Nerd's Eye View blog

Making Financial Advicers Better And More Successful And The State Of The (Nerd’s Eye View) Blog

February 15, 2021 07:04 am 17 Comments CATEGORY: Nerd's Eye View

2020 was an incredibly disruptive year for nearly everyone. From the health toll of the pandemic itself to the economic impact of social distancing, the business disruption of work-from-home to the personal disruption of schooling-from-home, last year was a year of change for nearly everyone, whether they wanted it or not. And while the financial services industry escaped relatively unscathed with a sharp V-shaped recovery – particularly in contrast to the damaging impact of the 2008-2009 financial crisis and the recession that followed – financial advisors were not exempt from the forces of change that rolled through. A shift we felt particularly acutely at Kitces.com, with the total shut-down of in-person conferences (to which we previously had traveled on a weekly basis throughout the year!), paired with an explosion of virtual webinar events and a newfound hunger amongst the advisor community for (quality) online education.

In fact, as we look to the “State of the Blog” in 2021, the ironic reality is that last year was one of record growth for Kitces.com, with our Nerd’s Eye View blog readership marking new highs, our Members Section experiencing more-than-100% growth (as we added more new members last year than we did in the first 10 years, cumulatively!), and the Kitces team that keeps it all running behind-the-scenes more than doubling as well (to a total of 15 now, including yours truly!).

Yet even as Kitces.com had the good fortune to be able to grow rapidly amidst a challenging year, it has also helped us crystalize that, like any business that envisions being a ‘Small Giant’ (which Bo Burlingham defines as companies that try to be the Greatest instead of just being the Biggest), it’s impossible to serve everyone. Instead, we have to maintain a clear focus on who it is that we serve best, and focus our services and resources for them.

And so I’m excited to announce an update to our Mission at Kitces.com, which is now about “Making Financial Advicers Better, And More Successful”.

What’s a “Financial Advicer” you may be asking? Simply put, a financial advicer is someone who is actually in the business of financial advice itself, and whose compensation (whatever the form) is for that advice. Which matters, because it means that when you’re a Financial Advicer, the product isn’t the product. The advice itself, and the advicer delivering it, are the “product” that the client is purchasing. Accordingly, Financial Advicers recognize that it’s essential to continue learning and developing their own knowledge, as a means of reinvesting into and upgrading and increasing the value potential of the advice that they can deliver to their clients. And that’s who Kitces.com aims to serve.

In the coming years, our mission of “Making Financial Advicers Better, and More Successful” will come across four domains: Education for Financial Advicers in the form of the Nerd’s Eye View blog daily content; Resources to help Financial Advicers find (the right) solutions from our Master Conference List to our new CFP Scholarships List and our popular AdvisorTech Map; Research in the form of original studies on what Financial Advicers really do in delivering advice and being successful; and Training to develop the skills that Financial Advicers need to succeed, as embodied by the recent launch of our (first of many to come) Kitces Courses on “How To Review A Tax Return To Find Planning Opportunities”.

2020 was a challenging year for most, and there was no exception at Kitces.com as our value proposition and business model, too, had to adapt to the pandemic and its impact. Yet in the end, just as the industry was itself already in the midst of a shift from sales to advice, the pandemic has in so many ways simply caused the ‘future’ to arrive more quickly than most anticipated. Which means the 2020s are increasingly shaping up to be the decade of the financial advicer, and fortunately we’ve been able to emerge from the pandemic stronger and in a better position than ever to serve the financial advicer community. I couldn’t be more excited about what’s ahead for the business of financial advice and serving all of you, our Financial Advicer readers, in the years to come!

Weekend Reading for Financial Planners (Feb 13-14)

February 12, 2021 02:56 pm 2 Comments CATEGORY: Weekend Reading

Enjoy the current installment of "Weekend Reading For Financial Planners" – this week's edition kicks off with the announcement that the Investments & Wealth Institute (IWI) is launching a new online advisor networking/community platform called "The Hive", to be available to both IWI members and those beyond, as the organization seeks to expand its footprint beyond its roots of CIMA and CPWA certificants into a more FPA-style "open tent" association for financial advisors.

