Happy Tuesday, Fellow Fintechers!
We’re hoping this finds you and yours safe and healthy.
Today, as usual, we have a packed agenda of content on the wealthtech front for our readers, starting with an informative new Q&A interview with Phil Buchanan, executive chairman of financial education platform Cannon Financial Institute.
We also have news of the pending acquisition of investment platform and fund manager Artivest by iCapital. This firm continues to be on the move breaking new ground in the investment industry. The acquisition of Artivest moves them further into the investment management sector beyond the investing platform, and it’s quite an interesting play.
Next up is deep dive by Financial Advisor magazine senior editor Chris Robbins into Oranj, and a look at how this wealthtech differentiated its platform with an unique freemium model. We also delve into the recent announcement that Schwab will be offering fractional share investing beginning in June. This is certainly a much needed strategic move given that many of the “upstart” trading fintechs have been offering this for years now.
We have another piece from Robbins reviewing the recently released 2020 Mobile Financial Applications Report from Liftoff and AppAnnie. In it we learn that mobile app use has exploded of late, and payments apps have skyrocketed including CashApp, Zelle, Venmo, Chime – Mobile Banking and Experian. Robbins has also penned a piece about a partnership between Interactive Brokers and TradingFront to launch a new holistic brokerage, custodial and technology platform for advisors.
Horizon Globex CIO Pete Hall has penned an exclusive piece for the readers of FA Mag on data management and the importance of ensuring your firm is meeting Finra compliance standards. It’s not the most glamorous part of the business, but it is ever so important to ensure you are protecting your advisory – and your customers information – from a data breach. A must read.
Finally, we finish up with news that wealthtech VISE has just completed a $14.5 million capital raise. The portfolio management firm was founded three years ago by two teenagers! In comparing notes with the author of the piece, we agreed that neither of us was even close to being focused on founding a budding financial technology firm when we were that age. Most impressive.
That leads us to our closing. For years we’ve been singing from the rafters that fintech is a highly varied lot and there are many ways to play in the sandbox – through utilization of wealthtech for your advisory, investing in budding fintechs or utilizing alternatives platforms like iCapital and Artivest. It’s hard enough for us to stay on top of it all but if an advisor doesn’t take this movement seriously, you’ll not be able to stay relevant for your clients. Read up and be in the know. We’re here to keep you educated on the fintech revolution!
Yours in Fintech,
Cindy Taylor