There’s a lot of wealthtech news to get to, even in a holiday-shortened Advisor Tech Talk, but first we should discuss yet another industry market forecast, this one published last week by the analysts at Technavio.
While we count ourselves among the industry’s greatest enthusiasts, we don’t pretend that wealthtech is so huge or influential once we zoom out from the wealth management industry to look at the greater financial services industry, or the economy as a whole. While fintech has found its way into virtually every consumer’s pocket (most often from banking and payments apps), wealthtech has probably to this point been a slower grower.
Well, the wealthtech solutions market is going to grow by $6.08 billion, at a compound annual growth rate of 14.11%, between 2024 and 2028, Technavio said on Sept. 3.
That growth is going to be driven and accelerated by two emerging technologies, blockchains and artificial intelligence. We’ll refer you to our weekly AI & Finance publication for more of our thoughts on AI in wealthtech—here we’ll take a moment to ponder the implications of blockchain’s impact on advisor technology.
See, over the past few years, while we’ve been marveling over generative AI and watching the precipitous rises and falls of the immediately accessible investment side of blockchains—crypto and NFTs—blockchain technology itself, and tokenization in particular, has increasingly wormed its way into financial infrastructure.
A growing number of ETFs and mutual funds are being built on or managed by blockchains, for example, while other funds and financial products are weighing tokenization due the security and transparency that comes with blockchain technology.
Financial institutions also are increasingly look to tokenized assets, according to a recent survey of more than 500 institutional market participants by Citi that found that 65% are planning to use “stablecoins, tokenized deposits, money market funds and digital payment systems to support cash and liquidity requirements for digital securities settlements by 2026,” versus another 15% who will use central bank digital currencies to meet those needs.
As efficiencies created by tokenization and AI move up and down the financial services value chain, the wealth management technology stack will have to evolve for advisors to remain relevant.
Let’s get to those headlines.
BNY
The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation (“BNY”) (NYSE: BK), a global financial services company, today announced BNY has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Archer Holdco, LLC (“Archer”), a leading technology-enabled service provider of managed account solutions to the asset and wealth management industry.
Archer provides asset and wealth managers with comprehensive middle- and back-office solutions to address the managed account needs of institutional, private wealth and retail investors. Through its fully integrated, cloud-based platform, Archer helps its clients to expand distribution, streamline operations, launch new investment products and deliver personalized outcomes to a broader market.
With the integration of Archer’s managed account solutions, capabilities and professional servicing team, BNY will enhance its enterprise platform to support retail managed accounts, a market that is projected to grow at a double-digit compound annual growth rate to over $8 trillion in assets over the next three years in the U.S.
Bridgeforce
Bridgeforce, a financial services consultancy specializing in regulatory compliance, operational improvements and technology transformations has teamed up with Provana, a leader in knowledge process management. Together, they will deliver innovative compliance and operational performance solutions, providing unparalleled clarity, control, and confidence to clients in the financial services industry.
This collaboration unites Bridgeforce’s extensive industry experience with Provana’s operational excellence, offering clients enhanced risk management, strategic alignment and advanced technology integration. The result? Increased efficiency, compliance and measurable performance results.
The first joint offering, the Contact Center Assessment, leverages Provana’s IPACS™ Speech Analytics, Bridgeforce’s proprietary collections call model and long-term Bridgeforce guidance on continuous improvement.
Broadridge Financial Solutions
The launch of Tradeverse, a new data platform by global Fintech leader Broadridge Financial Solutions Inc. (NYSE: BR), will help trading firms eliminate data silos, unleash the potential of their data across the enterprise and better manage costs, reconciliation, and the data quality and lineage challenges of firms typical complex platform ecosystems.
Tradeverse consolidates real-time, multi-asset class data from multiple vendor applications and platforms from orders and executions through settlement into a unified, harmonized data platform. It reduces errors, simplifies access with a common data ontology across front, middle and back office and incorporates robust security to protect sensitive information and maintain data integrity. The clear data structure unlocks insights for all key functions – trading desks, operations, risk, finance, and regulatory – by providing a trusted and transparent data source.
Many enterprise data warehouse projects fail to deliver the expected benefits due to the complexity arising from disparate representations of the source data. Tradeverse is focused on ensuring true data harmonization. The application of business logic and constraint of the data ontology is critical to that. This leads to seamless access to high quality data, which ultimately accelerates time-to-value for multiple AI initiatives.
CAIS
CAIS, an alternative investment platform for independent financial advisors, announced that Kan Kotecha has joined the firm as the Chief Technology Officer.