Also in the news this week are a number of other notable industry headlines, including:

The latest Cerulli Associates data showing the largest broker-dealers are getting even bigger, with the top-25 broker-dealers now accounting for nearly 72% of brokers and a whopping 90% of all IBD assets (up from just 58% and 83%, respectively, a decade ago)
A new study of TAMPs showing that investment outsourcing continues to rise, though while TAMPs started in the independent broker-dealer channel, it's now RIAs leading their growth

From there, we have several articles on investment management:

The ongoing rise of direct indexing is now gaining enough traction that index providers are scrambling to figure out how to license their indices to the emerging direct indexing platforms
The complexity and opacity of alternative investments isn't doing much to slow their growth, but is spawning rapid growth in the CAIA designation for advisors who want to learn more about how to properly exercise due diligence regarding alternative investments
A Morningstar analysis on whether Bitcoin is really a good idea to hold (or "HODL"!) in a client's portfolio given its dramatic volatility

We've also included a number of marketing-related articles, including:

How using the word "if" turns prospect pitches into awkward leading questions and why using open-ended questions is better
Why it may be better to make your advisor marketing less rational and more emotionally driven
Rethinking the business development process to better highlight how the advisor brings expertise to the table to identify less-than-obvious problems and provide less-than-obvious solutions

We wrap up with three final articles, all around the theme of being more flexible to a changing world and making mistakes:

The difficulties of planning for your long-term future amidst a world with such uncertainty, and how a "micro-planning" approach can help
Given that every successful person has a lot of mistakes to share, perhaps it's time for us to get less fearful of making mistakes and more focused on simply learning from them?
Why it's a good idea to deliberately put yourself in situations where something may go wrong... because in the end, it's far easier to "practice failure" in a controlled environment than to risk it in the moments that matter most

Enjoy the 'light' reading!

Kitces & Carl Ep 53: Using Financial Plan Proposals To Show Planning Value To Prospective Clients

February 11, 2021 07:05 am 6 Comments CATEGORY: Kitces & Carl Podcast

The evolution of advisor technology in recent decades has made it easier and easier for financial advisors to build (and manage) systematized model portfolios for a large number of clients. The good news of this shift is that it has greatly facilitated the scalability of advisory firms. The bad news, though, is that it centered the advisory firm’s value proposition around the portfolio, as the firm’s resources were literally focused on “investment management”. And in turn, to help convert the prospects to clients, advisors learned to create beautifully designed marketing brochures, “investment decks”, and engaged proposal generation tools to show why their bespoke portfolios were better than all the other bespoke portfolios out there.

However, as the industry has continued to evolve towards a more holistic and service-based (i.e., intangible) approach to the financial planning process (and away from such a focus on investment management and the attendant performance expectations), advisors often struggle with illustrating the increasingly financial-planning-centric value that they offer (often over the course of decades) to their clients. Which, in turn, raises the question: Is there such a thing as a “financial planning proposal”, or something similar that financial advisors can give to prospective clients in an initial meeting to illustrate how great all this ‘financial planning stuff’ really is?

In our 43rd episode of Kitces & Carl, Michael Kitces and financial advisor communication expert Carl Richards talk about the importance of meeting prospective clients where they are and asking good initial questions, creating a preliminary financial planning proposal and deliverable (and what that might include), and how to provide an even more substantial piece of supporting material that can help advisors show prospects what value they can expect to receive from the financial planning process.

As a starting point, it’s important to recognize that, in order for a prospect to decide to hire an advisor, the advisor needs to have asked the right questions to uncover and understand the specific pain point that prompted the prospect to book a first meeting. As it’s the clear understanding of this pain point as a motivator that led the client to take action that the advisor must address in a financial planning proposal (and communicate back to the prospect to make them feel they’ve been heard!).

