Welcome to the March 2023 issue of the Latest News in Financial #AdvisorTech – 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!
This month’s edition kicks off with the news that Conquest, a Canadian financial planning software provider (founded by the prior founder of NaviPlan) has raised $24M (CAD) of private equity capital in preparation for expanding its reach into the US – for which it hopes its technology-aided ability to analyze a client’s plan and suggest “next-best decision” strategies for advisors to recommend to their clients will allow them to break into the crowded US market. Which at best will still be a substantial uphill battle, given the hassle of switching from one financial planning platform to another (and the fact that most advisors are generally satisfied with their current financial planning software in the first place!).
From there, the latest highlights also feature a number of other interesting advisor technology announcements, including:
- Asset-Map has raised $6M in Series B funding as it scales up its financial visualization tool for enterprise use amid growing demand for advice engagement tools
- Wells Fargo Advisors debuts LifeSync, an app-based tool combining features of goal-based planning and monitoring of financial “vitals” as the megafirm moves further into its own advice engagement at scale
- Orion launches BeFi20, a behavioral finance assessment to support client conversations around money psychology (and identify how financially “aligned” couples are in their money attitudes)
Read the analysis about these announcements in this month’s column, and a discussion of more trends in advisor technology, including:
- Merrill Lynch has rolled out a new turnkey video creation platform allowing its advisors to record short videos with a quick compliance sign-off (and more impressively, has apparently solved for the challenge of centralized compliance approval of individualized advisor content at scale)
- The popularity of ChatGPT has opened up a discussion about the potential role of artificial intelligence in the advisory world – and while some predict it may replace advisors entirely, the evidence of past technological advances suggests it will prove to be one more tool to automate repeatable back- and middle-office tasks and allow advisors to focus on more planning at a higher level!
And be certain to read to the end, where we have provided an update to our popular “Financial AdvisorTech Solutions Map” (and also added the changes to our AdvisorTech Directory) as well!
*And for #AdvisorTech companies who want to submit their tech announcements for consideration in future issues, please submit to TechNews@kitces.com!
