Adviser Product Partnerships

Linqto brings private equity investing to Millennium’s retirement portfolios; Wealthcare Capital Management partners with retirement, health and home equity firms; Morningstar launches research portal for financial advisers; and more.


Linqto Brings Private Equity Investing to Millennium’s Retirement Portfolio

Private investment platform Linqto has partnered with retirement solutions provider Millennium Trust Company to be part of Millennium’s alternative investment options for advisers and consumers.

The San Jose, California-based Linqto expects its platform will provide Millennium investors with access to private equity investment options, as well as education. The investment platform will be available through the Millennium Alternative Investment Network, or MAIN, within the private equity asset category, according to the companies’ joint press release.

MAIN is a platform that helps qualified individual investors and investment advisers access and educate themselves on alternative investments such as private equity; explore investment ideas; and execute transactions using Millennium Trust IRAs or taxable custody accounts, the press release said.

Oak Brook, Illinois-based Millennium has more than 5 million clients, holding more than $55 billion in assets under custody, according to the company. Linqto has helped investors make more than $175 million investment transactions in more than 45 mid-to-late-stage private companies across fintech, artificial intelligence, healthtech, sustainable materials and digital assets, according to the company.

Wealthcare Capital Management Partners with Retirement, Health, and Home Equity Firms

Wealthcare Capital Management has partnered with four advisory firms to provide its planning and back-office solutions.

The Richmond, Virginia-based Wealthcare said it is now working with fintech marketing platform Clout of Tifin Wealth, Medicare advisory Healthpilot, lifetime income outsourcer RetireOne and data and home equity provider OneTrust.

Wealthcare will be providing its solutions to more than 170 advisors, according to a firm press release.

Wealthcare, which has a goals-based planning and investing platform for use by registered investment advisers with investors, said the partnerships meet client demand for more holistic financial services. The firm is owned by NewSpring Holdings, a holding company managing $2.5 billion in assets to work with emerging companies.

Morningstar Launches Research Portal for Financial Advisers

Investment research and services firm Morningstar has launched a research portal for financial advisers designed to help them provide more personalized and timely investment ideas to clients.

The research portal will use Morningstar’s independent ratings and research, together with live market data and interactive charts, to provide advisers with the ability to give personalized and timely investment ideas to clients, the Chicago-based firm said in a press release.

“Clients are looking for more from their advisers as their investment choices increase and the trend toward personalization continues,” Marc DeMoss, head of Morningstar research products, said in the release.

The research portal makes investment insights from Morningstar’s analyst and quantitative coverage, including more than 140,000 stocks, 320,000 mutual funds and 24,000 ETFs. The research portal then keeps users up to date on the investments with a dashboard that tracks global market activity and a calendar feature that displays upcoming events, the firm said.

The suite of tools within the research portal also connects advisers to Morningstar research so they can personalize their conversations with clients, according to the release. The Morningstar Insights tab in the research portal also shows editorial content from Morningstar experts, grouped by topics like sustainability, policy impact and retirement.

The research portal is available for individual advisers, as well as firms, Morningstar said. It is also integrated within Morningstar Advisor Workstation, replacing Morningstar Analyst Research Center, and within Morningstar Direct, replacing its now-retired Research Portal widget.

Morgan Stanley at Work Reboots Stock Platform for Clients and Participants

Morgan Stanley at Work announced changes to its stock plan platforms Equity Edge Online and Shareworks, which together serve about 40% of the S&P 500 in the U.S., the New York-based firm announced.

The updates were designed for easier use by corporate clients and plan participants, with a focus on investing in fractional shares, personalized participant educational videos, automated translations and gifting vested shares in time for the year-end holidays, a press release said.

The changes include:

  • A feature in Shareworks that enables stock plan participants to easily gift or transfer their vested shares to family, friends, or charity;
  • A fractional shares withholding capability in Equity Edge Online that reduces the need for restricted stock recipients to fund tax consequences out of pocket, which is a major pain point, according to Morgan Stanley at Work;
  • A new video experience on the Shareworks platform that allows companies to engage with participants through personalized vesting videos or other relevant information specific to them; and
  • Expanded translation capabilities in Shareworks that allow plan administrators to navigate their company site in their native language, with the ability to translate the admin dashboard, employee tabs, delivered plans, reports and tools tabs.

Morgan Stanley at Work, which is a division of Morgan Stanley that partners with its wealth management division, announced the updates as part of its rollout of a more integrated user experience. The firm said the upgrades will allow workplace participants to view and manage their financial benefits and other products and services offered across the Morgan Stanley at Work ecosystem of retirement, wellness and equity compensation.

Fieldpoint Starts Private Banking for Advisers of High-Net-Worth Clients, Sheds Advisory  Unit

Fieldpoint Private has launched a boutique private banking solution for select registered investment advisers and their clients.

Fieldpoint Private Advisor Banking Services is designed to integrate private personal and commercial banking and lending into its wealth management service offerings, the Greenwich, Connecticut-based private wealth manager.

Fieldpoint Private said it is filling an unmet need for a “white-glove” private banking resource for the independent advisory community, which it calls the largest and fastest growing channel within wealth management. Clients of independent RIAs must look outside their most trusted financial relationships for banking and lending support, a Fieldpoint press release said.

With the announcement of the boutique bank, Fieldpoint Private will be exiting its investment advisory business, with its advisers moving on to predominantly operate as independent RIAs or join independent firms. The move has led to banking collaboration agreements with several firms already, and a pipeline of additional RIAs seeking a solution with a focus on the high- and ultra-high-net-worth range, the release said.

Fieldpoint Private has more than $1.4 billion in bank assets and provides personalized, custom private banking and wealth transfer services.

EY Partners with Data Firm on Digital Transformation in Insurance, Financial Services and Health Care

EY, also known as Ernst & Young Global Limited, has partnered with data analytics and digital operations company EXL, also known as ExlService Holdings, Inc., to develop and implement digital transformation initiatives in the insurance, financial-services and health-care sectors, the companies said in a press release.

The partnership is designed to help clients in those three spaces incorporate improved data analytics and operations management into their processes, the statement said. These capabilities are complemented by a performance-focused foundation to effectively monitor, manage and continuously improve operations, transformation and execution.

EY and EXL said the partnership was initiated to meet demand from organizations for a real-time product offering to act quickly and deliver more personalized customer experiences. To do that, businesses need to extract and integrate disparate data sets and incorporate the intelligence from that data directly into their workflows and end products, the statement said.

EXL, based in New York City, provides services and solutions in data analytics, customer experience, finance and accounting, artificial intelligence (AI), digital solutions and business process transformation. EY, based in London, has a U.S. division with industry experience in consulting, transformation, risk and providing high-end technology and operations managed services.

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