Tag Archives: Wealthfront

Will 2016 bring a “run on the robos?”

Posted on January 6, 2016 by in General

How well are the online investment services prepared for a run on the bank type scenario?

How well are the online investment services prepared for a run on the bank type scenario?

Edit January 6, 2016: Added details that Personal Capital Advisors uses the custody services of Pershing Advisor Solutions LLC. Removed this tweet from a user of Personal Capital’s free dashboard, replaced with the Wealthfront tweet seen below.

I’m posting this today, as I’m genuinely concerned about what will happen when online investment services get flooded with redemption/account close requests.

“You STINK”

For example, take this tweet (note to readers in the future: if the embedded tweets below get deleted, I captured screenshots that I can post for posterity):

I stumbled across this tweet, as this person is upset about their portfolio performance.

So this got me thinking:

What happens when online investment services get flooded with redemption requests and account closures?

Run on the Robos

If an online investment service isn’t responsive to requests and complaints in a public forum (Twitter), how well will they respond once they are deluged with irate customers who are fed up and want out quickly?

“Sorry, we have a big backlog right now, but no worries, your money is still safe?”

¯_(ツ)_/¯

I don’t ever want to see businesses fail. I don’t ever want to see investors get into difficult situations regarding their investments.

But I fear that if a trickle of dissatisfaction with online investment services quickly becomes a flood, online services will get crushed.

Not picking on Personal Capital

Before you go, don’t assume that I’m picking on Personal Capital.

Yes, tweets above that are related to their company trigged my question of what happens when account closure rates skyrocket, but Personal Capital uses the custody services of Pershing Advisor Solutions LLC (it’s on page 5 of their Form ADV Part 2A Appendix 1).

Look, Pershing is a very large financial institution with nearly $1.5 trillion in global assets under administration and 75 years of experience.

200 account closures a day probably doesn’t make them sweat. 1,000 a week? That might be an average week. ACH, DTC, ACAT, they don’t bat an eye.

But for the startups that manage their own proprietary systems on top of Apex Clearing? Have they been tested?

I suppose I can contact them and ask, but what answer do you think I’m going to receive?

“Oh, Bill, thank you for bringing this to our attention, and as a result we found bottlenecks in our processes and have improved our ability to efficiently and accurately process account redemptions and closures.”

I don’t think so.

I’ve heard this before: “Once you go robo, you don’t go back.”

That, and I wanted the first Internet timestamp for “run on the robos.”

BlackRock to acquire FutureAdvisor

Posted on August 26, 2015 by in Technology

BlackRock to acquire FutureAdvisor

BlackRock to acquire FutureAdvisor

In a press release this morning, BlackRock, Inc., the world’s largest asset management firm by AUM (source: relbanks.com) announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire FutureAdvisor. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Let’s hit some fast facts again, shall we:

  • FutureAdvisor was founded in 2010 and had raised $21.5 million in four rounds (source)
  • FutureAdvisor had a reported AUM of $600 million in June 2015 (source), though their most recent SEC Form ADV from September 2014 reflected $232 million. This lagged online automated investment leaders Wealthfront and Betterment by approximately $2 billion as of August 2015
  • FutureAdvisor charged a Subscription Fee for the Premium Service of 50 basis points, making it more expensive than competitors Wealthfront and Betterment
  • Assuming a 50 bps fee on all $600 million results in gross revenue run rate, at best, of $3 million (remember AUM of $232 benchmarked in September 2014)

What does this mean for advisers?

Not much. Really. Return to your business.

But here’s the thing. BlackRock is an asset manager. BlackRock does well when its asset base grows. How can the company continue to grow its assets?

One way is to offer a new, simple, and attractive way for investors to automatically add their assets to low-cost, broadly diversified portfolios of funds and ETFs.

Enter FutureAdvisor.

A bonus for BlackRock is if the company can find a way to invest those assets into BlackRock-managed products.

Say, iShares ETFs.

What to do now

You come to FPPad for ideas on what to do with the technology in your business. So here’s what I think you should do.

Number one: Offer your own online, user-friendly interface

If the world’s largest asset manager sees the need to add a low-cost user-friendly online asset allocation tool to its arsenal, isn’t it time you have one for your business?

Prospects are comparing your capabilities to the services they see from Wealthfront, Betterment, FutureAdvisor, et. al., and if you come up short and don’t have an answer to their slick platforms, you’re probably viewed as a laggard.

Number two: Tell clients what you really do

Automated investment management is a commodity.

Anyone can get it from Schwab, Wealthfront, Betterment, FutureAdvisor. You could argue that the first mutual funds were the earliest automated investment management solution!

Sure, tax loss harvesting, daily rebalancing, and instant deposits are bells and whistles for automated investment solutions, and the results of whether or not those features actually result in any additional money in customers’ pockets is highly dependent on each customers’ personal situation.

