FPPad

On today’s broadcast, Jemstep gets acquired by Invesco, rumors fly about a Snapchat robo advisor, FutureAdvisor links up with its first bank, and more.

So get ready, FPPad Bits and Bytes begins now!

(WatchFPPad Bits and Bytes on YouTube)

Invesco acquires Jemstep, a market-leading provider of advisor-focused digital solutions from PRNewswire

[This week’s top story comes from Jemstep, as the B2B online investment platform was acquired by Invesco, the $800 billion dollar asset manager based a stone’s throw away from my studio right here in Atlanta.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, Jemstep’s leadership will stay onboard to run the Invesco subsidiary, and for now, the company says there won’t be any changes to existing partnerships, custodians, or asset availability in model portfolios.

Ignoring B2C acquisitions of FutureAdvisor and LearnVest, the last twelve months have seen John Hancock acquire Guide Financial and Envestnet acquire Upside.

So who are the independent B2B providers left? I see Autopilot, Trizic, Oranj, Vanare, Betterment Institutional, Motif Investing, and to some extent, the roll-your-own open source platform from Wealthbot.] Invesco Ltd. has acquired Jemstep, a market-leading provider of advisor-focused digital solutions.

Social media firms make ETF push from Reuters

[But hold on! Sending shockwaves in the retail robo space is Snapchat, as rumors were flying this week that the ephemeral chat app might introduce it’s own investment service to its 100 million active daily users.

Uh, let me explain my thoughts in a brief demonstration… Get it, jump the shark?] Snapchat is understood to be at the front of a queue of tech firms developing Robo-Advisory technology – which uses algorithms to help users develop and implement customized investment strategies for retirement planning.

BBVA Compass Teams Up With Robo FutureAdvisor from Forbes

[But wait, there’s more! In its first move after being acquired by BlackRock, FutureAdvisor announced it is partnering with BBVA Compass to roll out the automated investment tools to the bank’s nearly 700 branches in the US.

Bank customers will get access to FutureAdvisors’ digital investment management for the standard fee of 50 basis points, and you can probably bet that new accounts opened up with be held with BBVA’s broker-dealer affiliate, which is how the bank capitalizes on the partnership.] BBVA Compass, the Sunbelt subsidiary of the Spanish banking giant, has announced it will partner with FutureAdvisor to offer its customers digital investment management, popularly known as Robo Advisors. It is the first major bank to sign on with FutureAdvisor since the advisory firm combined forces with BlackRock, the giant asset management company, last year.

Robo Adviser Wealthfront Begins to Offer Free Portfolio Reviews from WSJ.com

[And if you’re not sick of robos by now, let me add news from Wealthfront who this week released a free Portfolio Review service to show investors how bad their current portfolios are and urge them to save a boat load of money by switching to Wealthfront. Whoops, did I say that out loud?

This concept is nothing new, as Personal Capital has offered a similar portfolio analyzer since 2011, and FeeX has been doing it since 2012, but here’s the deal. These VC-backed companies are spending tons of money to target your clients and prospects to get them to try out this tool, and of course, they’re going to tell clients they have suboptimal allocations and are paying high fees to their advisor.

So, expect clients to bring up fees, allocations, and performance in your next meeting, and you need to have a strong answer in the form of your value proposition, which is all the added advice, guidance, and behavior management you deliver that the automated services are incapable of providing.] In a bid to attract more assets, Wealthfront Inc. is joining other robo advisers in providing free advice to investors about their accounts at other financial institutions.

New Laserfiche Release Aims to Improve ECM from CMSWire

Laserfiche just released version 10 of its enterprise content management system (ECM). Speaking at the Laserfiche Empower 2016 Conference in Long Beach, Calif., Laserfiche President Karl Chan said the new version is designed to supercharge content-driven business processes, enabling enterprises to redesign the flow of information throughout the enterprise.

LastPass Revamps Its Interface, Adds Emergency Access and Better Sharing from Lifehacker

LastPass is one of the best password managers around. Today it gets a bit better with an improved interface and a handful of new features.

Dashlane 4 Makes Changing Passwords on Hacked Sites Easier, Adds a New Interface, and More from Lifehacker

Dashlane is one of our favorite password managers, and today the service updated with a new, consistent interface across all devices, an updated “password changer” that lets you change passwords on a site without even visiting it, new languages, and more.

Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes for January 15, 2016

As 2015 comes to a close, I want to take a moment to thank you for spending a few minutes each week watching my videos.

I hope that you feel informed about the constant change in financial advisor technology, you’ve made a few decisions to implement technology in your business, and that you have laughed a time or two.

I take what I do seriously and try to deliver the best technology news and information for you, but I don’t take myself so seriously.

I love what I do, and I know that my passion for what you do (giving sound financial advice to your clients) comes through in each video I make.

Special thanks go to my Executive Producer Steve Biermann, who has been my right-hand man in content production throughout 2015. Something special happens when the two of us put our heads together, and again, I think that shows in the content we create.

So here’s to 2015; we did a ton of work.

2016, you are officially on notice!

I met with Joseph Mrak, Chairman & CEO of FolioDynamix, between sessions at T3 Enterprise 2015 to dive into the details of what he discussed during his general session presentation at the conference.

Over 80,000 advisors use the FolioDynamix platform which includes functionality for prospecting, account opening and ongoing account maintenance.

FolioDynamix also offers Fix SingleSight, an all in one platform for advisor and home office investment management.

Mrak used his presentation time to address the threats and opportunities posed by robo advisors in the wealth management industry.

“I’ve got nothing against robos,” Mrak said, “I just don’t find them all that novel,” and added that he was closely following the growth of such servives, citing this Economist article on disappointing growth at the largest automated investment services today.

