A majority stake in WealthBar Financial Services to be acquired by CI Financial. DriveWealth partners with Avenue Securities to enable Brazilian retail investors to invest in fractional shares. Lincoln Financial Group announced new partnerships with eMoney Advisor and Redtail Technology. LifeYield provides its Social Security Advantage solution through EQIS Capital Management. Agilon Capital to use TradingScreen’s order and execution management system for fixed income. Wealthfront built a direct integration with cryptocurrency platform Coinbase. LPL Financial improves its Model Wealth Portfolio platform. Morgan Stanley is simplifying the way it acquires new technologies from small companies to speed up collaboration.
CI Financial Corp has agreed to acquire a majority stake in WealthBar Financial Services Inc, a Vancouver-based online wealth management and financial planning platform.
CI Financial, a Toronto-based asset manager and wealth management advisor, said the transaction will help accelerate its digital strategy.
More information is here.
Miami-based Avenue Securities, which helps Brazilian retail investors invest in American stocks, has announced a new partnership with US broker-dealer DriveWealth, LLC, to offer its clients affordable execution and the ability to invest in fractional shares. This collaboration enables Latino investors to build portfolios of US stocks, ETFs, and ADRs with low costs starting from $0.99 per trade.
More information is here.
Lincoln Financial Group announced new partnerships that will offer fee-only advisors improved planning and data management capabilities and make it easier to use Lincoln’s suite of annuity solutions. By integrating capabilities from eMoney Advisor, a leading wealth management and financial planning software provider, and Redtail Technology (“Redtail”), a provider of client relationship management (CRM) solutions for financial services firms, Lincoln will continue to expand and evolve its technology platform available to fee-only advisors.
More information is here.
LifeYield LLC, a leading cloud-based solution that facilitates tax-smart, risk-smart management of an investor’s entire household portfolio, announced that its proprietary Social Security Advantage solution will now be available through EQIS Capital Management Inc., a fee-based Turnkey Asset Management Platform (TAMP) for financial advisors. This partnership will make LifeYield’s technology available to more than 2,100 advisors currently using the EQIS TAMP.
More information is here.
Hedge fund Agilon Capital has confirmed it will use TradingScreen’s (TS) order and execution management system (OEMS) for fixed income.
The fund specialises in long/short corporate credit strategies, and confirmed it will use TradeSmart to manage their activity across fixed income, including IG corporates, high yield, CDS, treasuries, and futures.
More information is here.
With more than $11 billion in AUM, Wealthfront built a direct integration with cryptocurrency platform Coinbase. The direct API-level integration will allow Wealthfront users to track their cryptocurrencies in the financial planning tool, Path. Both those who have opened an investment account with Wealthfront and those using its free financial planning service will be able to track their crypto, provided they have entered the necessary Coinbase account information.
More information is here.
LPL Financial is making improvements to its centrally managed Model Wealth Portfolio platform, including lowering pricing, adding separately managed accounts and risk scores, as well as allowing advisors to trade their models like a strategist on the platform. Advisors who are part of the pilot program for the changes, coming next year, say the improvements are going to make it easier—and less expensive—for them to do business.
More information is here.
Morgan Stanley moves to speed up collaboration with tech startups
Morgan Stanley has trimmed its 20-page vendor agreement to one page, reducing from three months to as little as one week the time to begin working together. The bank has been taking steps to reduce the time it takes to begin working with new vendors by streamlining documentation and broadening the opportunities for executives to evaluate new tech products.
More information is here.
Tech Survey
Advisors are missing out on these software opportunities.
Innovative technology can help transform advisors’ workflow — but adoption takes time. Just because broker-dealers and custodians may offer innovative tech solutions doesn’t mean advisors will utilize them. The majority of respondents to the survey said they didn’t use tools like macro risk software or social media management tools.
More information is here.