But for you, as an advisor, investment management is just ONE of the things you do. It’s not the ONLY thing you do.

You do SO MUCH MORE.

So let clients know.

Even better, let your prospects know how much more you do.

You’re not justifying the fees you charge, you are reinforcing the value you provide by giving clients the service they need in ALL areas of their financial life.

You go WAY BEYOND investment management.

So do that. Tell clients what you really do, and why what you do goes way beyond automated investment management.

Betterment is poised to overtake Wealthfront in AUM

Posted on August 16, 2015 by in General

AUM 600In the race for robo adviser supremacy, neither Wealthfront nor Betterment wants to be runner-up.

Love it or hate it, AUM, or assets under management, is the default metric by which investment management businesses are benchmarked.

Robo-Advisor AUM

Certainly, many automated investment services (or rather, robo-advisors) have been flaunting their AUM figures in recent years, to, well, I don’t know why, exactly, other than to beat their chest on how good they are at gathering assets.

The most vocal automated investment service for publishing AUM figures is Wealthfront, with periodic blog posts issued when the company passed the round numbers of $500 million, $1 billion, and $2 billion in AUM.

Taking the more subtle approach to AUM milestones is Betterment, long viewed as the runner-up to Wealthfront in the AUM-gathering contest since 2013.

Instead, Betterment mentions the number of customers it serves first (in part because they have more than Wealthfront, so they can be number one in that comparison), followed by the level of AUM represented by their customers.

Still, there are a few posts from Betterment that place dates on when the company crossed $1 billion (with 50,000 customers) and $2.5 billion (with 100,000 customers). One has to dig through trade publications like TechCrunch and Forbes to put a date on earlier AUM figures like the company’s first $100 million and $500 million, respectively.

Ok, fine. So how is that asset gathering coming along today?

Graph of Wealthfront vs. Betterment AUM Growth

This morning I wanted to take a quick look at the AUM growth of the two leading automated investment services, Wealthfront and Betterment. But after 10 minutes of Googling, I had no charts or graphs of how each company is growing their AUM.

So I built a quick Google Sheet using the dates and AUM figures from most of the blog posts and articles cited above. Here it is!

Wealthfront vs. Betterment AUM Growth

Wealthfront vs. Betterment AUM Growth

 

So what is my biggest takeaway from this chart?

Betterment poised to overtake Wealthfront in AUM

Betterment has consistently lagged Wealthfront’s AUM since 2013, and Wealthfront’s growth rate was higher than that of Betterment, but then something changed around December 2014.

The rate of Betterment’s AUM increase accelerated, while Wealthfront’s growth rate generally remained the same from January 2014.

And the most recent figures for August 2015 show that Betterment has significantly closed the AUM gap with Wealthfront.

This being mid-August, and assuming Betterment’s faster growth rate continues as it has since the beginning of 2015: Betterment is poised to overtake Wealthfront in AUM.

What Happened to Betterment’s AUM Growth?

What happened to boost Betterment’s AUM growth starting around December 2014. I suspect the cause is:

Betterment Institutional

So not only does Betterment have its own client acquisition strategies (web banner ads, TV commercials, ads on taxis and phone booths in NYC…), now the company has a new salesforce, if you will, of investment advisers who are using the Betterment Institutional service for their emerging clients.

This new cadre of advisers likely stands at a hundred or so today, but as the popularity and appeal of automated investment services expands, potentially thousands of financial advisers may be directing their emerging clients to use the low-cost service.

This is a totally new salesforce and asset gathering funnel that Wealthfront lacks today.

So in the race to be the dominant VC-backed automated investment service measured by AUM, the guard is about to change.

And nobody wants to be number two.

FPPad Bits and Bytes for August 14

Posted on August 14, 2015 by in Bits & Bytes

On today’s broadcast, Envestnet acquires account aggregation provider Yodlee, Advizr makes two announcements to close the gap among financial planning software, and find out why automated investing services might be losing their competitive advantage.

So get ready, FPPad Bits and Bytes begins now.

(WatchFPPad Bits and Bytes on YouTube)

Today’s episode is brought to you by eMoney Advisor, host of the eMoney Advisor Summit coming October 19th through 21st in Orlando.

emoney summit

Take a deep dive into the emX strategies that help you Connect, Engage and Win with your clients. Plus, everyone watching this show can take advantage of a one hundred dollar discount off your registration, so visit fppad.com/emoneysummit15 today and use promo code FPPAD100. That’s FPPAD100.

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

Envestnet to Acquire Yodlee from Envestnet

[This week’s top story comes from Envestnet, as the wealth management technology and service provider announced it is acquiring Yodlee in a deal valued somewhere around $660 million. Now most of you know Yodlee for account aggregation, but Yodlee really doesn’t sell services directly to advisors.

