It’s been another busy week for wealth management technology, and we’re going to jump in head-first.
But first, we’re going to talk a little bit about what’s going on in wealth management and wealthtech in general.
For example, a lot of firms changed ownership over the past week. Here’s a small sample:
AlphaCore Wealth and Callan Capital merged, creating what they claim is one of the largest RIAs in California. Wealth Enhancement Group acquired $4.3 billion AUM, Cleveland-based Marcum Wealth and $500 million AUM, Dallas-based XO Wealth Management. Boston-based CW Advisors bought $1.3 billion AUM, Basking Ridge, N.J.-based Delta Financial Group. Birmingham, Ala.-based Waverly Advisors announced the acquisition of Baltimore-based GGM Wealth Advisors. Austin, Texas-based Bluespring Wealth Partners acquired Brookfield, Wisc.-based Charter Capital Management.
Wolters Kluwer also released a compliance review from the second half of 2024 for the entire financial services sector, finding that there were fewer compliance actions from regulators, but that the penalties were “substantially higher” than in previous recent study periods.
MIT Agelab—always a good research source—released a study sponsored by TIAA that found that only 40% of Americans were satisfied with the financial advice they received, which we interpret as a clear opportunity for both human and digital wealth advisors.
We have some fresh insight from Natixis on advisors’ use of and feelings about artificial intelligence. When surveying advisors investing in its U.S. funds, Natixis found that 42% of its respondents felt that AI would be a growth driver.
According to Natixis, “U.S. wealth managers also recognize that not implementing AI could leave them behind, with half saying they fear competition from disruptive tech-driven entrants.”
Advisors are already using or considering AI at every turn in their firm’s work. When asked about AI implementation, the Natixis survey respondents named where it is being used or considered for use, in descending order: office productivity, investment research, risk analytics, client materials development, portfolio optimization, investment operations and customer service.
There’s a smattering of AI news below, including the launch of a sophisticated new client-facing digital assistant from Apex Fintech Solutions.
Also noteworthy this week on the wealthtech front are a new partnership for BetaNXT aimed at the trust space, Dynasty Financial Partners’ new collaboration with Goldman Sachs as a preferred custodian, and announcements related to two upcoming conferences—Envestnet’s next week, and Finovate in May. Also, BlackRock is following up CAIS’s announcement last week by introducing public models of private market assets—with a twist. According to the press release, BlackRock’s products will be available via a unified managed account (UMA).
Let’s get to those headlines.
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401GO
Next generation retirement plan provider 401GO and independent, employee-owned financial services firm Mesirow launched a partnership through which Mesirow will provide outsourced 3(38) fiduciary services to 401GO clients. 401GO has more than 1,400 financial advisor partners through the 401GO recordkeeping system. These advisors will be able to access Mesirow’s 3(38) fiduciary services, which will be integrated within the 401GO retirement platform. The partnership will launch with Mesirow’s 3(38) services with planned future enhancements to include custom default solutions, and broader lineup fiduciary and reporting solutions.
Smith added that financial advisors will continue to have the option to use 401GO as their 3(38) fiduciary under sister company GOInvest, create their own investment lineups from 401GO’s open architecture platform, or engage with other industry leading asset management firms.
Smith and Annin agreed that their partnership is great for financial advisors as both 401GO and Mesirow are tech-forward firms dedicated to providing modern solutions for small and medium sized retirement plan clients.
Apex Fintech Solutions
Apex Fintech Solutions Inc. (“Apex”), an innovation launchpad for the global investment ecosystem, has announced the release of Ask Ascend, an AI-powered assistant designed to provide immediate, accurate answers to technical questions and, in the future, operational questions for clients who are integrating with Apex Ascend™, the next generation clearing, custody, and trading platform. By providing prompt answers, Ask Ascend can accelerate technical integrations and speed to market.
After evaluating the available AI platforms, Chen-Wynn and her team chose to build Ask Ascend on Google Cloud’s Vertex AI platform. Vertex AI empowered Apex to develop Ask Ascend with enterprise-level reliability, security, scalability and advanced permissioning, tailored for internal and external use. Furthermore, Vertex AI provides grounding — also referred to as in-line citations — that anchors AI outputs to verifiable sources of information.
Ask Ascend supports integration with Apex Ascend, the cloud-native clearing, custody, and trading platform. The AI was built on Ascend’s existing client-facing documentation — including API specifications, help files, and sample code — to act as a specialized assistant that currently supports developers and, in the future, operations professionals.
