the world.

Vestorly Partners With Advisor Websites to Enhance Client Engagement and Lead Generation from PRWeb

Vestorly, a leading client engagement and lead generation platform, and Advisor Websites, a leading provider of websites to advisors, announced today a joint venture to develop highly engaging websites that build advisors’ brands with investors, as well as generate qualified leads for marketing purposes.

Announcing our new release from Guide Financial

At Guide Financial, our core mission is to help America’s next generation achieve a secure financial future. We are excited to roll out a new release that underscores our commitment to advisors serving the next generation. The new release is now available to currently subscribed advisors and will become more broadly available in the coming weeks.

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