Instead, some advisors benefit from Yodlee aggregation through third-party integrations, with MoneyGuidePro being the most well know,after announcing a Yodlee integration to much fanfare last year, priced at a dollar per day. You can get more details on that in episode 120 that I linked over here.

So let’s cut to the chase: is this good or bad? If you’re an Envestnet technology user, this is really good. Aggregating clients’ held away accounts gives you better visibility on what clients actually own, how they’re allocated, and in some cases, how they manage their cash flow. This information can only make the advice you give better, and that’s a fantastic thing for everyone!

BUT, if you compete with Envestnet and/or take advantage of Yodlee aggregation today, the future isn’t so clear. It’s way too early to speculate what’s going to happen to Yodlee’s pricing and availability, but if efficient account aggregation is a cornerstone of your business, it might be time to keep alternatives like Aqumulate, ByAllAccounts, or Quovo in mind.] Envestnet, Inc. (NYSE:ENV), a leading provider of unified wealth management technology and services to financial advisors, and Yodlee, Inc. (Nasdaq: YDLE), the leading cloud-based platform driving digital financial innovation, today announced that the Boards of Directors of both companies have unanimously approved a definitive agreement under which Envestnet will acquire all of the shares of Yodlee in a cash and stock transaction valued at $18.88 per share, or approximately $660 million on a fully-diluted equity value basis.

 

Introducing: Advizr Express from Advizr

[Next up is news from Advizr, an up-and-coming financial planning software provider, who this week made two announcements. First is the introduction of a prospecting tool called Advizr Express, allowing you to attract prospects by offering a super-simple retirement readiness illustration either on your website or for use with prospects during an initial meeting. Advizr Express is in beta testing today with an official release anticipated later this month.

Advizr’s second announcement is a new integration with Orion Advisor Services to import client portfolio holdings to avoid manually entering that information by hand. This adds to an existing integration with Blueleaf, and should be a preview of what to come with connections with many of the leading custodians. Wink wink.

So while Advizr is still a ways away from offering the number of integrations found in category leaders like Advicent, eMoney, and MoneyGuidePro, updates like these should help Advizr close the gap and offer you more choice in the tools you use to deliver financial planning.]

Automation Won’t Replace People as Your Competitive Advantage from Harvard Business Review

[And finally, I want to wrap up this week’s broadcast with an article from Harvard Business Review titled Automation Won’t Replace People as Your Competitive Advantage. For two years and seventy episodes of Bits and Bytes, the chatter about automated investment services and algorithmic rebalancing has reached a fever pitch, but scroll down to the end of that article and you’ll read a striking statement:

“Once smart machines are built to solve problems in asset efficiency (or indeed any area of operations) they very rapidly spread and become pervasive across an industry. Therefore, they cease to provide a competitive advantage.”

I think this perfectly describes what’s happening today in automated investing. Sure, six years ago, Wealthfront and Betterment attracted attention because there was nothing out there like their automated services. Their exclusivity was their competitive advantage.
But fast forward to today where automated services are available from Schwab, Vanguard, Future Advisor, Blooom, and even LPL Financial having announced their own plans for an automated service. Automated investing is becoming pervasive.

But what that also says to me is that if you don’t have some kind of low-cost automated service to offer, it may actually be viewed as a disadvantage because they’re so common in the industry. It’s like telling clients you won’t communicate with them via email. It’s so pervasive, who DOESN’T use email?] Geoff Colvin’s primary argument is that there are some unique human capabilities, like empathy and storytelling, that will keep people employable even as automation chips away at the content of most jobs.

 

Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes for August 14, 2015

Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes for August 14, 2015

Robo advisor is a perfect moniker and here’s why

Posted on June 9, 2015 by in General

tl;dr: Algorithms are incapable of giving financial advice, so the oxymoron “robo advisor” is a perfect moniker. Know what you’re getting (and not getting) from automated investment services.

“I am tired of the whole robo thing,” says Motif Investing CEO Hardeep Walia.

Personal Capital CEO Bill Harris bemoans, “We are not a robo advisor.”

Wealthfront CEO Adam Nash retorts, “New tech doesn’t always fit neatly into a bucket.”

Cry Me a Robo River

To the automated investment services, I say,

“Boo hoo.”

NOW these services are beginning to experience how it feels when others, right or wrong, control the conversation about their business.

Most journalists, reporters, TV anchors, correspondents, bloggers and more don’t really know what makes any of the automated investment services different from one another, so most simply package them up into one catch-all term “robo advisor.”

Let’s face it: “robo-advisor” makes for great click bait. If it didn’t work (and generate clicks and eyeballs), editors and producers would stop using it. (You clicked to land here, didn’t you?)

But please, asking everyone to stop using “robo advisor” because it misrepresents what you do or somehow marginalizes your service in some way?

I submit to you Exhibits A and B.

“You don’t need that guy,” gloats Wealthfront’s ad.