From there, the advisor can create a one-page plan that lays out what the key issues are, which might include a preliminary statement of purpose, a list of initial goals that have been identified, and a 90-day action plan to start down the proverbial financial planning road. The key is to understand that prospective clients care far less about specific solutions than knowing that someone understands their problems (and can help them work towards a solution). Additionally, advisors can supplement that one-page plan with a full sample financial plan, which can really help prospects understand what exactly they will be getting, why the fees are what they are, and what the financial planning process really means (beyond what they may have encountered in prior experiences).

Ultimately, the key point is that the days of glossy brochures full of Morningstar reports and stock photos of compasses and lighthouses may not be as relevant as they were when an advisor’s main value proposition was investment management. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t valuable deliverables that advisors can use to help demonstrate the sort of value that prospective clients can expect. And at the end of the day, tools that help clients decide to move forward and engage a financial planner not only help them solve the problem that they came in to get solved in the first place but can expand further into a holistic financial planning engagement… and also help advisors grow their businesses in the process, too!

Helping Resistant Clients Follow Through On Recommendations Using Reflection

February 10, 2021 07:04 am 1 Comment CATEGORY: Client Trust & Communication

One of the most common challenges that financial advisors can face is encouraging clients to implement recommendations when they are resistant to the idea of change… even when the client is aware that those changes are necessary to attain their goals, and even when they want to make those changes! For many clients, resistance is fueled by behavioral biases that hinder their ability to think rationally as they consider a potential change to implement, which in turn can also create friction between the advisor and client in discussing the required changes necessary to accomplish their goals. But by understanding the communication tools that help their clients work through resistance, advisors can enhance their relationships while, at the same time, helping their clients actually take the action steps necessary to follow through on their recommendations!

Behavioral biases can impede rational decision-making by causing a person to discount or ignore relevant and important information. This can happen because of how an individual might subjectively accept and process information (e.g., confirmation bias causes important information to be dismissed because it contradicts a person’s preconceived notion, which a person may not even recognize is incorrect), or because of how moods and feelings about circumstances or relationships can influence thinking (e.g., the endowment effect might cause a client who is emotionally attached to a home that they need to sell to ask for twice the market price of the home).

When helping clients who are resistant to implementing important changes because of behavioral biases, financial advisors may find certain forms of reflection useful to help clients overcome the resistance. Reflection is a conversational tool that is often used by therapists to help patients work through change and accept resistance as a natural part of the challenging process of personal change. These same tools can also be used just as effectively by financial advisors with their clients, because resisting change – even when the change is one that we want to make – is normal, and very common, for nearly everyone.

Because in the end, arguing with a resistant client about why a change is necessary, and presenting data and financial planning projections to prove the point, can actually just make the client more resistant (and may even result in getting the advisor fired!). Whereas the act of reflecting, which can be as simple as reiterating what the client has just said about how they feel, can create positive opportunities for objectively brainstorming new ideas and gaining insight – for both client and advisor – around the thoughts and feelings on successfully moving forward.

Ultimately, the key point is that resistance from clients is normal and very common, but arguably the point that the client needs to make the change is rarely the best way to accomplish the goal. Instead, the best ways to help clients move forward can often be found by offering the client the time and space to reflect upon their own thought processes. And fortunately, advisors have a range of different conversation tools to choose from that help their clients break through and implement their recommendations… in addition to deepening the advisor’s relationships with their clients, too!

#FASuccess Ep 215: Tracking The Client’s (Non-Portfolio) Results To Price Your Financial Planning Retainer Fee, With Shawn Tydlaska

February 9, 2021 07:05 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 215th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Shawn Tydlaska. Shawn is the founder of Ballast Point Financial Planning, an independent RIA based in the San Francisco Bay Area that services over 100 high-income young professionals. What's unique about Shawn though is the way he's built his advisory firm with a blended model of a minimum of $5,000 annual retainer fee paid monthly, plus an additional fee of 10 basis points of net worth above 2 million to adjust his pricing upwards for his affluent and most complex clients.

