Welcome to the July 2018 issue of the Latest News in Financial Advisor #FinTech – where we look at the big news, announcements, and underlying trends and developments that are emerging in the world of technology solutions for financial advisors and wealth management!
This month’s edition kicks off with the big news that robo-advisor-turned-enterprise-digital-advice platform SigFig has raised a whopping new $50M round from famous VC firm General Atlantic, while U.S. Bank announced that it has (finally) deployed its “Automated Investor” robo solution via FutureAdvisor, and Fifth-Third Bank is rolling out its OptiFi digital advice offering (a white-labeled version of Fidelity’s AMP). Which means, after years of buzz, the shift from B2B to B2B2C robo-advisor technology appears to finally be gaining traction, as the startups figure out how to attach next generation modern technology to prior-generation legacy software of the incumbents, and large firms gear up to see whether or to what extent they can really cross-sell managed ETF accounts to their (existing or new) clientele.
From there, the latest highlights also include a number of interesting advisor technology announcements, including:
- AdvisorEngine deepens its rebalancing software integration with SmartLeaf
- Grove raises an $8M Series A round to scale its virtual-CFP financial planning subscription service
- Ethos Insurance and Ladder Life raise new capital to see if life insurance can be bought by consumers (rather than sold to them) by making it easier to purchase in the first place
- SmartAsset raises a whopping $28M Series C round to scale up its new SmartAdvisor lead generation program
Read the analysis about these announcements, and a discussion of more trends in advisor technology, in this month’s column, including RiXtrema launching a new prospecting tool in the 401(k) market, Orion establishing a data integration with Lincoln Financial to facilitate RIAs using fee-based annuities, Morningstar launching a new Investor Pulse competitive and business intelligence tool for asset managers to show them why their funds are failing to attract investor flows, and the big reveal of a fascinating new pivot from Wealthfront into what may finally be a truly new and uniquely differentiated holistic financial advice platform, focusing no longer on just a managed investment account or even traditional financial planning advice, but moving into the true core and lifeblood of a household’s financial life with tools to automate managing household cash flow.
And be certain to read to the end, where we have provided an update to our popular new “Financial Advisor FinTech Solutions Map”, including a number of new companies and categories!
I hope you’re continuing to find this new column on financial advisor technology to be helpful! Please share your comments at the end and let me know what you think!
*And for #AdvisorTech companies who want to submit their tech announcements for consideration in future issues, please submit to TechNews@kitces.com!
source https://www.kitces.com/blog/the-latest-in-financial-advisor-fintech-july-2018/
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