Robinhood plans to conduct IPO. EValue helps The Pensions Advisory Service to launch a digital assistant.
MoneyGuidePro releases fifth-generation financial planning tool. Betterment makes advice more accessible and personalized via its new financial advice packages. New approach to customer deployments from Docupace Technologies.
Ignition Wealth is ranked #1 for innovation and flexibility. WealthManagement.com named winners of 2018 Industry Awards.
Robinhood announced plans to conduct IPO
The representatives of Robinhood, an American crypto trading platform, intend to conduct an initial public offering of shares (IPO) and for this purpose are looking for a financial director to join their team, TechCrunch reports.
At this stage, the startup is undergoing a large number of inspections by several US financial regulators to meet all regulatory requirements, Baiju Bhatt, Robinhood CEO, stated.
This year has been remarkable for the startup due to several achievements. This February, the company provided customers with the opportunity to trade bitcoin, ether, and immediately attracted increased attention. In spring, the startup team managed to raise $110 million in Series C funding round and $363 million in Series D, which were organized by the Russian company DST Global.
Upon completion of these funding rounds, Robinhood is estimated at $5.6 billion and is the second largest financial startup in the United States. Currently, the platform has five million users, conducting various financial transactions.
You can read more here.
Coinbase extends crypto product offerings
Citing people familiar with the matter, BI reports that the proposed crypto ETF is another attempt for diversification by Coinbase in its products and offerings, as the exchange continues to add new flavors to its already diversified business which currently spans across asset management, venture capital, trading, custody, and brokerage. The crypto exchange has had discussions with BlackRock’s blockchain working group and expects to benefit from the latter’s expertise in launching exchange-traded products. Started in 2015, BlackRock’s blockchain working group was set up “to identify applications of blockchain-related technologies in financial services.”
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Acorns named as a part of the Advisory Committee for The Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection
The Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (Bureau) announced new appointments to the Consumer Advisory Board (CAB), which include Manning Field, Chief Operations Officer of Acorns, the country’s fastest growing financial wellness system for the people.
“At Acorns, we serve the 182M Americans who make less than $100k/year — we call them the up-and-coming — to empower them with financial confidence,” said Manning Field. “I am proud to represent Acorns on the Consumer Advisory Board and advocate on behalf of those financially underserved.”
The Consumer Advisory Board was established as a result of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform mandate for the Bureau to have advisors who can speak to a variety of consumer financial issues. The Board helps strengthen the Bureau’s charge to serve and protect consumers by ensuring that the Bureau receives a wide range of insight, expertise, analysis, and information about the financial consumer finance market trends and practices.
The newly appointed members include consumer protection, financial services, FinTech, community development, fair lending, civil rights and consumer financial product and service experts. New members of the Consumer Advisory Board will serve a one-year term.
You can read more here.
Betterment introduces financial advice packages
Betterment, the largest, independent online financial advisor, today announced it will be piloting a new line up of financial advice packages, expanding its access to personalized advice from licensed financial experts. This new service furthers Betterment’s commitment to making advice more accessible and personalized.
Betterment customers will now be able to purchase individual financial advice packages to receive in-depth guidance around various life events. These packages include a personalized action plan and educational content related to the life event or financial goal they are seeking guidance on. All calls will be staffed by a licensed financial expert.
You can read more here.
Docupace Technologies, Inc., the leader in secure and compliant cloud-based workflow and document management automation solutions for the financial services and wealth management industry, recently announced “Fast Start,” a revolutionary approach to customer deployments exclusively by Docupace for new customers.
“With Fast Start, the deployment of a standard implementation is significantly accelerated by getting foundational Docupace functionality up and running for a new customer within 30-45 days of contract signing,” said Joel Friedman, Executive Vice President, Delivery and Customer Care of Docupace Technologies. “Our customers have been asking for a way to create a fast path to value for their advisors and firm. New customers can gain value more quickly with this innovative solution deployment process.”