In this episode, we talk in-depth about how Shawn structures his services to charge a $5000-plus annual retainer fee for young professional clients who may have portfolios simply outsourced to Betterment, why the households balance sheet, cash flow, and credit score forms the basis of his planning process with clients, the annual service calendar he built on a rotating two-year cycle to actually show clients what he'll be doing for them on an ongoing basis, and the results-thus-far tracking system that Shawn put in place to actually calculate that he was generating more than $437 a month of average value for his ongoing clients and giving him the confidence to raise his advisory fee minimums.

We also talked about how Shawn has managed to build so quickly to 117 ongoing clients in under 5 years, the find-an-advisor websites that Shawn got himself listed on to get some initial clients early on, how clients who took it upon themselves to leave Shawn's reviews on Yelp ended up driving significant growth for the firm, and why Shawn recently decided to take out $150,000 SBA loan to accelerate hiring more team members even as the pandemic did cause an uptick in his client attrition.

And be certain to listen to the end where Shawn shares the challenge of working with younger clients who graduate from using his services once they build their own financial foundation, why the retainer fee model with younger clients can achieve 90%-plus retention rates but may still struggle to reach the retention rate of the AUM model, and why Shawn is looking to add in-house tax preparation for his top clients as a way to further deepen the relationship and stickiness of his top clients.

So whether you’re interested in learning more about how Shawn uses his results-thus-far tracking to show the actual value he provides to clients, what his client service calendar looks like, or how he uses tax planning to increase his client retention rates, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast.

Financial Advisor Fee Trends And The Fee Compression Mirage

February 8, 2021 11:47 am 12 Comments CATEGORY: Practice Management

Despite the rising popularity of new fee-for-service financial planning service models, remarkably little has actually been published about how financial advisors price their services. Which is an important topic for both consumers – who want to know what a plan might cost – and for financial advisors themselves, who may want to benchmark whether the pricing for their financial plans is “reasonable” relative to their advisor peers and competitors (rather than solely setting the price based on its time-and-labor cost to the advisor), especially in an environment where fees on financial products have been under intense price competition and fee compression!

In our latest 2020 Kitces Research survey on “How Financial Planners Actually Do Financial Planning”, we examined both how financial advisors are charging and how much they are charging their clients for financial planning services. Although there has been concern that the fee compression evident with financial services products would also apply to financial planning advice, we found little evidence that this was the case. On the contrary, our data suggests that the median fees in 2020 significantly increased, relative to 2018 fees, for standalone fees (12.4% increase) for retainer fees (25% increase), and for hourly fee rates (25% increase). Median AUM fees, though, remained relatively steady, with no apparent increase (though there was an 8% increase at the 10th percentile and an 8.7% increase at the 90th percentile for fees charged for a $1 million portfolio).

We also observed pricing trends by industry channel, with advisors in the RIA channel charging higher median fees than those in the B/D channel for work completed on a standalone or retainer basis, as well as for a complete financial plan billed on an hourly basis. Similarly, financial advisors with a CFP designation generally charge higher fees than those who are not CFP professionals.

When it came to team structure, there was not much difference in standalone fees charged by solo advisors, solo advisors with support, and ensemble advisors, although silo advisors do appear to charge lower standalone fees than other team structures. For financial plans completed on an hourly basis, silo teams had the highest median fees and solo advisors the lowest, while there was the opposite trend observed for retainer fees, with the highest median fees charged by solo advisors and the lowest median fees charged by silo teams.

