Products April 26, 2023

Adviser Product Partnerships

Morningstar Wealth expands U.S. Wealth Platform; OneDigital and Pontera announce partnership; and more.

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Morningstar Wealth Platform Adds 4 Portfolios

Morningstar Wealth has added portfolios from BlackRock, Clark Capital, Fidelity and T. Rowe Price to its U.S. Wealth Platform.

The move will expand Morningstar’s offerings, providing advisers and their clients with a wider range of curated investments. In addition, the Morningstar Wealth portfolio strategist team will offer unique model pairing options that enable advisers to recommend personalized solutions in a unified managed account.

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“This is an important milestone in the strategic evolution of the U.S. Wealth Platform,” said Daniel Needham, Morningstar Wealth’s president, in a statement. “We are supporting advisors with client-friendly insights by curating complementary models via an intuitive platform, so advisors can focus on growing their practice and helping their clients achieve their financial goals.”

OneDigital Chooses Pontera to Help Clients With 401(k)s

OneDigital Investment Advisors LLC announced today that it has partnered with financial technology company Pontera Solutions Inc.

Partnering with Pontera, OneDigital wealth managers will be able to gain insights into each of their client’s retirement accounts to make informed rebalancing decisions while retaining assets in-plan.

“Advisers must be able to present a comprehensive plan that delivers the best solution for their clients,” said Andrew Jefferys, national vice president of wealth management solutions for OneDigital, in a statement. “This is extremely difficult to do without incorporating all of the client’s retirement assets. Partnering with Pontera will provide our advisers with the tools necessary to help their clients achieve their personalized goals and objectives.”

Morgan Stanley at Work, Pave Announce API Integration

Morgan Stanley at Work and Pave, providers of real-time compensation benchmarking and planning solutions, announced the launch of an integration with the Shareworks application programming interface.

The integration will allow Morgan Stanley at Work Private Markets clients to more seamlessly access real-time compensation benchmarking and planning solutions.

“We are thrilled to work with Pave to bring real-time compensation benchmarking and planning to our clients,” said Kevin Swan, head of private market ecosystem for Morgan Stanley at Work, in a statement. “Now more than ever, clients are seeking a one-stop shop for accurate and timely information to drive data-led employee decisions. Within the lens of our focus on arming clients with everything they need in one place, this integration brings an added breadth of data for clients on the Shareworks platform.”

CapIntel, LP Financial Planning Services Announce Partnership

Fintech company CapIntel Inc. and mutual fund dealer LP Financial Planning Services Ltd. have announced a strategic partnership.

LP Financial will leverage CapIntel’s technology to help advisers guide more data-driven conversations and provide better customized proposals for their clients. CapIntel’s platform includes access to educational materials and training resources, as well as tools for managing client relationships.

“We are dedicated to providing advisors with the tools they need to build wealth for clients,” said Curtis Jenkins, LP Financial’s president, in a statement. “CapIntel provides advisors with access to a unique sales enablement tool that seamlessly integrates compliance requirements into the process. The platform simplifies the process, helping create additional capacity while simultaneously elevating the offering for clients.”

Advisor Group Announces Plan Rebrand to a Single Entity

Advisor Group Inc. announced it is moving its multi-brand network to a single, rebranded entity. The firm will unify the eight wealth management firms currently part of the Advisor Group network into one over the next 18 to 24 months.

“Combining our multiple firms under a single brand will allow us to better serve our financial professionals by offering them access to the full breadth of community and expertise our scale provides without the complexities that multiple legal entities can impose,” said Jamie Price, Advisor Group’s president and CEO, in a statement.

Later this year, Advisor Group will announce a new name and brand for the unified firm. The firm has engaged Sullivan & Co., a New York-based branding agency, to help guide the process.

Simplicity Acquires Total Financial and Insurance Services

Simplicity Group Holdings announced the acquisition of Culver City, California-based Total Financial & Insurance Services Inc. 

Total Financial President and CEO Diana Greenberg and her partners, Scott Whitehead and Kimberly Fleming, will continue to drive Total Financial’s business in concert with Simplicity and will join Simplicity Group as partners.

“For more than five decades, Total Financial has set award-winning standards in the industry by focusing on being fully committed to our agents. We have cultivated deep relationships at the top of the industry and leverage our vast carrier network to provide concierge-level service.” Greenberg said in a statement. “Simplicity shares this approach and provides us additional resources to help our agents educate and assist their clients as they plan for their financial future.”

eMoney Advisor Partners with Externship Program for Aspiring Financial Planners

For the fourth consecutive year, eMoney Advisor LLC announced it will serve as the exclusive technology partner of Amplified Planning and Strategic Partners’ The Externship.

