Financial advisor guru and self-declared nerd Michael Kitces made a not-so-bold assertion in a recently published report: The pool of desirable clients for financial advisors is shrinking and becoming more expensive to access.
Let’s consider his point to lead off this week’s Advisor Tech Talk—the support levels for the population pyramid of the U.S. have been looking pretty shaky in recent decades.
For those of us who aren’t reporters or other researchers poring through U.S. Census data looking for a good tale to tell, a population pyramid shows the age dispersion of a group, with the youngest ages, like newborn infants, at the bottom, and the oldest, centenarians and beyond, at the top.
In a growing, fertile population, the diagram looks like a standard triangular pyramid, skinny at the top among the very few blessed enough to reach advanced age, but broad at the bottom with a healthy pool of growing babies.
That’s not what First-World populations look like anymore. Rather, a bulge has moved up the pyramid as more people live longer, and the demographic support for the aging population, new babies and children, has largely eroded away.
Kitces notes that the sweet spot for advisors are mid-career clients who are approaching the peak of their earning potential to retirement-age clients needing help with the transition—ideally, new clients are aged 45-64. The portion of the population in this age range is poised to fall from a peak 26% in 2017 to 23% in 2030, according to Kitces.
As a result, advisors are being squeezed as more clients and potential clients with sufficient wealth reach and pass retirement age and begin to draw down their assets. There are fewer new clients with which they can grow.
Kitces also lamented that firms are reporting spending more to attract clients in recent surveys, which he takes as a sign that the market for personal financial advice is gradually becoming saturated—more firms and advisors are competing for a shrinking number of clients.
Of course, with their status as incumbent providers of financial services to millennial and Gen Z consumers, and a low cost of acquiring new clients, fintech may be best positioned to win and retain those 46-to-64-year-old clients in the future.
Let’s get to some advisor technology headlines.
Advisor360
Advisor360°, a provider of integrated technology for enterprise wealth management firms, announced that Dena Upton has joined the company as Chief People Officer. Upton will oversee all aspects of Advisor360°’s people strategy, including talent acquisition, development, culture, and employee engagement, as the company continues its rapid growth.
Upton brings over 25 years of experience in leadership to Advisor360°, having held pivotal roles at some of the most respected companies in the technology and financial services sectors. Most recently she served as Head of People at Dandy, a software company. Her expertise in building high-performing teams, driving organizational transformation and fostering inclusive work environments will be instrumental as Advisor360° scales to meet the evolving needs of its customers and workforce.
Advisor360°’s workforce includes 800 people in the U.S., India, Canada, and Northern Ireland. Upton’s appointment comes at a time of robust growth at Advisor360°. In addition to Mike Fanning assuming the role of Chief Executive Officer earlier this year, the company recently brought onboard Bank of America veteran Abbe Gálvez Cordón as Senior Vice President of Strategy & Corporate Development, while continuing to evolve its award-winning Digital Onboarding platform and expand its client roster. The company also recently added Milind Mehere to its Board of Directors.
AlphaTrAI
AlphaTrAI, a provider of tech-enabled services for the wealth and asset management industries, announced the acquisition of Plymouth, MA-based Anchor Advisory Services (“Anchor”), a premier scheduling and sales management solutions provider for the financial services industry. The tech-enablement of Anchor’s business with the latest tools will expand opportunities for Anchor and its clients, enhancing the value proposition of both firms and driving growth of the company across the country.
This acquisition, which is part of AlphaTrAI’s ongoing growth strategy, underscores the firm’s commitment to driving innovation and efficiency in the financial services sector by providing customized front-line, tech-enabling solutions that enhance wealth and asset management industry’s ability to deliver personalized service to their clients.
Artificial Intelligence Risk
Artificial Intelligence Risk, Inc. (AI Risk) announced a strategic partnership with Fynancial, a leading social financial platform for the wealth management industry. Through this collaboration, Fynancial will integrate AI Risk’s proprietary AIR-GPT technology into its platform, providing advisors with a secure and innovative AI-powered solution.
AIR-GPT offers a range of AI-driven features designed to streamline advisor workflows and boost productivity, replacing handfuls of other AI products on a single platform.
Across their platforms, AI Risk, Inc. recently introduced the ability for companies to create no-code AI agents that can link into SQL databases and any internal or external API. For example, AIR-GPT links into Outlook, Zoom, Teams, Hubspot and other popular CRMs, turning the AI into a command center for financial advisors and other professionals.
Fourcore Capital
Cardea Corporate Holdings Inc. (“Cardea”) announced that it has acquired select technology and financial assets from Nobel Sustainability Capital Group (“NSCG”), a consortium of global investors led by Peter Nobel and Wu family members and has rebranded as Fourcore Capital (“Fourcore” or the “Company”). In connection with the transaction, NSCG has signed a binding agreement to contribute up to $25 million as an anchor investment in the Company’s planned capital raise.
The Company is led by Jordan Waring, Chairman of the Management Board and Group CEO, Neil Fillary, Group President and International CEO, and Peter Knez, Chairman of Fourcore’s Investment Committee and former co-Chief Investment Officer of BlackRock Fixed Income. Peter Nobel has been appointed Chairman of the Fourcore Board of Directors.
The assets acquired include technology intellectual property (IP) and licensing, as well as investment management funds and entities. The IP and licensing encompass capabilities across blockchain technology, artificial intelligence (AI), digital wallet and tokenization, and they will enable the Company to provide a comprehensive digital wealth and asset management offering. The investment management funds and entities enhance assets under management and fee-paying contracts, which will immediately increase the profitability profile of Fourcore.