Because advisors provided us with detailed information about their business practices and pricing, we were also able to compute implied hourly rates for advisors using non-hourly billing models, which can be helpful in understanding what "reasonable" rates are for hourly advisors. At median levels, we found that primarily AUM advisors are generating revenue at rates that would imply hourly fees between $350 and $800. This is in stark contrast to the $100 to $300 implied hourly fees generated by advisors operating on a primarily hourly basis, and speaks to the challenge of building an hourly practice that is as financially successful as advisors operating on an AUM basis at common fee levels. Furthermore, when we look at top-earning AUM advisors (defined here as those between the 85th and 95th percentile), we find that these advisors are generating implied hourly fees in the $950 to $1,600 per hour range.

Ultimately, the key point is that there does not appear to be any overall trend of decreasing financial planning fees, despite common claims that fee compression is coming for financial advisors. Rather, the trends we actually see in our financial advisor research are increasing fees. Furthermore, these trends are observed consistently across advisor fee models. Which suggests that, despite strong proclamations to the contrary, financial planning fee compression may be largely a mirage.

Weekend Reading for Financial Planners (Feb 6-7)

February 5, 2021 02:59 pm 2 Comments CATEGORY: Weekend Reading

Enjoy the current installment of "Weekend Reading For Financial Planners" – this week's edition kicks off with the announcement that the CFP Board has created a new "Commission on Sanctions and Fitness", which, in the coming year, will update the Sanction Guidelines (from private to public censure, suspension to revocation) that the CFP Board can apply to CFP certificants who violate their Code of Ethics and Standards of Conduct, as the CFP Board continues to signal its plans to ramp up enforcement of its new standards and attempt to "clean out its bad apples".

Also in the news this week are a number of other notable industry headlines, including:

The SEC plans to scrutinize dually registered advisors in particular, with concerns about how such advisors determine when a brokerage versus advisory account is best for any particular client
The evolving landscape of membership associations for financial advisors, as IWI and NAPFA grow through the pandemic, the FPA shrinks, and more and more new organizations also crop up to support increasingly diverse pockets of advisor community

From there, we have several articles on retirement planning:

How households that retire with insufficient resources do tend to "right-size" (i.e., downsize) their spending in the first decade of retirement, but those who retire with more than enough appear to have trouble right-sizing their spending to the upside even when they can afford to do so
Why the increasing likelihood of living to age 100 is creating new stresses on the traditional approach to retirement and triggering discussions about new public-private partnerships to address the societal challenge of taking care of those who can no longer work
Tips on how to transition into Medicare upon reaching age 65 (or when it may be better not to do so!)

We've also included a number of marketing-related articles, including:

What it really takes to become a rainmaker that brings in new clients (hint: the starting point is to get clear on your own value and become confident in it!)
Why most financial advisors are closer to being an "authority" (and could market themselves accordingly) than they may realize
How to build daily and weekly habits that form the foundation of a successful approach to digital marketing

We wrap up with three final articles, all around the theme of reading more (and getting more enjoyment from our reading):

How to find more time to read if you struggle to do so
Tips on how to get through more books on your reading list in 2021 (which may include getting comfortable with when to put a book down and not finish and just moving on to the next instead!)
The therapeutic benefits of reading more often, and how to get the most out of your (limited) reading time!

Enjoy the 'light' reading!

Advertising With Testimonials And Endorsements Under The New SEC Marketing Rule

February 3, 2021 07:08 am 5 Comments CATEGORY: Regulation & Compliance

The Registered Investment Adviser was established by the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, with an explicitly stated intention of separating “bona fide investment counselors” from the “unscrupulous tipsters and touts" trying to just sell the next hot investment scheme. Accordingly, from its very start, a key pillar in the regulation of investment advisers has been various prohibitions against any form of marketing or advertising that might be deemed ‘misleading’ to the public about the investment adviser’s anticipated investment returns. Which in 1961 was formally codified into an advertising rule that explicitly prohibited RIAs from using any form of client testimonial, under the auspices that the results and returns of any one client wouldn’t necessarily be representative of what any/all kinds could expect in the future… and that therefore testimonials were inherently misleading and a danger to the public.

