Envestnet Forges Partnerships, COMPLY Releases CCO Playbook, Vestmark Launches Tax Management And Direct Indexing Tool, SYSTM Appoints New Product Management Executive, Tara York Of Luma Is Our Wealthtech Leader Of The Month And More
In this edition of the Wealthtech Roundup, we speak with our newest Wealthtech Leader of the Month, Tara York, Director of Strategic Initiatives at Luma Financial Technologies.
Other entries this month include Envestnet revealing three partner integrations during its Elevate summit, COMPLY releasing a playbook for chief compliance officers to prepare for regulatory hurdles, Vestmark rolling out its VAST portfolio management tool, Catchlight launching personalized AI-generated prospect emails for advisors, Seeds Investor partnering with Citizen Mint on private impact investments, SYSTM Wealth Solutions hiring a former Envestnet executive and AmeriFlex launching an automated financial planning solution.
1. Spotlight On Structured Notes And Annuities, With Luma Financial Technologies
Luma Financial Technologies demonstrated its platform as an exhibitor at the Morningstar Investment Conference that was held from April 25 to April 27 in Chicago, and recently collaborated with Morningstar to include portfolio analytics for structured products within Morningstar’s Advisor Workstation.
The fintech platform provides tools to help financial professionals learn about, transact and manage alternative investments in client portfolios, such as off-the-shelf and customized structured notes, as well as annuities. Its Creation Hub enables financial advisors to build products through a broad array of solutions, including underliers selection, structure configuration and product variables.
Its features include the ability for advisors to search or filter among a wide range of income solutions by categories including issuer, price, product type, underlying assets, age and state of issuance, and payoff at maturity. Luma’s product marketplace also lets advisors compare annuities by their projected annual income, account value growth and efficient frontiers.
And now for our Q&A with Wealthtech Leader of the Month Tara York, Director of Strategic Initiatives at Luma Financial Technologies.
WSR: What are the most recent tech-based enhancements to the Luma platform that are relevant to financial advisors and their firms?
York: Recent tech-based updates include the expansion of portfolio management tools and feature enhancements within Luma’s Lifecycle Manager. These latest enhancements were designed to aid advisors in assessing investment opportunities and managing portfolio risk, as well as track their alts transactions, all from one centralized location. We understand that both advisors and clients have increasing demands for this type of information, and we want to ensure that our platform provides the necessary tools to meet those needs.
While not “tech-based”, we also continue to partner with some of the largest financial institutions around the globe to bring more transparency to the alts marketplace. Luma’s main focus will always be advancing our technology to meet the demands of the industry, but we also recognize the importance of partnering with other industry leaders to bring innovative solutions to advisors so they can best serve their clients.
WSR: How can capital-markets based alternatives be of use to advisors in this market environment?
York: Now, more than ever, it’s important for financial professionals to approach portfolio construction and management through a risk management lens. Capital-markets based alternatives offer advisors an opportunity to provide exposure to different asset classes, markets and investment strategies that cannot be accessed through traditional investments such as stocks and bonds.
Much in thanks to technology, the barrier to participate in capital markets-based alternatives, such as customized notes and annuities, is significantly lower in terms of cost and speed – optimizing the advisor workflow. This frees up time for advisors to implement effective risk management strategies and focus on what they do best: providing their clients with personalized guidance and advice.
2. Envestnet Reveals Partner Integrations With iCapital, Empower And Goalsetter
During Envestnet’s April 26-27 conference in Denver, the wealthtech provider revealed three partner integrations, as part of a branding campaign that the company is calling the Intelligent Financial Life. The Envestnet Summit 2023 – Elevate consisted of more than 80 conference sessions and a keynote address with seven-time NFL Super Bowl champion Tom Brady.
The iCapital integration allows advisors to add fee-based structured investments into proposals, transact on those products and assess them next to more traditional asset classes. The Empower integration enables the retirement plan service provider to integrate its tech and asset management capabilities in the Envestnet ecosystem. The Goalsetter integration helps advisors provide tools to build generational wealth for clients while capturing next-gen clients.
“The tremendous transfer of wealth we are experiencing combined with unpredictable market volatility and a rapidly evolving technology landscape have changed the game – traditional portfolio management and financial planning will not suffice,” Dana D’Auria, Co-Chief Investment Officer and Group President, Solutions at Envestnet, said in the press release. “Envestnet’s vision for the Intelligent Financial Life offers a powerful platform to deliver customized strategies, and we are excited to spotlight these unique opportunities at Elevate.”
To learn more, view the press release here.
3. COMPLY Playbook Attempts To Equip CCOs For Ardent Regulators
Regtech firm COMPLY announced the publication of its 2023 Chief Compliance Officer Playbook, which provides industry insights, reviews key rulings from 2022 and outlines expectations for 2023. The firm produced the annual playbook in conjunction with subsidiaries ComplySci, which produced it in the past, and RIA in a Box.
The playbook highlights significant 2022 cases brought by the SEC in five key areas: Reg BI, books and records, pay-to-play, cryptocurrency and Form CRS. The guide also recaps major proposed and adopted rules for the year. It also includes a discussion of ways to ensure that a firm’s resources are aligned with compliance demands, including consulting and outsourcing, technology solutions and education and training.
“The 2023 edition of COMPLY’s CCO Playbook details the kinds of sophisticated risk that will continue to impact the regulatory compliance landscape,” COMPLY Chief Regulatory Officer John Gebauer said in the press release. “By considering the enforcement actions of the major regulators and their 2023 exam priorities, we provide strategies to achieve compliance and risk mitigation for firms across the financial services landscape.”
To learn more, view the press release here.