Sure, because most financial professionals out there are just glorified psychics, spiritualists, or stock market prognosticators whose only tool for financial advice is a crystal ball!

Please.

The financial services industry has seen this marginalization long before automated investment services arrived.

Living In Glass Houses

The fiduciary financial professionals should be just as upset about this gross characterization of fortune tellers as the automated investment service providers are about the term “robo advisor.” (people who live in glass houses…)

“Stop comparing us to fortune tellers!”

“We are not personal psychic advisors!”

Perhaps Wealthfront paints with too broad a brush. Ok, so here’s Exhibit C:

Wealthfront: Don't Pay For Expensive Financial Advisors

Wealthfront: Don’t Pay For Expensive Financial Advisors

See? “Don’t pay for expensive financial advisors.”

Why not?

Because Wealthfront is the end-all-be-all service that investors need? Because Wealthfront does the exact same thing all fiduciary financial advisors do? Because all your financial needs are met by Wealthfront’s software?

Ask a Question 100 Times…

Go ahead, go to any automated investment service website right now. Wealthfront. Betterment. Future Advisor. Even the anti-“robo-advisor” Personal Capital. (*read my note below)

Fill out their questionnaire. Complete a free “Investment Checkup.”

What is the answer you get?

The answer from ANY of these services is ALWAYS to invest.

ALWAYS.

There is no Plan B, no backup option, no alternate strategy.

There’s no, “You really should first pay off your high interest credit card balances.”

No, “You should save up an emergency fund where you can access the money quickly.”

No, “You should create a will and advance medical directives first in case something were to happen to you.”

But ask automated investment services a question 100 times, “What should I do with my money?” and the answer is always going to be the same:

Invest in a diversified portfolio of low cost ETFs.

It’s the only answer these services have. There’s nothing else.

It’s not financial advice. It’s not wealth advice.

It’s barely investment advice.

It’s an investment recommendation. The output of a calculator.

Sophisticated or not, automated investment services are ALWAYS going to recommend investing your money.

There simply is no other result to offer. The algorithms today are incapable of suggesting anything but investing.

So Why Robo Advisor?

So why robo advisor as a moniker?

Because it is a oxymoron, a name that contradicts itself.

Algorithms, software programs, aka “robots” are incapable of making judgment calls and evaluating emotions or feelings in the calculation process.

Robots can’t give advice.

Robots can only decide based on ones and zeroes. True or false.

Sure, an algorithm’s answer can be associated with a level confidence (recall IBM’s Watson playing Jeopardy), but each discrete answer is associated with a level of confidence based off of a set of discrete factors evaluated in the calculation process.

An algorithm’s output is a result. Functions return arguments.

But don’t call that advice.

Know What You’re Getting

As with most decision-making processes, there’s often a big difference in what you can do and what you should do.

What is important to you? How does a decision make you feel? How do you prioritize your goals?

Can your entire life, your goals, your dreams, your aspirations be captured in a four question survey? A ten question survey? Even a hundred question survey?

For automated investment services to survey the market and say “Hey, we can improve investing outcomes by building a software program that does everything on the cheap!”

The questionnaire is only part of the advice process, it is not the start and finish.

And then there’s the talk of disruption, mainly coming from the media (I don’t recall any of the automated investment services specifically saying they intend “to disrupt” the financial services industry).

What industry are automated investment services attempting to disrupt, anyway?

Vanguard, the mutual fund giant, has been offering diversified, low-cost investment products and services quite successfully since the 1970s.

Just remember that the next time you consider the services of an automated investment service, know what you are getting.

Do your homework.

You are getting the results of a calculator.

The calculator is programmed to give an answer.

Not advice.

Not from a robot.

Don’t assume that the answer you get is the best answer for your situation.

Who you are as a person cannot be summed up in an online questionnaire.

 

*Note: Personal Capital toes the line on the robo advisor definition. Users complete the Investment Checkup and receive a target asset allocation illustration based on answers to the short questionnaire. However, specific mutual funds and ETFs are not recommended, so it’s not explicit. Users do get a basic automated investment allocation recommendation with no human intervention, but it’s up to the user to connect each recommended asset to a specific mutual fund or ETF to purchase. Users who want specific fund and ETF recommendations must engage Personal Capital for traditional investment advice rendered by human advisers and pay Personal Capital’s standard fees. This formal engagement is not robo advice.

FPPad Bits and Bytes for April 3

Posted on April 3, 2015 by in Bits & Bytes

On today’s broadcast, Schwab Intelligent Portfolios gathers over $500 million dollars in its first few weeks, find out why Orion Advisor Services is regarded as one of the good fintech vendors, and personal dossier app Refresh gets acquired by LinkedIn.

So get ready, FPPad Bits and Bytes begins now.