Participants will have the opportunity to earn the eMoney Fundamentals Certification to demonstrate their proficiency in eMoney Premier, eMoney’s most robust planning solution. The eight-week program will be held from June 5 through July 28.

“We are passionate about providing the tools needed to support the next generation of financial planners and help them develop their skillset to deliver financial advice,” said Connor Sung, director of practice management at eMoney, in a statement.

The Externship is powered by Amplified Planning and Strategic Partners, the online training program for aspiring financial planning professionals. Additionally, eMoney is offering scholarships to cover the program fee for interested participants. Participants may submit a scholarship application by May 10.

In Practice April 26, 2023

Altruist Pitches Tech, Personalization to Advisers

According to the financial tech custodian’s head of investing, RIAs are shifting more into ‘holistic’ needs, including retirement saving.

 

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Altruist Corp., a digital custodian for registered investment advisers, started an open channel for advisers to make suggestions and request tweaks to services. The firm, which created the functionality a little over a year after its founding, provides its community of users updates on its progress addressing the issues and requests.

This responsive user experience, combined with the continuous updates resulting from user input, is part of what Altruist believes will help it stand out from the legacy custodians that have dominated the space for years, the company’s head of investment, Adam Grealish, said in an interview last Friday.

“Newer features are coming out weekly, and larger ones twice a month,” Grealish says. “We are truly co-creating this platform with advisers.”

Culver City, California-based Altruist was founded in 2018 and has raised $280 million from investors that include the likes of investment giant Vanguard Group Inc. and a $112 million round led by private equity firm Insight Partners and and investment manager Adams Street Partners earlier this month. In March, the firm roughly doubled the amount of advisers on its platform to more than 3,000 with the acquisition of Shareholder Service Group, according to an announcement of the deal, which is still pending regulatory approval.

The deal added both clients and capabilities to Altruist’s digital account opening, trading, reporting and billing services. It also made Altruist the third-largest custodian by advisers behind industry leaders Charles Schwab, which supports more than 15,000 advisers, and Fidelity, which has more than 3,600, according to company websites.

Adam Grealish


Altruist’s business proposition to advisers—and its investors—has been a one-stop custodial service combined with a low barrier to entry for clients. That includes easy client onboarding, lower fees and consolidated software programs, according to Grealish.

“It’s challenging for advisers to assemble their tech stack. … Opening accounts is challenging, getting the right portfolio management software is challenging,” Grealish says. “The idea is that we are putting all this together in one package so they can run and scale their practice.”

Long-Term Investors

Grealish says the firm’s digital-forward and personalized nature is key in an adviser industry that is evolving toward more holistic financial advice and offerings. He says that as more and more people are managing their own retirement savings—as opposed to the old days of a company pension—RIAs are stepping in to advise on workplace 401(k) investments, rollovers and retirement income.

“Financial advisers are playing a much bigger role in thinking about retirement, whether investments are sitting in plan or are being rolled over to an IRA,” Grealish says. “Retirement accounts are a very meaningful percentage of overall accounts and overall assets among Altruist advisers.”

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By seeking to give advisers access to faster, cheaper resources, Altruist can help independent advisers manage more complex client needs, the head investor says. That includes being able to put a human touch to the many developments in robotic advice or consumer-managed investing tools.

“We are absolutely thinking about this holistically in terms of what’s in each retirement account and how to think about that with respect to the larger plan with taxable accounts, cash flows going into accounts and cash flows going out,” he says.

Reaching the Masses, Digitally

The RIA industry was managing about $128.4 trillion in the U.S. at the end of 2022, with more than 80% of advisers working in firms with 50 or fewer employees, according to the Investment Adviser Association.

Advisers care a good deal about the “front-office” technology by which they run their practice, according to research released Tuesday by consultancy Cerulli Associates, a trend that was only cemented by operating during the pandemic.

In a survey of financial advisers, Cerulli found that the technologies most frequently cited as creating a positive client experience include e-signature (77%), video conferencing (75%) and the client portal (64%).

This front-office focus for advisers will mean they are looking for the best possible services to meet their needs, according to Cerulli. Grealish says Altruist is up to the challenge of bringing in more advisers to keep on its growth trajectory.

“Advisory practices are looking to simplify and scale and are generally looking to models to help them take one moving part and simplify it,” Grealish says. “When they know those areas are being done well, they can focus on the planning part, the client relationship part and building their business overall.”

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