FutureVault
FutureVault announced Artificial Intelligence capabilities by integrating private Large Language Models (LLMs) into its Digital Vault Platform. The announcement underscores FutureVault’s commitment to continuous innovation and the platform’s capability to support enterprise front and back office operations and client-facing collaboration and experiences.
Founded by G Scott Paterson in 2015, FutureVault was conceptualized with a view that the aggregation of critical documents when coupled with AI will ultimately change the face of financial services and advice for the better.
While today’s announcement officially highlights the integration of private Large Language Models (LLMs) in the FutureVault platform, the company has adopted and introduced Artificial Intelligence (AI) into the platform as early as 2016. In 2021, FutureVault was successfully granted its first of many patents from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for its AI-driven Auto-Filing capability, a proprietary capability leveraging Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and Artificial Intelligence to suggest optimal filing locations for documents.
Moss Adams
Moss Adams, one of the largest accounting, consulting and wealth management firms in the nation, announced new artificial intelligence (AI) consulting services. Businesses looking to harness the power of generative AI and machine learning can tap into a team of professionals possessing first-hand experience and knowledge of how to effectively utilize the technology.
AI offers organizations the ability to accelerate processes, streamline workflows and empower teams. As AI technology advances and options grow, identifying realistic AI implementations that deliver value can be an overwhelming process for organizations. Moss Adams AI services provide a means through which businesses can tailor AI solutions to meet their unique objectives.
Moss Adams AI services include two offerings, one focused on generative AI and the other focused on machine learning. Through the firm’s generative AI services, businesses can create a central knowledge center that empowers employees to search, access and leverage organizational data quickly and safely. Clients gain augmented workflows that align with their IT stack and structure. Moss Adams works directly with organizations to identify use scenarios for generative AI, navigate change management, deliver end-user training and provide additional guidance that may be needed.
Northern Trust
Northern Trust is partnering with Greenlight® Financial Technology, Inc. (“Greenlight”) to better serve families and help the next generation build healthy financial futures. Northern Trust clients now have complimentary access to Greenlight’s award-winning family finance app and debit card, available through the Greenlight for Banks program.
Research conducted by the Northern Trust Institute found that 79 percent of high-net-worth families have provided their children with access to financial education, but nearly half (48 percent) are still concerned for the preparedness of the next generation to manage wealth. Similarly, nationwide testing by the National Financial Educators Council revealed that teenagers, with an average score of 64 percent, lack the basic financial knowledge they need to make qualified financial decisions.
Northern Trust’s partnership with Greenlight will provide clients with more of these teachable moments, in which families can build smart money habits together and equip the next generation to steward wealth responsibly. Greenlight’s platform teaches children how to earn, save, give and spend wisely – all with parental supervision. Northern Trust clients can receive a free Greenlight SELECT plan subscription by registering through a dedicated landing page.
TradePMR
TradePMR, a technology and custodial services provider for registered investment advisors (“RIAs”), announced the additions of four industry veterans to its already robust technology team. The strategic new hires come aboard at a pivotal time to support the ongoing expansion and enhancement of TradePMR’s Fusion technology and Integration platform. Joining the technology team of nearly 100 professionals are:
Marcel Tsai – Director, Vendor Integrations
Laura Villanueva – Sr. UX Product Designer
Rob Deguzman – Sr. Technical Product Manager
Matt Feigenbaum – Sr. Quality Assurance Manager
The new hires follow TradePMR’s recent appointment of Jon Patullo as chief product officer, underscoring the company’s strategic vision to enhance its talent pool with individuals who combine custody platform experience and technological expertise within the independent advisor ecosystem. Each of the new hires comes to TradePMR following senior leadership roles in technology at custodial firms.
VRGL
VRGL, a Client Acquisition and Investment Proposal Management solution, announced its live integration with Wealthbox, a top-tier CRM software for financial advisors.
The integration between VRGL and Wealthbox enables a seamless one-click linkage between Wealthbox client records and VRGL profile creation. This functionality ensures that mutual clients can effortlessly connect and synchronize records between both platforms, eliminating duplicative efforts and enhancing workflow efficiency.
Wealth Access
Wealth Access, a customer data insights platform that unifies and enriches data to power hyper-personalized experiences for financial institutions, announced that Andy Zinn has been appointed as Chief Innovation Officer (CINO). Zinn, with nearly 20 years of financial services experience, is spearheading innovation across all product lines as well as the overall company operations, ensuring the successful execution of Wealth Access’ business and growth plan.
Zinn comes to Wealth Access from AllianceBernstein where he was VP of Global Market Data. He also held leadership roles at Informa Investment Solutions demonstrating his operations and data management expertise and Investment Scorecard where his strategic leadership with client implementations and special projects helped promote client satisfaction and product improvement.
YCharts
YCharts, a cloud-based investment research and client communications platform, has unveiled its new integration with Broadridge’s Wealth Aggregation platform, a provider of solutions-based tools for holistic communication and data aggregation. This collaboration elevates advisor practices by uniting tools designed to enhance investment decision-making and client experiences through comprehensive portfolio management capabilities.
By integrating with Broadridge’s Wealth Aggregation platform, YCharts users can now leverage the combined power of both platforms, creating a fully integrated solution for data connectivity and consistency across teams. With easy access and importation of client account data, advisors can save time on tedious portfolio management processes, and boost efficiency to increase focus on building deeper client relationships with visually engaging communication aids.