4. Catchlight Launches Personalized AI-Generated Prospect Emails For Advisors
The advisory lead-gen platform Catchlight launched an AI-based tool for generating personalized emails to prospects, in beta mode for active subscribers. It uses a proprietary transformation layer and natural language processing model to facilitate one-on-one outreach campaigns by making unique emails that advisors can edit.
Founded in 2020, Catchlight arose from the Fidelity Labs technology incubator of Fidelity investments. The company’s main service aims to build data-rich lead profiles in seconds and a more targeted lead list, with actionable insights and engagement ideas about those leads, as well as to help advisors save time and grow their firms by predicting which leads are most likely to convert.
“Advisors using Catchlight have a big appetite for more individualized prospecting content, but few have the time or the team to create it at scale,” Catchlight Co-Founder and Head of Product Yelena Melamed said in the press release. “Our AI-generated emails let advisors do something that might have seemed impossible only a few years ago: automating personalized outreach that is similar to a thoughtful, hand-written note.”
To learn more, view the press release here.
5. Vestmark Launches VAST Portfolio Tool, With Tax Management And Direct Indexing
Vestmark rolled out its VAST portfolio management service aimed at simplifying and personalizing advisor interactions with clients. The new offering enables advisors to customize portfolios according to client investment preferences and tax circumstances, with a tax management approach to its open-architecture of investment options.
VAST investment strategies allow advisors to build a diversified portfolio that includes direct indexing, SMAs from hundreds of third-party managers, mutual funds, ETFs and individual securities. The service also features a consolidated multi-custody advisor interface. Vestmark supports over $1.5 trillion in assets across more than 5 million accounts.
“By addressing common pain points and challenges in wealth management, we’re proud to lead the way in delivering an innovative solution that empowers advisors to implement truly personalized investment strategies for their clients, based on the foundation of Vestmark’s technology that has been supporting tax-managed and index-based strategies and industry-leading UMA programs for over a decade,” Vestmark CEO Karl Roessner said in the press release.
To learn more, view the press release here.
6. Seeds Investor Partners With Citizen Mint On Private Impact Investments
Seeds Investor partnered with Citizen Mint to allow advisors to present clients with vetted impact investments that align with client values, risk tolerances and time horizons. Citizen Mint launched last year with the goal of creating a transparent method of providing investors with access to private market investments that undergo a rigorous due diligence process and have a positive social or environmental impact.
Founded in 2019, Seeds Investor provides advisors on its platform with tools to assess investors, generate multi-asset class portfolios and share tailored insights with clients. Advisory firms using Seeds Investor include Parsippany, New Jersey-based Conway Wealth; Southern California-based KWB Wealth; Broadview Heights, Ohio-based Cunningham Wealth Management; Beachwood, Ohio-based One Seven; and New York-based SRI Investing.
“Today’s investors are seeking more than just financial returns – they want a more digital, engaging and personalized experience,” Seeds Investor CEO Zach Conway said in the press release. “Through this partnership with Citizen Mint, we’re delighted to now offer access to curated alternative investments that will help advisors reach an expanded audience of investors.”
To learn more, view the press release here.
7. SYSTM Appoints Danny Hamer As Director Of Technical Product Management
SYSTM Wealth Solutions, which was another exhibitor at last month’s Morningstar Investment Conference, hired former Envestnet Principal Director of Technical Consulting Danny Hamer as its new Director of Technical Product Management. Hamer has approximately 16 years of financial services experience. His duties include working with internal and external partners to design, deploy and operate the technology and capabilities needed to support SYSTM and ensure its successful deployment to clients.
SYSTM is a cloud-based startup that strives to comprehensively streamline daily operations for advisors, provide them with a multi-custodial open-architecture financial product marketplace, and thought leadership resources. The company launched in February as a William Blair venture that utilizes InvestCloud technology. Chicago-based William Blair is a diversified financial services firm providing wealth management, investment management, trading, research and investment banking services, across more than 20 offices worldwide.
“My intimate knowledge of TAMPs and custodians is a perfect match for my new role to support SYSTM’s partners, including the creation and deployment of product roadmaps,” Hamer said in the press release. “I’m excited to step into this role and build a game-changing platform that allows me to collaborate with advisors, asset managers and leading industry partners.”
To learn more, view the press release here.
8. AmeriFlex Launches Automated Financial Planning Solution With Scenario Analysis
Advisor-owned hybrid RIA the AmeriFlex Group launched an automated financial planning solution that provides customizable “what-if” scenarios reflecting transitional client situations such as retirement, purchase or sale of a home or business, divorce or loss of a loved one. The tool, called AmeriFlex Premier+, aims to equip advisors and their clients with a real-time approach to informing life-altering decisions.
The AmeriFlex Group has onboarded more than 100 advisors and accumulated over $6.4 billion in AUA since 2018. In addition to AmeriFlex Premier+, the firm also offers SuccessionFlex, a program designed to mitigate risk and uncertainty around succession planning for advisors who plan to retire within five years. According to a company spokesperson, the AmeriFlex Group is tech agnostic – developing a bespoke collection of technologies that provides the flexibility to make changes as required.
“AmeriFlex Premier+ is an innovation that answers a real need,” AmeriFlex CEO and Founder Thomas Goodson said in the press release. “For advisors, it’s a cost-effective and scalable solution that drives personalized planning guidance across a diverse client base. For clients, we’ve built a ‘bridge’ to easily envision the outcome of their planning goals.”
To learn more, view the press release here.
Chris Latham, Deputy Managing Editor at Wealth Solutions Report, can be reached at clatham@wealthsolutionsreport.com
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