(WatchFPPad Bits and Bytes on YouTube)

Today’s episode is brought to you by Wealthbox CRM. Be the first to see the release of Wealthbox version 1.8 with a ton of new features and integrations, including one with MoneyGuidePro.

Wealthbox CRM

Sign up for a free trial of Wealthbox CRM in just 15 seconds to see what the buzz is about at Wealthbox.com.

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

Exclusive: Schwab robo-adviser crosses half-billion dollar mark from InvestmentNews.com

[For the second week in a row, this week’s top story comes from Charles Schwab, as the company told InvestmentNews that it gathered “considerably over” $500 million in assets in the new Schwab Intelligent Portfolios program.

Schwab Intelligent Portfolios was released to retail investors just three weeks ago, which you heard three episodes ago, and now they have over $500 million. And just four weeks ago, my broadcast covered Wealthfront’s news that they surpassed $2 billion dollars in assets under management.

So it took Wealthfront a little over three years to get to two billion dollars, and Schwab Intelligent Portfolios is on pace to do it in about two months. NOW who’s going to be the fastest growing and most trusted automated investment service in the world? I think that title’s up for grabs.

But hold on: there’s a deeper story here. Your business is experiencing grocery store econ 101. That’s right, it’s all about shelf space. You might have the best business in the world, but if you don’t have any shelf space, you don’t even have a chance to step up to the plate.

So all of these new solutions online are taking up shelf space and they’re crowding you out of the market. Sure, investors are getting low fees, rebalancing, even tax loss harvesting, but are they getting any REAL advice that actually matters? Not from what I can tell. But what I do see is that your shelf space is slowly being eroded, so you better start doing something about that today.

You can start by sharing this broadcast to your colleagues. Go on, the button’s down there, or up in the corner. Use it.] The Charles Schwab & Co. robo-adviser has crossed a symbolic threshold in just three weeks, raising more than half a billion dollars, the San Francisco-based firm told InvestmentNews on Monday.

What Makes Orion So Special? from Financial Advisor Magazine, and

Envestnet | Tamarac™ Rings in 2015 with a Record Year of RIAs Adopting its Portfolio and Client Management Platform from PRNewswire.com

[Next up is news on Orion Advisor Services, as this week Joel Bruckenstein highlighted the portfolio accounting service bureau for a number of the company’s innovations in financial technology.

Here are the most relevant updates from Bruckenstein’s column. Orion now serves over 570 advisory firms who collectively process over $200 billion in assets, and the company expects to add another 280 firms this year.

Bruckenstein highlights many of Orion’s innovations, including its free private labeled mobile app for advisors, video client statements powered by Engage, and trading sleeve capabilities in its order management system.

Bruckenstein also writes that Orion exhibits a company culture of innovation, which you saw first hand from my Fuse 2014 hackathon coverage, which is an event the company will repeat once again this September.

To be fair, Orion’s competitor Envestnet | Tamarac has also recently achieved some significant milestones, as the company now serves over 800 advisory firms with over $500 billion dollars on the platform, and they also offer a custom branded iPad app for use by advisors and clients. So remember what I said about shelf space and competition? Both of these companies, plus many other technology providers, will put you in a position to differentiate yourself in a crowded market.] When pondering this month’s column, I thought it might be interesting to focus on a single firm whose story involved all of these trends, Orion Advisor Services, which offers “software as a service” and portfolio accounting services to RIAs.

Refresh Joins the LinkedIn Family from Refresh

[And finally, I’m wrapping up this broadcast by revisiting Refresh, an app I told you about way back in episode 107. Refresh is an app that creates a real-time dossier about people you’re going to meet, pulling information from a variety of sources to help you, well, refresh your memory about your connections.

This week, Refresh announced that it will be acquired by LinkedIn (probably because of the Bits and Bytes bump!), so the company will soon be sunsetting its standalone app and rolling in its dossier capabilities into LinkedIn. I’m pretty happy about this move, because Refresh has been one of my go-to apps for a while, and I’m glad to see how the technology can enhance the value of LinkedIn as all of us continue to develop meaningful relationships with clients and colleagues everywhere.] Today, I’m excited to announce that Refresh has been acquired by LinkedIn.

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

External IT Upgrade Democratizes Access to User Activity, Improving Advisors’ IT Security and Workflow from ExternalIT

External IT, a cloud-based IT outsourcing firm that focuses on RIAs and Broker Dealers, today announced a new capability to be part of its best-in-class Cloud Desktop solution. The enhancement to the recently redesigned platform creates a visual and easily readable interface to view user activity that tracks login location, IP address, time and device, along with the specific applications launched.

FPPad Bits and Bytes for April 3, 2015

Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes for April 3, 2015

FPPad Bits and Bytes for March 27

Posted on March 27, 2015 by in Bits & Bytes

On today’s broadcast, Schwab reveals details about its Institutional Intelligent Portfolios™ platform for advisors, LearnVest gets acquired by Northwestern Mutual, and Periscope becomes the latest trendy app for live video streaming.