In the years since, though, the world of marketing and advertising has evolved greatly, as have the services of RIAs themselves. As financial advisors expand into financial planning services beyond just portfolio management and are judged on the quality of their service beyond just the literal steps of managing the portfolio itself, it becomes harder and harder for consumers to evaluate an advisor’s quality and expertise with respect to the full breadth of their services. For which one of the most straightforward ways to assess is simply to ask other clients what their experience has been – a common approach in most industries that has led to a bonanza of various third-party review sites, from Google My Business to Yelp and more… but has remained remarkably absent from the realm of financial advisors due to the ongoing prohibition against client testimonials!

But now, the SEC has announced a new marketing rule – it’s first substantive refresh in nearly 60 years – which will, for the first time, allow financial advisors to proactively use testimonials (from clients), endorsements (from non-clients), and highlight their own ratings on various third-party review sites. Which means, simply put, that as the SEC’s new marketing rule takes effect in the coming months, it’s a new dawn for financial advisor marketing.

Not surprisingly, though, the SEC is not granting carte blanche permission for RIAs to use testimonials and endorsements however they wish. Instead, the new rules provide both a series of 7 general prohibitions that still apply to testimonials and endorsements (e.g., that they not be untrue or misleading regarding any material facts), a series of specific requirements that apply to testimonials and endorsements, from new required disclosures to additional oversight and compliance obligations regarding both the RIA and the “promoter” for the RIA, and certain limitations on who can even be a promoter providing an endorsement or testimonial in the first place.

In addition, the SEC’s new marketing rule provides additional clarity about when and how RIAs can leverage various third-party rating and review sites (e.g., Yelp, or various ‘Top Advisor’ lists), including a due diligence obligation (to affirm that the reviews had equal opportunity to be favorable or unfavorable) and additional disclosure requirements regarding the criteria used to determine the rating or review and what it actually pertains to (e.g., explicitly disclosing that a “Top Advisor” ranking is based on AUM alone doesn’t necessarily speak to the quality of the advisor’s advice).

Notably, though, the new marketing rule and its permissiveness of testimonials, endorsements, and the use of third-party review sites are technically only for SEC-registered investment advisers. Those RIAs that are registered at the state level will still need to conform to their state’s own marketing rules, which may or may not incorporate (or be updated for) the SEC’s new rule going forward. And FINRA-registered brokers are ultimately still subject to FINRA’s own rules on advertising and communications (not the SEC’s rules for RIAs).

Nonetheless, the reality is that the SEC’s new marketing rule represents a dramatic shift in the regulatory environment for RIAs when it comes to marketing and a recognition that when the business of advice goes far beyond just investment returns, testimonials and endorsements – and more generally, the perspective from those who have actually paid for and used the adviser’s services – can be an effective way to communicate the value the adviser brings to the marketplace. Albeit with the kind of (very reasonable) disclosures and compliance oversight that would still be expected to ensure that the adviser’s marketing is still reasonable and not misleading about the financial advisor’s services!

#FASuccess Ep 214: Building A Premium Advice Service By Niching With Ultra-High Net Worth Divorcees, With Olivia Summerhill

February 2, 2021 07:03 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Financial Advisor Success Podcast

Welcome back to the 214th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Olivia Summerhill. Olivia is the founder of Summerhill Wealth, an independent RIA based near Seattle that exclusively works with women who want help adjusting to and maintaining their standard of living after a divorce. What's unique about Olivia, though, is the way she's focused her practice on a particular segment of ultra-high-net-worth divorcees allowing her to set her fees at $20,000 for an engagement, and then commit to working with no more than five active clients at any particular time.

In this episode, we talk in-depth about how Olivia crafted a niche of working with divorcees, how she leverages the expertise of her CDFA designation to work with divorce mediators and collaborative divorce attorneys, the way Olivia developed her unique pricing model and found the confidence to charge $20,000 for her services, and the depth of hand-holding services she provides to her clients after they complete the divorce process. From helping them set up credit cards in their own name to helping them buy a house on their own for the very first time.