Kan Kotecha will lead a team of engineers across the entire CAIS platform with a focus on defining and building a unified operating system that will provide scale and simplification to the entire alternative investment lifecycle. Kan will also be a key thought leader as financial advisors, alternative asset managers, and ecosystem partners experience a seismic shift driven by AI and other cutting-edge technologies that may exponentially enhance the alternative investment user experience.
Kan brings over two decades of experience developing innovative products, driving digital transformation initiatives, and scaling organizations. Previously, he held leadership roles within Google’s corporate engineering division and served as Chief Technology Officer of Wealth Management at Morgan Stanley. Kan currently serves as Vice-Chair of the Special Olympics New York.
DriveWealth
DriveWealth, a financial technology platform providing Brokerage-as-a-Service, announced the hiring of Venu Palaparthi as its new Chief Operating Officer. In this role, Palaparthi will oversee DriveWealth’s risk and compliance functions, in addition to lending his strategic expertise to the company’s ongoing international expansion. He will begin in his new role on September 16th and report to Michael Blaugrund, CEO of DriveWealth.
Palaparthi brings nearly 30 years of experience in financial markets across asset classes, products and jurisdictions. In his most recent role as Managing Director at Patomak Global Partners, he was responsible for advising clients on business and regulatory strategy, risk management and a wide variety of compliance solutions spanning securities, commodities, fintech and cryptocurrency.
Palaparthi has also held a number of senior positions at prominent financial institutions including Nasdaq, Virtu Financial, Tagomi Holdings (now part of Coinbase Institutional), Dash Financial Technologies and more.
eMoney Advisor
eMoney Advisor (eMoney), a provider of technology solutions and services that help people talk about money, shared updates on its continued commitment to empowering the next generation of financial planners – students, career changers, and future financial professionals – by providing access to eMoney’s technology and training resources and the opportunity to earn the eMoney Fundamentals Certification.
Since 2015, eMoney has partnered with 150 universities across more than 35 states through its University Program, providing hands-on experience with the technology that financial advisors use daily to transform the financial planning experience. Through classroom learning and online training, students pursuing a career in financial planning can earn the eMoney Certification. Since the program’s inception, over 4,000 certifications have been completed. This year alone, these programs led to the completion of more than1,000 eMoney Certifications.
In addition, eMoney has partnered with multiple organizations and industry leaders to expand access to its financial planning platform and certification program.
Eton Solutions
Eton Solutions announced the launch of EtonGPT, the world’s first GenAI module for family offices globally. EtonGPT integrates the powerful transactional capabilities of Eton Solution’s ERP platform, with sophisticated conversational AI functionalities.
Eton Solutions will enable the majority of the 750 families on AtlasFive to benefit from EtonGPT. It will be available exclusively to AtlasFive users to enhance the productivity of their family offices.
EtonGPT will improve family office operations by seamlessly integrating data stored in documents with transaction data on AtlasFive, thereby helping streamline processes and lead to a boost in productivity. Several of Eton Solutions clients, including Shade Tree Advisors (US), Todd Family Office (New Zealand) and Aglaia Family Office (Singapore) have been using this new AI enabled platform. It will allow them to access information and conduct in-depth analyses of their investment and asset portfolios. EtonGPT doubles up as both an internal search and data extraction tool within the secure centralized database of the cloud-native AtlasFive ERP platform.
iPipeline
iPipeline, a provider of digital solutions for the life insurance and wealth management industries, announced the appointment of Joe Yurich as Chief Revenue Officer. Yurich will lead the development and execution of strategies aimed at delivering accelerated, consistent, and organic top-line growth.
With a proven track record in driving growth and fostering strong customer relationships, Yurich will lead iPipeline’s revenue-generating departments, including sales, marketing, and customer success, ensuring a unified approach that maximizes customer value and business outcomes. Prior to joining iPipeline, Yurich spent five years at Zuora, an enterprise software company, where he played an instrumental role in enabling the company to launch and manage its subscription-based services, as well as penetrate high-value target audience segments. Over the five years of Yurich’s tenure, Zuora recorded 83% revenue growth. Prior to Zuora, Yurich spent six years at Software AG, an enterprise integration software provider where he held various leadership roles contributing to their annual growth.
Yurich joins the iPipeline leadership team reporting directly to CEO Pat O’Donnell and will be instrumental in aligning key business functions to create a unified approach that maximizes revenue and solidifies iPipeline’s strong market position.
Luma Financial Technologies
Arete Wealth, a full-service Broker-Dealer (BD) and Registered Investment Advisory Firm (RIA), has announced a new partnership with Luma Financial Technologies (“Luma”), an award-winning global independent alternative investment platform.
Through this collaboration, Arete Wealth will leverage Luma’s award-winning platform to streamline the process of buying and managing structured products and annuities for their clients.