So get ready, FPPad Bits and Bytes begins now!

(Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes on YouTube)

Today’s episode is brought to you by Total Rebalance Expert, the industry’s leading tax efficient and multi-custodial rebalancing platform – now available anytime, anywhere on any device with TRX Edge.

Total Rebalance Expert

Sign up for a demo in the next two weeks and receive 50% off your set-up fees by visiting fppad.com/trx

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

Technology details of Institutional Intelligent Portfolios™ from Schwab Advisor Services from FPPad, and

Charles Schwab Unveils Institutional Intelligent Portfolios Details from BusinessWire

[There were two big stories this week you need to know about, so let’s begin with Schwab Advisor Services, as the company announced details of its Institutional Intelligent Portfolios™ solution created for you, the financial advisor, that will be released in the second quarter of this year.

Institutional Intelligent Portfolios is an automated investment management solution that allows you to add your firm name, logo, and contact information to the platform as well as design your own portfolios, provided that you choose from a pool of about 200 ETFs.

Now if you custody over $100 million dollars with Schwab, there’s no platform fee, but if you custody under $100 million, Schwab will charge users a platform fee of 10 basis points. And no matter what, you can’t allocate less than 4% in cash for any of your custom portfolios.

So what does this mean for your business? You now have yet another technology solution to offer a low-cost automated investment service to emerging clients, but IIP has the potential to be “free” if you custody enough assets with Schwab AND you ignore the drag on returns due to the 4% minimum cash requirement. But for that rock bottom price, you’re giving up some control.

If Schwab decides to change the available ETF options, or decides to require a higher minimum cash allocation, well, it’s their way or the highway. And don’t forget, this is not a set and forget business model.
These are people that we’re talking about signing up for automated services; they’re more than just users. Your business may already be spread thin today, and unless you’re thoughtful about a new strategy for serving this market, you may not be setting yourself up for success.

So will you be adding IIP and its ETFs to your RIA ASAP for your VIPs, or will you be SOL and suffer from FOMO? Hashtag LOL.] In company webcast and press release today, Schwab Advisor Services provided details of its Institutional Intelligent Portfolios™ solution that the company describes as an “automated investment management solution for independent registered investment advisors (RIAs).”

Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. to acquire LearnVest from FPPad

[Next up is the surprising announcement this week that LearnVest, the New-York based financial planning startup, has agreed to be acquired by Northwestern Mutual, the largest direct provider of individual life insurance, AND one of the top 10 biggest independent broker-dealers in the financial planning industry.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, and rumors have been flying in every direction about valuation, revenue, burn rates and more.

Now a lot of times LearnVest has been mischaracterized as another robo advisor, but the company actually employs over 40 full-time financial planners, and they built their own proprietary financial planning software and tools because existing solutions were too complex and time consuming to use.

So while financial planning has been the big focus of LearnVest, I don’t think that was a big factor in this deal at all.

According to CEO John Schlifske, Northwestern Mutual advisers created over 400,000 financial plans last year. If you take LearnVest’s number of clients in their February 2015 Form ADV Part 2, at best they delivered 3,700 plans in the last fiscal year, not even 1% of the Northwestern Mutual’s volume.

For me, this deal is all about lead generation. By acquiring LearnVest, Northwesten Mutual now gets access to the over 1.5 million people who use LearnVest’s free mobile app or subscribe to LearnVest’s content. Schlifske was quoted saying that LearnVest “is expected to continue providing unbiased planning,” so assuming that’s true, what’s the upside for Northwestern Mutual?

How does one bring together “best-in-class products” with a “cutting-edge client digital experience,” without an inherent conflict? The jury’s still out on this one, so be sure to watch future broadcasts as this story develops.] According to the Wall St. Journal, Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co., said it would acquire New York-based online financial planning startup LearnVest Inc.

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

Twitter’s Periscope App Lets You Livestream Your World from Wired

Periscope is consensual voyeurism. That’s not a new idea—millions use Twitch to watch other people play videogames, while YouTube, UStream, and a dozen others have tried to make businesses out of live-streaming video—but it feels like the right platform and the right time.

Tax-Loss Harvesting for Everyone from Wealthfront

We’re proud to announce that our daily tax-loss harvesting service will be made available to all Wealthfront taxable accounts, starting in April. 

Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes for March 27, 2015

Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes for March 27, 2015

FPPad Bits and Bytes for March 13

Posted on March 13, 2015 by in Bits & Bytes

On today’s broadcast, Schwab and Wealthfront duke it out over automated investment supremacy, Fidelity wants to be the first final app for Apple Watch, and learn what screencasting app I use to delegate work so I can be more efficient.

So get ready, FPPad Bits and Bytes begins now!

(Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes on YouTube)

Today’s episode is brought to you by Croesus, the affordable all-in-one portfolio management & CRM software for RIAs. Over 9,500 investment professionals use the Croesus application to manage more than $700 billion in assets, and Croesus is offering a 50% discount on set-up fees for Advent Axys users until June 30th.

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To learn more about Croesus or to sign up for a free trial, visit fppad.com/croesus.

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

Charles Schwab Launches Schwab Intelligent Portfolios™ from Business Wire

[This weeks top story features, no surprise, Charles Schwab and Wealthfront, as this week many of us witnessed round one of what could easily be a 12-round match between the industry heavyweight and the up-and-coming contender. Allow me to bring you up to speed in less than 60 seconds:

In June of 2014, Wealthfront crossed a billion dollars in AUM and paid homage to Charles Schwab for building a world-class company (foreshadowing). Then in October, Schwab announced it would release it’s own automated investment service called Schwab Intelligent Portofolios™ in the first quarter of 2015, and offer it with no management fees.
So in January of this year, details emerged that Schwab Intelligent Portfolios generally will have higher cash positions than similar allocation strategies, allowing Schwab to earn revenue on cash that is swept to Schwab Bank.
This week, Schwab officially rolled out Intelligent Portfolios on Monday, so on Tuesday, Wealthfront’s CEO Adam Nash criticized Schwab, remember, the same company he venerated just 9 months ago (does that count as a another pivot?), citing high cash allocations as quote “almost criminal.” Schwab countered on Wednesday, saying Nash was misleading and quote “presented a very loose interpretation of facts.” Now you’re up to date, and with a little bit of time to spare!

So why is this news for you? According to Schwab’s press release, the company plans to release Institutional Intelligent Portfolios™ in the second quarter, a version of the service that allows financial advisors who custody client assets with Schwab to use the solution with their own firms’ branding.

For a yet-to-be-disclosed fee (here’s a hint: I bet it’s 25 basis points), advisors can modify and customize asset allocations in Institutional Intelligent Portfolios™, or they can choose to use existing portfolios for no program management fee.

And second, while Schwab and Wealthfront battle it out, you have a huge opportunity to get in front of investors caught up in this story to communicate how you’re different from automated investment services. Yes, you do offer portfolio management, but you offer so much more, so it’s time you start controlling the conversation instead of allowing others to control the conversation about you.] Charles Schwab today launched a fully automated investment advisory service, Schwab Intelligent Portfolios™, the only investment advisory service using sophisticated computer algorithms to build, monitor, and rebalance diversified portfolios based on an investor’s stated goals, time horizon and risk tolerance – without charging any advisory fees, commissions or account services fees.

Fidelity® to Launch Financial App for Apple Watch™ from Fidelity

[Next up is news from Fidelity Investments, as this week the company rode the wave of interest in the Apple Watch announcement by revealing a financial app for the new product. If you remember waaaay back in my third episode, I told you about Fidelity’s Market Monitor app for the ill-fated Google Glass, so it’s not surprising that the financial services company is also leading the industry on embracing Apple’s foray into wearable computing.

So again, what’s the takeaway for you? While Google Glass has floundered perhaps for being a little too intrusive, the Apple Watch and other devices on your wrist may actually lead to some incremental productivity increases in your daily routines. So will Apple Watch prove to be popular among advisors? Only time will tell. Thank you, I’ll be here all week! Try the veal!] Fidelity Investments® announced today a first-of-its kind financial app for Apple Watch. Through a unique design and experience, the Fidelity Mobile® app for Apple Watch conveniently gives customers a distinctive overview of global markets and alerts on stocks and investments in real-time right on their wrist.

How I Finally Learned To Delegate By Creating Video Tutorials With Screencasting Software from Kitces.com

[And finishing up this week’s broadcast is a recent post from Michael Kitces on his Nerd’s Eye View blog about learning to delegate work to others. I’m sure you’re heard time and time again that you need to delegate work to be more efficient with your own time, but some things are just easier if you do them yourself instead of showing someone else how to get the job done. So what was the breakthrough for Kitces? The answer was screencasting software.

Screencasting software allows you to record your computer screen and also record your narration of what you’re doing. When you’re finished, you can share your screencast video with colleagues or even with clients by uploading it as a private video online.

I make screencasts for my own business, and I even use them for graphics for Bits and Bytes broadcasts. The tool I prefer is Camtasia for Mac, they also have a version for Windows, and if you keep an eye out, you’ll often find a coupon code for 50% off.] For me, the “breakthrough” in how to delegate effectively came from using screencasting software – tools that record what’s happening on your computer screen, paired with the audio of you talking while you’re sitting in front of it.

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

Envestnet | Tamarac™ Rings in 2015 with a Record Year of RIAs Adopting its Portfolio and Client Management Platform from PRNewswire

During the previous 12 months, Tamarac has added approximately 150 RIA firms to its roster of clients, bringing the total to more than 800 firms managing client assets in excess of $500 billion. The dramatic increase in RIA clients has had an exponential effect on the number of financial accounts residing on the Advisor Xi platform, which now number more than 1 million.

Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes for March 13, 2015

Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes for March 13, 2015

FPPad Bits and Bytes for March 6

Posted on March 6, 2015 by in Bits & Bytes

On today’s broadcast, Wealthfront wants you to know they crossed another round number in AUM, ByAllAccounts is now aggregating over $1 trillion dollars in investor assets, and Morningstar is out with a new iPad app for advisors.

So get ready, FPPad Bits and Bytes begins now!

(Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes on YouTube)

Today’s episode is brought to you by IMPLEMENT NOW, the independent advisor’s Practice Management Virtual Summit hosted by Kristin Harad broadcasting online March 16th to the 20th. When you register, you’ll get access to interviews and bonus material from 22 industry thought leaders as they reveal their practice management secrets for success.

Register for Implement Now

And if you register by March 15th, you’ll receive a copy of Carl Richard’s new book The One Page Financial Plan. Find all the details for this high-impact event by visiting fppad.com/implementnow

Two Billion Reasons to Believe from Wealthfront, and

Vanguard may expand fast-growing virtual investing service to advisers from InvestmentNews

[First up is news from online investment service Wealthfront, as the company announced this week that it has surpassed the $2 billion dollar mark in assets under management, an increase of 20 times in just over two years. This places the automated investment service just barely in the Top 100 RIA firms measured by assets according to the InvestmentNews RIA database. However, another online provider has also entered this rarefied territory, but with very little fanfare.

That provider is mutual-fund giant Vanguard, as the Vanguard Personal Advisor Services™ reached $10.1 billion dollars in assets as of the end of 2014, and it’s still in a limited pilot program. If you do the math, the company added nearly $8.8 billion to its platform in just nine months, and the company is also considering offering some form of the service to advisers.

So while the startups continue to make headlines and receive face time on cable business TV, the incumbents that the startups say they’re disrupting are putting up some very impressive growth metrics of their own.] Wealthfront managed less than $100 million in client assets when I joined, and had many skeptics. No one outside of the company could have imagined that, just over two years later, we’d celebrate being the first automated investment service to reach $2 Billion in client assets under management.

Morningstar Reaches Milestones, Aggregates More than $1 Trillion in Assets Daily With Access to 20,000 Financial Data Sources Through Morningstar ByAllAccounts Aggregation Service from Morningstar

[Related to online asset tracking is this is news from Morningstar, as the company announced its ByAllAccounts aggregation service now aggregates over $1 trillion dollars in investor assets. You may recall that Morningstar acquired ByAllAccounts back in April of 2014, and since then the number of supported data sources has grown to over 20,000 from 4,500. Can you say Yodlee?

So what does this mean for you? Remember, most of the online investment services don’t take into account the assets users have in their held away accounts. Personal Capital is one exception, but they’re not a pure online service, either. The rest don’t have the complete picture of their users’ net worth, so if you’re on the fence about incorporating account aggregation in your business, this is one area in your value proposition where you can outperform the online competition.] Morningstar, Inc., a leading provider of independent investment research, today announced a number of milestones for its Morningstar® ByAllAccounts aggregation service.

Review: Morningstar’s New iPad App from Financial Planning Magazine

[And finally, Morningstar also rounds out this week’s broadcast as Joel Bruckenstein reviewed their new iPad app built for the needs of financial advisers. I had the opportunity to recently test the app with Morningstar’s Mike Barad as he walked through the market research information, complete with embedded videos from Morningstar analysts, as well as the Clients and Portfolios view that advisors can use to stay up to date on client asset allocations, holdings, and more.

There are a few wish list items that Bruckenstein highlighted, such as the inability to conduct trading or rebalancing activity within the app, or to view Portfolio X-Ray reports on aggregated accounts. Still, for a version 1.0 app, advisors who use Morningstar Office or Workstation in their business should find the app useful for those times they’re away from their desktop computer.] While Morningstar has long been known as a leading provider of independent investment research, the company also produces a number of software applications for advisors.

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

Into The 21st Century, Finally from Financial Advisor Magazine

Years before there was Riskalyze or Pocket Risk, there was FinaMetrica, a comprehensive risk-profiling tool for use by advisors with their clients.

Wealth Access integrates with MoneyGuidePro from InvestmentNews

Wealth Access, a personal financial management platform, announced Tuesday its integration with MoneyGuidePro, a popular financial planning software.

Breaking Delivers the News to Your Mac or iPhone Notification Center from Lifehacker

OS X/iOS: Keeping up with the news is easy, but keeping up with news you care about can be trickier. Breaking is a new app that makes it easier.

FPPad Bits and Bytes for March 6, 2014

FPPad Bits and Bytes for March 6, 2014

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