We also talk about how Olivia has been able to find and attract ultra-high-net-worth clients with upwards of $100 million in net worth. From the way Olivia has built networks of affiliated professionals who themselves are sought out by ultra-high-net-worth clients as a way to first connect with them. The philanthropic and other organizations that Olivia joins and gets involved with in order to meet the professionals that work with that type of clientele. And why it's so crucial to understand that professionals serving the most affluent clients aren't necessarily looking for reciprocal referrals, but instead are focused on their own role as gatekeepers for their clients who are trying to identify truly trustworthy professionals to work with.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Olivia shares her own path to taking the leap of entrepreneurialism that she never thought she'd take. The career coach who helped Olivia better identify her own natural talents and find her own confidence. Olivia's unique 'informational interviews' approach that she takes to everything from networking for new clients to finding the firms and professionals she wants to work with herself. And why Olivia decided that the best path forward was to keep her firm focused on this niche from its day-one launch.

So whether you’re interested in learning more about why Olivia decided to obtain her CDFA designation, how she builds her network of trusted professionals, or why she decided to provide a high-touch service at a premium fee for a limited number of clients, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast.

The Latest In Financial #AdvisorTech (February 2021)

February 1, 2021 07:05 am 0 Comments CATEGORY: Technology & Advisor FinTech

Welcome to the February 2021 issue of the Latest News in Financial #AdvisorTech – where we look at the big news, announcements, and underlying trends and developments that are emerging in the world of technology solutions for financial advisors!

This month's edition kicks off with the big news that Walmart has partnered with Ribbit Capital (one of the FinTech VC firms that backed Robinhood) to begin creating its own FinTech solutions for Walmart customers and employees… which would instantly create one of the largest distribution platforms for a FinTech solution (as Walmart reaches nearly 40% of all Americans on a weekly basis!) and also a Financial Wellness platform (as the world’s largest private employer). Yet the reality is that, as the world’s largest superstore, Walmart is arguably well positioned to become a financial products superstore as well – taking a page from the playbook of Sears, the 20th-century retailer that expanded into financial services and, in the process, spawned Allstate Insurance and the Discover card – though that still doesn’t mean that Walmart will necessarily want to enter the far-more-challenging-to-scale services business of financial advice itself.

From there, the latest highlights also feature a number of other interesting advisor technology announcements, including:

- Former Vanguard CEO McNabb joins the Altruist advisory board, signaling that it’s not just RIAs themselves but also asset managers that would like to see a breakup of the current RIA custodial oligopoly

- Milemarker launches a new “Integration-as-a-Service” as AdvisorTech integration fatigue hits new depths even as cross-platform integration becomes more essential than ever

- DPL raises $26M of private equity capital to scale its new fee-based annuity platform for RIAs

- MaxMyInterest tries to expand the reach of its cash management solution for advisors not by integrating with their investment platform but via Redtail’s CRM instead

Read the analysis about these announcements in this month's column, and a discussion of more trends in advisor technology, including:

- Focus Financial launches its own cash management solution in partnership with Orion and competing with the RIA custodians its partner firms use

- National Guardian Life acquires Everplans as more insurers look to acquisitions as the means to facilitate their own digital transformations and overcome their Innovator’s Dilemma

- Chalice Network launches a new “Certified FinTech Advisor” designation for financial services enterprise executives trying to get up to speed in the world of Advisor FinTech

- Financial personality assessment tools are on the rise as client profiling goes beyond “just” risk tolerance to a wider range of client financial behaviors that advisors may be able to help (or, alternatively, want to screen for!)

And be certain to read to the end, where we have provided an update to our popular “Financial AdvisorTech Solutions Map” as well!

*And for #AdvisorTech companies who want to submit their tech announcements for consideration in future issues, please submit to [email protected]!