Welcome to the June 2024 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 ‘startup’ custodian Altruist has completed a $169 million fundraising round as it continues to rebuild the RIA custodial tech stack layer-by-layer while positioning itself as the biggest RIA custodian built from scratch and solely for advisors – which, while making it the clear #3 custodian behind Charles Schwab and Fidelity, leaves open the question of whether it can grow large enough to challenge the dominant position of the ‘Big 2’, which are able to leverage their massive retail operations not only for economies of scale but also to create a large pool of potential clients for RIAs to convert or be referred to (making it a less attractive proposition to switch to a custodian that by definition has no retail client base)
From there, the latest highlights also feature a number of other interesting advisor technology announcements, including:
- Communications archiving solution Archive Intel has recently raised $1M in startup capital, as it builds a tool that reflects clients’ changing communication preferences by including messaging apps like iMessage and (in the near future) WhatsApp – which raises the question of how long compliance archiving solutions can keep up with an ever-growing number of communications channels before they become more expensive than is worth it for advisors to keep communicating via their clients’ preferred medium
- Financial planning software platform RightCapital has introduced its own built-in risk tolerance assessment tool, RightRisk, allowing users to embed risk tolerance conversations directly within the financial planning process (and for many, possibly eliminating the need for a standalone risk assessment tool)
- Couplr, a white-labeled software tool for creating data-based matches between prospects and advisors, has announced a partnership with the American College of Financial Services – which, while addressing a potential opportunity for better matches than existing lead generation platforms based on clients’ unique needs, raises questions about how big of a market there is for Couplr’s services given that most firms’ main challenge is simply bringing in prospects at all, not just ‘good’ prospects
Read the analysis about these announcements in this month’s column, and a discussion of more trends in advisor technology, including:
- XY Planning Network has announced that applications are open for its annual AdviceTech Competition, which showcases emerging advisor-facing technology for XYPN’s network of planning-centric advisors without the high costs of a traditional exhibitor booth (while also giving potential investors a look at early-stage companies that could fuel the future growth and innovation of the AdvisorTech space)
- While the initial wave of hype surrounding AI tools has cooled off amid recognition of their inherent limitations, the potential for AI-based meeting notes tools to eliminate hundreds of hours of advisor work around meeting preparation and follow-up has spawned numerous solutions competing for advisors’ business – raising the question of how to actually choose between them when new solutions are popping up continuously and the pace of development is such that today’s inferior option might be next year’s category leader?
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!
