Welcome to the Could 2023 subject of the Newest Information in Monetary #AdvisorTech – the place we take a look at the massive information, bulletins, and underlying tendencies and developments which might be rising on the earth of know-how options for monetary advisors!
This month’s version kicks off with the information that robo-advisor Betterment entered right into a $9M settlement with the SEC for misrepresenting its tax-loss harvesting practices in its shopper agreements and advertising supplies in contrast with its precise practices (e.g., ‘solely’ checking shopper portfolios for tax-loss harvesting each different day, after having marketed day by day checks) – a primary for the SEC in scrutinizing an RIA not for failing to execute its funding guarantees to shoppers, however for failing to execute tax-loss harvesting guarantees as an alternative. Which can elevate questions for different RIAs (together with smaller companies) who promote their tax-loss harvesting practices as a part of a ‘tax-efficient’ investing technique about whether or not their very own practices (and the know-how they use to implement it) actually align with what they declare to supply.
From there, the newest highlights additionally characteristic quite a few different fascinating advisor know-how bulletins, together with:
- Altruist has introduced a $112 million Sequence D fundraising spherical to increase its capabilities to fulfill the wants of bigger advisory companies, the newest in a sequence of high-profile strikes (together with turning into a totally self-clearing broker-dealer and buying its rival custodian SSG) positioning Altruist to compete straight with the likes of Schwab and Constancy for established RIAs.
- GeoWealth has acquired its fellow TAMP First Ascent Asset Administration, marrying GeoWealth’s tech-forward, open-architecture funding administration platform with First Ascent’s ‘concierge’-style funding and service-oriented answer (and its flat-fee TAMP enterprise mannequin).
- T. Rowe Value has acquired Retiree Earnings, the guardian firm of common retirement revenue planning software program SSAnalyzer and Earnings Solver, to place its assets behind creating and distributing the corporate’s planning instruments (albeit maybe extra to its retail and worker retirement plan shoppers than to advisors?).
Learn the evaluation about these bulletins on this month’s column, and a dialogue of extra tendencies in advisor know-how, together with:
- Enterprise assist software program supplier Benjamin shuts down its operations, which can say much less in regards to the demand for workflow assist instruments (which seems to stay robust) and extra about Benjamin’s positioning itself as an “AI-driven digital assistant” in an setting the place advisors could not belief AI know-how sufficient to pay for it as an answer.
- A glance again on the evolution of advisor know-how as we come up on the 5-year anniversary of our Monetary AdvisorTech Options Map, which displays not solely the more and more crowded panorama with a proliferating variety of options available on the market, but additionally how shifting know-how wants of advisors themselves are eliminating entire classes of advisor know-how… and spawning new ones as properly.
And make certain to learn to the top, the place we’ve supplied an replace to our common “Monetary AdvisorTech Options Map” (and in addition added the adjustments to our AdvisorTech Listing) as properly!
*And for #AdvisorTech firms who need to submit their tech bulletins for consideration in future points, please undergo TechNews@kitces.com!