There’s a lot to cover in advisor tech news this week, so we’ll get right into it.
CapIntel has entered an agreement for its technology to be used by Canadian insurer Empire Life, while Virgin Money will use FNZ’s tech in its retail investment platform in the UK.
Meanwhile in the states, Riskalyze and Wealth Access announced big hires, while Opto Investments continues to mature with an impressive advisory council. And a new estate planning book around cryptocurrency holdings has been published. Read away:
CapIntel
CapIntel, a financial technology company that supports wholesalers and improves the day-to-day workflow efficiency and fund analysis for financial advisors, today announced a new relationship with Empire Life. Empire Life will tap into CapIntel’s technology to enhance the value the sales teams bring to their advisor clients through improved fund comparison and analysis tools, and the ability to prepare personalized proposals.
FNZ
FNZ and Virgin Money announced that they have partnered to launch a new digital investment solution for UK retail investors. The service has been developed by Virgin Money Investments, a joint venture between Virgin Money UK and abrdn. The new digital investment platform and mobile app will offer Virgin Money customers an enhanced digital experience with a range of new features and capabilities that will make investing easier, faster and more convenient than ever before. After a comprehensive selection process, Virgin Money selected FNZ as its partner because of its state-of-the-art technology, its proven excellence in delivering market leading direct-to-consumer (D2C) propositions, its track record of complex platform implementations and ability to deliver innovative end-to-end digital experiences across multiple channels.
Hexure
Hexure, a provider of sales and regulatory automation solutions for the life and annuity industry, today announced the appointment of Jaylene Kunze as the company’s new Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Kunze brings more than 20 years of experience in finance and accounting to Hexure and will be a key member of the executive leadership team. She will oversee Hexure’s finance organization. Brent Tuck, Hexure’s current CFO, will remain with the company moving into a new strategic financial role to allow him to spend more time with his family.
Opto Investments
Digital private markets provider Opto Investments announced the formation of an advisory council comprised of industry veterans. The new council members bring formidable expertise in portfolio management, financial technology, marketing, cybersecurity, management of high-growth companies, and more. They are:
- David Barnard, Former Head of Private Wealth Management at AllianceBernstein; CEO of Luminary
- Michael Batnick, Managing Partner at Ritholtz Wealth Management
- Keri Findley, Managing Partner at Tacora Capital
- Mark Goldberg, Former CEO of Griffin Capital and Former CEO of Carey Financial
- David Kleinhandler, Founder and CEO of Lifewize; Co-Founder of Dynasty Financial Partners
- Steve Lockshin, Founder and CEO of AdvicePeriod and Vanilla
- Kelly O’Connor, Founder and CEO of Lumiere Partners
- Andrew Rubin, CEO and Founder of Illumio
- Todd Ruppert, Former CEO and President of T. Rowe Price Global Investment Services; former venture partner at Greenspring Associates; and CEO of Ruppert International
- James Waldinger, Founder and Former-CEO of Artivest
Orion Advisor Solutions
Orion strengthened its extensive partnership with BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, by bringing its Fixed Income separately managed accounts (SMAs) to the Orion Portfolio Solutions (OPS) platform. BlackRock’s Fixed Income SMAs are available through the Orion Portfolio Solutions platform within its Unified Managed Account (UMA) portfolio structure. This includes:
- Intermediate Municipal Fixed Income
- Intermediate Taxable Fixed Income
- Laddered Municipal Fixed Income 1-5 Year
- Laddered Municipal Fixed Income 1-10 Year
- Corporate Fixed Income Ladder 1-5 Year
- Corporate Fixed Income Ladder 1-10 Year
Riskalyze
Riskalyze announced the appointment of Stephen Brandes as Chief Revenue Officer. Brandes, based in New York City, will lead the company’s Advisor Direct, Mid-Market, Strategic Accounts, Renewals and Relationship Management teams, and will leverage his go-to-market experience to drive industry adoption of the company’s category-defining growth platform. Brandes joins Riskalyze from Wunderkind, a digital growth solution for retail e-commerce companies, where he was most recently Senior Vice President of Sales. During his seven-year tenure at the company, he played a pivotal role in accelerating its annual recurring revenue from $30 million to $150 million. A graduate of Yale University and Harvard Business School, Brandes brings a strong track record of building and scaling sales teams to generate predictable results.
Riskalyze also this week announced the return of its Fearless Investing Summit, which will take place at the JW Marriott Turnberry in Miami, FL from October 2-4.
Wealth Access
Wealth Access announced two additions to its executive team – Mark White as Vice President of Business Development and Jeremy Bolin as Vice President of Product and Engineering. White has held leadership roles at both FIS and SEI Investments Company, a financial services company. He has experience working with start-up companies as well. Bolin has more than 10 years of engineering leadership in several organizations, including three unicorns: Dapper Labs, Built Technologies and SmileDirectClub. At Built, Bolin’s team guided more than $100 billion through the system across 150 banks, and at SmileDirectClub, his team focused on moving large sums of money ultimately across three continents.
AND FINALLY, a longtime family friend has just self-published a rather interesting new estate planning book around cryptocurrency holdings and we wanted to make sure to highlight his efforts:
The Essential Estate Professionals Toolkit for Recovering Cryptocurrency
It’s likely that digital assets will be uncovered in an estate representing a disproportional percentage of wealth; and these assets will need to be recovered for heirs.
How does an estate planning professional recover a virtual, decentralized asset with no customer service desk? What obstacles and security features must be known to successfully recover encrypted assets stored in a decentralized blockchain? Do clients have an inventory of their digital wallet holdings? Is there a copy of the seed phrase? Who has control of the decedent’s cell phone?
The answers to these questions can be found in The Essential Estate Professionals Toolkit for Recovering Cryptocurrency, by author Bill Ulivieri, AIFA®.
This book can be used to start a dialog with clients and should be a part of every annual review for cryptocurrency holdings. Available on Amazon in Kindle and softcover versions.