Arcons Technology
Arcons Technology, Inc. announced onboarding a wealth management firm with offices in multiple locations, including in Georgia and Indiana, on their billing product named ‘billPort’. The firm managing over 11,000 accounts on their books totaling about $20 billion in assets had long sought to bring efficiencies during their periodic client billing cycle.
Their operations staff had spent hundreds of hours computing client fees, rechecking calculations, and generating management reports every billing period for their innumerable complex billing scenarios. With the adoption of billPort, they now enjoy a streamlined process from start to finish, with minimal manual work. All their rules and exceptions are setup in billPort, and a single button click results in completing the task, freeing the team to support the firm’s explosive growth. This sped up process allows full revenue collection as soon as the quarter closes, improving their cashflows.
Arcons’ billing platform ‘billPort’ has been serving the industry for nearly two decades and it is being used by firm ranging from Assets Under Management of $100 million to $250 billion. It offers features like payments tracking, invoicing, advance/arrears billing, credits/write-offs as well as host of reporting. The application integrates with various custodial data formats and Portfolio Management systems. billPort is part of a suite of modules that includes trading, rebalancing, client portal, advisor portal, performance reporting, and CRM.
BetaNXT
BetaNXT, a leading provider of wealth management technology solutions with real-time data capabilities and an enhanced advisor experience, and Fi-Tek, LLC, a leading FinTech company specializing in trust and wealth management technology, have come together to enable financial services organizations to streamline operations and workflows, enhance productivity, and reduce risk for their trust & wealth management, advisory, and brokerage divisions.
TrustWealthX delivers trust officers, advisors and their clients a holistic “family view” of investment positions and balances across brokerage, advisory, and trust accounts. Official books and records, regulatory reporting, and custody and clearing data for all of these accounts are available in real time.
BetaNXT remains focused on solving its clients’ most pressing data modernization challenges. It recently announced that DataXChange, powered by Snowflake’s AI Data Cloud, has become fully operational in production, following a four-month pilot program which began in September 2024. DataXChange brings internal and external inputs—BetaNXT data, partner data, wealth enterprises’ proprietary data, and Snowflake Marketplace data—together in one data management ecosystem to deliver a flexible, customized, and connected experience that can optimize what data can do for wealth enterprises and their clients and partners.
BlackRock
BlackRock (NYSE: BLK) today has gone live with a first-of-its-kind customizable public-private model portfolio within a Unified Managed Account (UMA). The models are powered by GeoWealth’s UMA technology and supported by iCapital’s underlying technology capabilities.
The launch marks the first time a customizable model portfolio that includes access to both private and public market assets is available through a UMA, featuring streamlined administration and custodial integration.
Advisors are increasingly turning to models-based solutions to meet demands for more tailored products and access to diversified exposures. This collaboration is designed to simplify and enhance advisors’ ability to allocate across public and private markets.
BridgePort
BridgePort, a financial technology company that provides bespoke technology and infrastructure solutions to sophisticated clients across the private markets value chain, announces a partnership with NewEdge Wealth, a Stamford, CT-based firm. The collaboration brings to NewEdge custom, all-digital investment solutions for providing clients with differentiated alternative investment opportunities. NewEdge Capital Group, which was ranked #5 on Barron’s Top 100 RIAs in the US for 2024, services over $60 billion in client assets as of December 31, 2024. The partnership highlights NewEdge’s ongoing commitment to institutional-caliber wealth management, further enhanced by BridgePort’s cutting-edge, private market solutions.
As investors continue along a pathway from public to private investing, estimated to grow from $13 trillion today, to over $20 trillion by 2030*, BridgePort’s solutions aim to facilitate investor experiences that are more fluid and transparent. The company’s agnostic, digital manifold is underpinned by a team with multiple decades of global financial experience, and powers solutions for a variety of private market constituents – from RIAs, OCIOs and Fund Managers; to ATS platforms, Administrators, Diligence and Liquidity providers.
Dynasty Financial Partners
Dynasty Financial Partners, a leading advocate of the independent wealth management movement, is excited to announce a strategic collaboration with Goldman Sachs through which Goldman Sachs Custody Solutions will become one of the preferred custodians to Dynasty’s Independent RIA Network, underscoring Dynasty’s commitment to delivering comprehensive services through elite collaborations.
Dynasty Financial Partners and Goldman Sachs Custody Solutions have developed technology that integrates with Dynasty’s Turnkey Asset Management Program (TAMP), to support a smooth and efficient experience for Dynasty RIA Network Partners. The combination of Dynasty Financial Partners’ extensive RIA expertise and strong industry reputation with Goldman Sachs’ institutional-grade resources and distinguished standing, positions both parties to enhance and expand their presence within the RIA space.