I met with Lex Sokolin, COO of Vanare, between sessions at T3 Enterprise 2015 to dive into the details of what he discussed during his general session presentation at the conference.

Sokolin asked the audience at T3 Enterprise to suspend disbelief and consider the emerging trends that have the potential to reinvent the wealth management industry.

Sokolin mentioned wearable computing, image recognition, natural language processing, digitization of money and securities (and the emergence of the blockchain), crowdfunding and peer-to-peer lending, and open-source software.

“But at the end of the day,” Sokolin advised, “you still need a real connection between an advisor and a client to yield meaningful change.”

I met with David Lyon, CEO at Oranj, between sessions at T3 Enterprise 2015 to dive into the details of what he discussed during his general session presentation at the conference.

Known for their vibrant orange shoes, Oranj is designed by advisors, for advisors (and they’re not afraid to say it!), to be the advisor’s digital practice manager that offers a client portal with secure messaging and a collaborative document vault built in.

Lyon said that Oranj was built to be an “Advisor+” solution, and while Oranj has robo-advisor-like features, the platform is not intended to completely replace the advisor. Rather, Lyon added, Oranj takes the existing activities of an advisor and adds systematization and scalability to those activities.

I met with Robert DeFrancis, Director of Sales at Junxure, between sessions at T3 Enterprise 2015 to dive into the details of what was discussed during Junxure’s general session presentation at the conference, delivered by Greg Friedman.

During his presentation, Friedman updated the audience that Junxure has surpassed 12,000 users and maintains a 98% client satisfaction rating and a client retention rate of 95%. One out of three of the InvestmentNews best practices award winners use Junxure CRM in their business.

Friedman took the opportunity to highlight several new features in Junxure, including a new opportunity dashboard to track client trends and deliver business analytics to the advisor. Junxure also released a client service monitor called Client First, which tracks changes in client activities and can trigger actions or alerts in the CRM as well as in integrated third-party solutions.

To tackle training opportunities, Junxure recently added built-in “eXpert” training resources directly into the CRM, allowing users to review contextually relevant guidance and training resources without leaving the CRM.

I met with Rohit Mahna, VP Financial Services Go To Market at Salesforce.com, between sessions at T3 Enterprise 2015 to dive into the details of what he discussed during his general session presentation at the conference.

During his keynote at the conference, Mahna offered a preview of Salesforce Financial Services Cloud, scheduled to be released for advisors in Q1 2016.

Mahna said that this completely rebuilt solution is intended to be a unified platform for all of an advisor’s data, though details of the various sources of data was not revealed.

Mahna also introduced AIG CIO Jim Clabby who provided examples of real-world applications of Salesforce.com in their producer environment of more than 6,000 representatives.

I met with Pietro La Greca, Jr., Vice President of Corporate Development at Advicent Solutions, between sessions at T3 Enterprise 2015 to dive into the details of what he discussed during his general session presentation at the conference.

According to La Greca, Advicent Solutions is the largest provider of financial planning software in the world.

La Greca used his time in front of the podium to address the crisis of differentiation in the financial services industry, saying that roughly 60% of investors have difficulty distinguishing one advisor from the next.

Leading up to 2015, La Greca said that Advicent used to offer differentiation through customization, which lead to over 100 different versions of the Advicent Solutions platform. With so many different versions to manage, La Greca said that model is broken.

Instead, Advicent Solutions is embracing personalization through the release of its Narrator Suite, which has many capabilities including an advisor dashboard, mobile compatibility, lead generation and more.

I met with Drew DiMarino, SVP of eMoney Advisor, between sessions at T3 Enterprise 2015 to dive into the details of what he discussed during his general session presentation at the conference.

After speculation about management changes and potential conflicts following Fidelity’s acquisition of eMoney, DiMarino used the opportunity to address the attendees and set the record straight.

“eMoney Advisor will remain an independent company. Period,” said DiMarino.

He added that the eMoney Advisor platform will continue to be accessible to non-Fidelity clients.

As of November 2015, roughly 75% of eMoney users have custodial relationships outside of Fidelity.

Another rumor DiMarino addressed is the sharing of investor information between eMoney and Fidelity.

DiMarino added, “eMoney has privacy laws against Fidelity accessing and using independent advisor data.”

After the sudden departure of eMoney founder Edmund Walters, DiMarino said that the company is currently searching for a successor CEO, and in the meantime is hiring more developers to deliver “a five-year roadmap in two years.”

On the product roadmap, DiMarino previewed a new client experience that he said will be launching in Q1 2016 that offers easy client onboarding and self registration options for investors.

I met with Bob Curtis, CEO of PIETech (providers of MoneyGuidePro software), between sessions at T3 Enterprise 2015 to dive into the details of what he discussed during his general session presentation at the conference.

MoneyGuidePro conducted one of the most unconventional presentations at the T3 Enterprise Conference, inspired by sketches from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Curtis, dressed head to toe in medieval regalia, told the audience that the holy grail in financial services is that everyone needs and deserves a quality financial plan. But most people don’t have plans because they aren’t comfortable approaching financial advisors to create one.

“71% of people are scared of talking to a financial advisor,” said Curtis. “How did we do that?”

Instead, Curtis offered, consumers are turning to online resources to create their own plan without the assistance of a professional.

“Do you think anyone is afraid to go online at home & engage with a computer?” asked Curtis.

“It’s easy and fast. It’s not intimidating.”

To rethink the way advice and planning is delivered, Curtis told the audience that employees of financial enterprises should go through their own planning experience to get a better feel for it and rethink parts of the process that are confusing, problematic, or too intrusive.

That is one reason why Curtis announced that a new MoneyGuideClient experience is coming soon, where clients are in the driver’s seat when creating their plan, and not the financial professional.