In advisor tech news this week, we have a couple of product launches, some research, and some new faces promoted to new positions.
Not to be overlooked is the re-branding of Facet Wealth to Facet. In the pre-pandemic bull market, Facet was a bit of a media darling due to its commitment to bring real, robust wealth management services to a mass affluent population. Amid a cacophony of naysayers and criticism who doubted whether the business model would work, Facet is still chugging along.
There’s also an interesting product launch from Advisor Circle topping our feature this week (by virtue of Advisor Circle’s early alphabetical placement)–a new event-tech platform called Breakthru. According to Advisor Circle: “The new service supports financial advisors and institutional allocators by providing them access to people, products, services, and deals in an efficient and informative manner and on their terms. It is also designed to play a vital role in modernizing the distribution efforts of asset managers and fintech companies through pre-qualified, double opt-in, 1-to-1 meetings—both in-person and digitally. It accomplishes this by digitizing the discovery process, allowing their message to be more relevant and personalized to the needs of their clients and prospects.”
Interesting stuff. Without further ado, here are your advisor tech headlines for the week:
AdvisorCircle
AdvisorCircle announced the launch of its newest product, Breakthru, an event-tech meetings platform built exclusively for the financial services industry’s advice, wealth management, asset management, and fintech verticals. The new product is a first-of-its-kind technology that leverages actionable data to modernize the way advisors, investors, fund managers, and fintechs discover one another, meet, and do business. It will debut at the 2023 Future Proof Festival from September 10-13 in Huntington Beach, California.
Ally
Ally has dropped all of its mutual fund trade fees for its 518,000 self-directed accounts. Until last week, the firm had charged a $9.95 fee for all mutual fund trades.
BetaNXT
BetaNXT announced that Peter Smith has been named Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Smith comes to the organization with a notable history of leading financial operations at high-growth companies at scale. Reporting to BetaNXT Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Stephen C. Daffron, Mr. Smith will oversee all aspects of BetaNXT’s global finance function and will play a key role in M&A activities, working closely with business teams on due diligence and acquisition integration.
Facet
Facet announced a comprehensive rebrand to align with its mission to unlock invaluable and impartial advice to more Americans. The company, formerly known as Facet Wealth, has undergone a total brand transformation and upgrade to its virtual customer experience to reflect its commitment to redefining financial planning to incorporate everything in life that money touches. The freshly redesigned Facet experience boasts a state-of-the-art proprietary planning platform that empowers clients to investigate different financial scenarios and assess the impact of their choices on their objectives, as well as tailored consultations with their own dedicated CFP and access to a team of experts to achieve a wide variety of life goals.
FTV Capital
FTV announced the promotions of Allison Walker, Mike Vostrizansky and Andy Fleischman to partner. The news comes as FTV Capital celebrates 25 years of leadership in growth equity and marks a sustained period of growth and expansion, including generating over $3.6 billion in realizations and deploying $2.9 billion into new and follow-on investments over the last five years. FTV is a serial investor in advisor technology, wiith firms like Riskalyze and Docupace in its portfolio.
Moody’s
Recent research from Moody’s has found a retreat in the overall fintech space as startups struggle to find funding. This trend will, at least temporarily, drive consolidation in fintech and advisor tech, and take at least some of the responsibility for fintech development out of the hands of startups and place it into the hands of incumbent financial firms, like the wirehouse banks.
Orion
Orion Advisor Solutions’ new Couples and Money Survey reveals that half (50%) of survey respondents, including 61% of millennials, consider dishonesty about money a form of infidelity. The survey results also show more than a quarter (27%) say their relationship would be better if their partner would change something about the way they handle money, and one in five (21%) wish they had known more about their partner’s financial attitudes before committing to the relationship. A quarter (25%) of respondents have kept a purchase secret from their partner while nearly one in 10 (9%) have debts they’re keeping secret from their partner.
Vestwell
Vestwell announced it has been selected to power California’s CalABLE program, one of the largest independent ABLE programs in the nation. This marks Vestwell’s twentieth ABLE program partnership and makes the firm the largest ABLE program provider in the country. The Achieving a Better Life Experience (ABLE) Act was created in 2014 to allow states to help individuals and family members with disabilities save on a tax-advantaged basis for qualified expenses. In 2018, CalABLE was established to provide an ABLE program offered by the state of California, to individuals with disabilities, giving them the opportunity to save up to $100,000 in an ABLE account with no impact on SSI or other means tested federal benefits and supporting their financial wellness and independence. CalABLE, powered by Vestwell, will improve Californians’ ability to access disability savings across the state.
