Product & Service Launches – 9/25/25

Equitable Expands Suite of RILAs

Equitable announced Tuesday the launch of Structured Capital Strategies Premier, a solution within its portfolio of registered index-linked annuities.

SCS Premier offers 120 investment options that allow clients to accumulate assets based on the performance of indexes like the S&P 500, including uncapped segment options. The solution also provides a range of investment options, including a negative 40% downside protection buffer, with enhanced participation rates that multiply positive index returns.

Additionally, SCS Premier includes a death benefit option that includes either a simple 5% interest roll-up or the highest anniversary value over the life of the contract, whichever is greater. Alternatively, clients can choose between the highest anniversary value death benefit or a traditional return-of-premium death benefit.

Prudential, LPL Collaborate on Insurance Overlay

Prudential Financial and LPL Financial announced on Monday their collaboration on an insurance overlay retirement lifetime income strategy for LPL’s managed-account platform.

Prudential Advisors, the U.S. retail arm of Prudential, is offering multiple Prudential individual, insurance-based retirement products to LPL’s 29,000 financial advisers. These retail retirement assets are protected against longevity risk and retirement-sequence-of-returns risk caused by market volatility.

According to the announcement, the companies want to reach financial advisers who do not typically use protected lifetime income and other insurance-led retirement solutions in their wealth management practices.

Snappy Kraken Launches Real-Time AUM Pipeline Dashboard

Snappy Kraken, a marketing technology firm, launched a real-time AUM Pipeline Dashboard tool for asset management firms. According to Snappy Kraken, the product enables firms to forecast business outcomes with greater accuracy and identify which of their marketing activities are driving growth in assets under management.

The firm provides pilot programs, a phased rollout, adviser benchmarking, case study documentation and ongoing utilization reporting. The phased rollout will enable the dashboard for select early-adopter firms. In mid-October, access will be extended to advisers through Snappy Kraken’s Marketing Hub, a marketing intelligence tool.

“For years, financial firms have struggled to prove the impact of marketing,” said Robert Sofia, CEO of Snappy Kraken, in a statement. “For the first time, this dashboard provides clear proof that marketing generates organic growth in the metric executives care about most—dollars of managed assets.”

Cerity Partners Invests in WKU’s Business School

Cerity Partners, a wealth management firm, announced a philanthropic gift to Western Kentucky University’s Gordon Ford College of Business. As a result of the contribution, the personal financial planning Program at the school will be renamed the Cerity Partners Financial Planning Program.

The amount of the firm’s gift to the university was not disclosed.

WKU integrates a Certified Financial Planner certificate into its coursework, allowing graduates to sit for the CFP exam upon graduation. Through the partnership, Cerity plans to work with the university to enhance the school’s financial planning coursework, provide internships and mentorships, sponsor capstone projects and support events such as Professionalism Week and the Personal Finance Summer Camp.

Advisor CRM Launches AI Email Assistant for RIAs

Advisor CRM launched a fully integrated artificial intelligence email assistant for registered investment advisers. The tool organizes email messages, helps automate required follow-up tasks and drafts personalized replies to clients.

The AI Email Assistant automatically scans advisers’ incoming emails and categorizes them into groups, including client requests, documents, meeting follow-up and informational. The assistant can also identify which emails need immediate attention and which can be deferred. Other features include personalized email drafting in the adviser’s voice, smart attachment processing and automated processing updates.

Franklin Templeton Adds Tax-Aware Long-Short Strategies to Indexing Platform

Franklin Resources Inc., which operates as Franklin Templeton, announced Tuesday the addition of tax-aware long-short strategies to its Canvas indexing platform.

Beginning with a U.S. large-cap 130/30 structure, the suite of strategies will expand to include additional leverage options.

According to the announcement, by combining long and short positions with the use of leverage, tax-aware long-short strategies can increase the potential to generate excess investment returns while enhancing tax benefits through increased loss-harvesting potential, compared to a long-only direct index. The strategies can help investors diversify concentrated stock positions, prepare for liquidity events and unlock portfolios constrained by tax lock.

Mutual of America Teams Up with 3 Firms to Launch Managed IRA

Mutual of America Financial Group released its MoA Managed IRA product, created in collaboration with Morningstar Retirement, IRALogix and Envestnet.

The product delivers personalized portfolio recommendations and advice to account holders through the Morningstar Retirement Manager platform. Aside from considering an individual’s age, the individual retirement account builds investment and savings strategies based on the individual’s income, risk tolerance, retirement timeline and contribution behavior. Portfolio can also be managed on a discretionary basis by a professional investment adviser.

AAII and BetterInvesting Partner to Educate Investors

The American Association of Individual Investors and BetterInvesting, two nonprofit organizations that combine to represent the largest block of American individual investors of any nonprofit, launched a partnership to educate individual investors.

BI will leverage its stock-investing methodology, and AAII will provide its research, analysis and investment discovery tools as part of the collaboration. The two groups will provide joint presentations, content exchanges, educational emails, social media exposure and “members-only” offers for web investing tools, newsletters and other resources.

“Together, our organizations aim to rise above the noise that permeates Wall Street and emphasize the importance of having a clearly defined plan—and the confidence to stick with it,” said John Bajkowski, AAII’s president, in a statement. “We’re committed to ensuring that all investors have access to data-driven strategies and tools to make sound investing decisions.”