Broker-dealers and registered investment advisors (RIAs) today are challenged to quickly capitalize on digitizing their wealth management operation and grow their productivity and profitability. With the Docupace Platform implementation using “Fast Start,” firms can increase their speed to add value to the field and home offices by using a single platform to process all lines of business with a streamlined universal account opening and maintenance process.
You can read more here.
EValue has partnered with The Pensions Advisory Service (TPAS), an independent organization that is grant-aided by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), UK. EValue aims to help TPAS launch a digital assistant helping consumers calculate when they might run out of money if drawing income in retirement.
Fin, developed by EValue, launched last week as a free to use prototype, intended to gauge consumer engagement in a gamified retirement income tool.
Using the domain whenwillmypensionrunout.com, the new digital assistant aims to help consumers explore their pension drawdown choices, and thus understand how long their income might last in retirement.
You can read more here.
MyPrivateBanking 2018 Global Report ranks Ignition Wealth #1 for innovation and flexibility
“Ignition offers a strong product proposition and offers the entire spectrum of services demanded by this industry, making it a strong and dependable partner. The solution offers a wide range of customization capabilities across the spectrum of business needs. In particular, the approach to content and education features, as well as the design capabilities, deserves to be highlighted.” MyPrivateBanking, How to build the best Robo- Advisor Platform – Solutions and Vendors for automated investment services report, September 2018.
You can read more here.
MoneyGuidePro releases fifth-generation financial planning tool
All eyes are turned toward Silicon Valley for the latest technology updates from Apple, but financial advisers might be more interested in news coming from Powhatan, Va.
That’s where PIEtech on Wednesday released MoneyGuidePro G5, the fifth generation of the company’s popular financial planning software. The update gives advisers new ways to leverage client healthcare data, allocate client assets and plan for life insurance scenarios.
Advisers can assign held-away or other segregated assets a distinct rate of return from assets under management. The idea is to blend these with target allocations to produce a more accurate risk-and-return analysis when viewing the client’s entire portfolio.
Finally, MoneyGuidePro can support advisers looking to do sophisticated life insurance planning by adjusting a client’s planning age, the survivor’s retirement age and required funds left to survivors. The tool can calculate the remaining balance on a client’s mortgage and other liabilities when estimating the cost of a new policy.
You can read more here.
Empower Retirement has launched an “integrated health and wealth experience” aimed at simplifying and clarifying individuals’ savings priorities across their retirement account and health savings account (HSA).
According to the firm, the “improved and streamlined Empower experience” makes it easier for employees to see how their health savings account assets can prepare them for retirement.
Beyond the updated interface, Empower has deployed a new approach that expands its interactive technology to “allow plan sponsors and participants to see in a glance what their projected health care costs may be in retirement and how it compares with the projected balances in their HSA.” Empower says the new approach leverages technology that makes it easier for participants to adjust their deferral “with a simple click and send those changes straight to payroll departments.” The approach also integrates data on prior year contributions and important annual estimates.
You can read more here.
WealthManagement.com announced 2018 Industry Awards Winners
WealthManagement.com, the leading resource for wealth advisors and planners, announced the winners for the 2018 Annual WealthManagement.com Industry Awards on Thursday night during a black-tie awards gala at The Ziegfeld Ballroom in Manhattan.
Now in its fourth year, the Awards is the only awards program to honor outstanding achievements by companies and organizations that support financial advisor success. This year, judges presented 67 awards to 59 companies from a pool of 156 finalists.
You can read more here.
Facet Wealth gets a $33 million investment, led by Warburg Pincus
Facet Wealth lands multimillion Series A funding, led by a global PE firm focused on growth investing.
Hybrid digital wealth management provider Facet Wealth announced it has secured $33 million in funding, in a Series A round led by private equity firm Warburg Pincus. Joining the PE firm is Slow Ventures, a venture capital firm specializing in early- and seed-stage technology firms, signaling investor optimism for the growth plans of the WealthTech company that started serving clients just 18 months ago. The company is also a finalist in this year’s WealthManagement.com awards.
You can read more here.