Luma’s open architecture technology platform emerged in 2018 to serve the structured product market and extended into the annuity industry in February 2021. Luma has since developed additional tools for the platform, including Luma’s “Lifecyle Manager” which enables financial professionals to transform their structured product and annuity business, providing them with the tools to monitor performance, risk, and exposure across their clients’ entire portfolios.
PortX
PortX, a financial infrastructure and integration technology company that provides open access to the core and drives innovation for financial institutions with its Integration-Platform-as-a-Service (IPaaS), announced the launch of Fintech Hub on AppMarket from Fiserv.
Fintech Hub is now available as a pre-integrated app on AppMarket, a marketplace that gives Fiserv clients rapid access to top fintech solutions, helping them attract new customers, boost efficiency, and increase competitiveness.
Additionally, PortX will play a key role in facilitating new fintech onboarding to Fiserv’s AppMarket, providing FIs with an increasing number of options for innovative partnerships.
Saphyre
Saphyre, a fintech company using patent-approved technology to solve pre-trade activities and post-trade issues, announces, in collaboration with WTax USA Inc, a revolutionary approach to tax reclaims that expects to redefine the industry standard. This strategic relationship leverages Saphyre’s cutting-edge technology and WTax’s extensive expertise to deliver an unparalleled tax reclaim experience.
The process of withholding tax reclaims has long been a complex and daunting task for investors worldwide. The intricate nature of reclaim procedures, coupled with the need for precise documentation and adherence to strict deadlines, has made it a challenging endeavor.
Saphyre and WTax are looking to tackle these challenges head-on. By integrating WTax’s global reach and knowledge with Saphyre’s real-time, verified ‘golden source’ data, this arrangement is set to streamline the withholding tax reclaim process like never before.
Sedric AI
Sedric AI, (“Sedric”), the compliance-dedicated AI platform for financial institutions, announced it has closed a $18.5 million Series A funding round to further its efforts to transform compliance operations across the industry. The latest funding round, led by Foundation Capital with participation from Amex Ventures, brings the total amount raised by the company to date to $22 million. The funds will be used to grow Sedric’s AI lab in Tel Aviv and expand its global go-to-market teams.
Financial institutions are embracing technologies like Gen AI to expand their product offerings, understanding that emerging technology comes with increased potential compliance risk. Regulators are applying more focus and expectations on financial institutions to ensure that those leveraging Gen AI are safeguarding their customers across all customer touchpoints, including communications and marketing.
The current regulatory environment, coupled with the growing scope of financial services, is driving demand for innovative solutions to help compliance officers execute their organization’s policies, guidelines, and standards. Studies show that the current cost of compliance for financial services worldwide is US$206 billion, equivalent to 12% of global research and development expenditures.
Spring Labs
Complaint management is a crucial aspect of customer service and risk management in the financial services sector. These firms—including traditional banks, fintechs and insurance companies—must adhere to various regulations and standards that require them to handle complaints in a fair, expeditious and proper way. The consequences of failing to do so are high—in 2023, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) resolved six previously filed lawsuits through final orders, requiring a total payment for violations of approximately $3.07 billion to compensate consumers and approximately $498 million in civil money penalties.
To mitigate this problem, Spring Labs, the intelligent AI powerhouse solution for financial services, today announced Zanko ComplianceAssist. This new module builds upon the conversational intelligence capabilities of Spring Labs’ Zanko CustomerAssist, an AI copilot for fintechs, to dramatically reduce the time compliance professionals spend analyzing customer complaints, in addition to identifying high-risk and often hidden issues, and to efficiently enable corrective actions.
By using AI to catalog, categorize and organize customer complaints, compliance professionals can slash the time they spend analyzing complaints by up to 65 percent. ComplianceAssist delivers automated classification, tagging, Voice of Customer (VoC) profiling, and root cause analysis, and can screen 100 percent of customer conversations to escalate the highest-priority complaints like deceptive advertising and fair lending, which customers can escalate to regulators if they’re not addressed properly and expeditiously.
Wealthbox
Wealthbox, the highest-rated CRM software for financial advisors, today announces a new enterprise CRM agreement with Stonebridge Financial Group, a financial services company with locations in Harrisburg and Lancaster, PA.
The enterprise agreement makes Wealthbox available to 30 financial professionals and staff at Stonebridge, enabling them to use Wealthbox’s intuitive interface, robust automation, and collaborative features to enhance client relationship management and streamline operations.
Stonebridge Financial Group, known for its client-centric approach to financial planning, chose Wealthbox for its ease of use, advanced workflow capabilities, and comprehensive integration with other key financial technology platforms. Implementing Wealthbox will support Stonebridge’s commitment to delivering personalized financial advice and fostering stronger client relationships.