Dynasty’s network consists mostly of clients who own and operate independent registered investment advisories (RIAs) that leverage Dynasty’s integrated technology, services, robust turnkey asset management program (TAMP), digital lead generation services, capital solutions, and investment bank. As a leader in the industry, the integrated RIA platform model provides synthetic scale and allows Dynasty-powered RIAs to be Independent But Not Alone™. Currently, Dynasty has 57 Network Partner firms representing over 500 advisors and over $105 billion in platform assets.
Pocketnest
GreenPath Financial Wellness, a national nonprofit that provides financial counseling and debt management services, partners with woman-founded financial wellness platform Pocketnest to make hyper-personalized financial wellness more accessible.
Pocketnest is committed to the credit union industry, with demonstrated success in improving member financial wellness and identifying ~$4,270 in credit union revenue per member. The fintech boasts integrations and relationships with some of the largest digital banking providers and has 50 enterprise clients, including some of the nation’s biggest and most innovative credit unions like MSU Federal Credit Union, Community Financial Credit Union, and Lake Trust Credit Union.
Pocketnest is a comprehensive financial wellness platform that makes hyper-personalized financial education more accessible to the masses. Built on the CFP curricula and leveraging behavioral science and generative AI, Pocketnest delivers instant, tailored financial guidance to users. It also provides financial institutions with crucial member data and insights to drive timely, meaningful connections and engagements. The platform is SOC II Type 2 compliant, has completed a Pen-Test, and is trusted by more than 50 enterprise institutions.
SMArtX Advisory Solutions
SMArtX Advisory Solutions has integrated BlackRock’s Advisor Center, powered by Aladdin® technology, into its platform, equipping asset managers and advisors with insights and resources to help grow their business. The launch of Advisor Center within the SMArtX UMA trading platform creates a more comprehensive experience for users and enables them to better analyze portfolios from a performance, risk, and cost perspective.
This integration is part of SMArtX’s commitment to continuously enhance the platform and provide both asset managers and advisors with the tools needed to improve portfolio transparency, client engagement, and investment making decisions.
Unifimoney
Unifimoney, the leading investment platform as a service, announced today that Radiant Credit Union, a not-for-profit financial institution proudly serving the north-central Florida community since 1957, has added the Unifimoney platform to its already robust suite of digital financial products and services.
As an institution that constantly pursues new technology to keep up with evolving financial trends and exceed member expectations, Radiant views Unifimoney as an opportunity to meet the unique needs of its members by giving them the powerful tools to build for a secure future.
Unifimoney is an investment platform as a service designed to help financial institutions offer their customers seamless access to diversified investing. Through strategic partnerships, Unifimoney provides a full suite of investment opportunities—including stocks, ETFs, precious metals, and cryptocurrency—supporting both passive and active investors.
Wealthbox
Wealthbox, the fastest-growing and #1-rated CRM software platform for financial advisors in the United States, is excited to announce its plan to expand into Canada next month. In April, Wealthbox will host customer data on in-country servers through Amazon Web Services (AWS) to support Canadian advisory firms and ensure alignment with local data regulations.
This strategic expansion reflects Wealthbox’s commitment to providing a modern, intuitive, and secure CRM software platform to financial professionals across North America. With the introduction of in-country AWS hosting, Canadian wealth management firms will benefit from Wealthbox’s faster performance, improved data privacy, and alignment with Canadian data residency requirements.
The Wealthbox expansion into Canada is part of the company’s ongoing mission to enable financial advisors with cutting-edge technology that enhances collaboration, streamlines workflows, and drives business growth. Canadian financial advisors can look forward to accessing the full suite of Wealthbox features, including contact and task management, automated workflows, AI-generated reporting, and seamless integrations.
World Investment Advisors
Leading financial advisory firm World Investment Advisors, LLC (World) announced today the launch of World Managed Account Platform (WorldMAP), its new open-architecture, multi-custodial investment and portfolio management platform. The new solution is designed to help advisors save time, grow revenues, optimize outcomes for clients and provide added flexibility in how they manage their businesses.
Initially, WorldMAP will consist of a model program that includes strategies created and managed by World’s in-house investment team. Additionally, it will feature automated and individualized tax management, and the ability to extensively personalize models for clients at scale. Advisors will also have access to models offered by other industry-leading strategists, and a diversified lineup of separately managed account (SMA) managers.
World’s in-house models will be branded Cota Street. Chief Investment Officer Nate Garrison and the rest of the firm’s investment team will oversee the curated selection of multi-asset, equity and fixed-income strategies.
