Snappy Kraken Responds To Covid-19 With Price And Service Adjustments
Snappy Kraken, an automated marketing and advertising platform for financial advisors, has retooled its business model to help clients during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Effective immediately, the firm is waiving all setup fees for online advertising, whether subscribers are established clients or new to the service. The company is also offering the lowest price available to every member, and subscribers facing financial hardship will be eligible for a reduced rate upon request. Until further notice, Snappy Kraken will not be increasing its prices either.

One of its new services is a customizable weekly crisis communication e-mail designed to be sent directly to clients and prospects. Snappy Kraken is also offering a new biweekly video tool, starting in April, that includes a prepared script; a ready-made, branded landing page to host the video; and coordinated e-mails to promote the video messages to clients and prospects. This premium tool will be offered at no additional cost.

Magni Global And Newday Impact Launch Faith-Based Platform
Magni Global Asset Management, a Minneapolis-based asset manager with experience in governance research, has partnered with Newday Impact Investing, a San Francisco asset manager with a focus on responsible investing, to launch a mass-market, faith-based investment strategy on the Newday platform.

The partnership will add three unique investment strategies to Newday’s current lineup of 12 impact investment strategies. The new strategies include the Magni Halakhic (Jewish) portfolio, the Magni Islamic Stewardship portfolio and the Magni Catholic Values portfolio.

Newday’s and Magni’s investors can open an account and invest in any of the three strategies for a minimum investment of $100.

Magni has worked with religious leaders to develop guidance for faith-based portfolios, specifically when looking at portfolio companies’ governance. Better governed companies are more likely to avoid scandal, which Magni sees as an investment opportunity.

Envestnet MoneyGuide Releases New Tax Planning Feature
Envestnet’s MoneyGuide will now include a tax planning feature allowing advisors to have deeper conversations with their clients. Using MoneyGuide’s new feature, advisors can more easily respond to clients’ questions and concerns about their retirement finances by quantifying expected savings and illustrating the potential impact of implementing different strategies in a retirement plan that would reduce a client’s tax burden. Depending on the client’s goal—whether it’s to lower taxes during retirement, improve lifetime tax savings, or maximize the benefit to their heirs—advisors can calculate Roth conversions, qualified charitable distributions and qualified distributions to dynamically test the strategies and immediately see the impact on the client’s plan, including the probability of success and overall tax savings.

Chicago-based Envestnet acquired MoneyGuide creator PIEtech last year.

Docupace Launches New Reg BI Compliance Solution
Docupace Technologies LLC, a Los Angeles-based financial technology services company, has launched a new Reg BI and Form CRS digital solution for broker-dealers and advisors.

With the Security and Exchange Commission’s Regulation Best Interest going into effect on June 30, 2020, broker-dealers and associated financial advisors will be required to provide a relationship summary (Form CRS) to retail investors whenever there is a certain trigger event, such as when the advisor recommends a new investment product. Broker-dealers are also required to store records of Form CRS paperwork and delivery information.

When financial advisory firms choose the SEC’s electronic option for delivery and storage of Form CRS, Docupace offers a respite from the tedious, expensive administrative work associated with a paper-based approach. The summary can then be delivered electronically to the investor.

In addition to saving firms added costs for printing, mailing, faxing and filing, an electronic Form CRS workflow can help advisors avoid falling out of compliance. Firms will be able to use a multistep paperless workflow to automatically generate different versions of Form CRS.

ETFMG And Wedbush Launch Pure-Play Global Cloud Computing ETF
ETFMG, a thematic ETF issuer, has partnered with Wedbush Securities, a financial services and investment banking firm, to introduce the Wedbush ETFMG Global Cloud Technology ETF.

The IVES ETF is a pure play on the global cloud theme of small to mid-cap infrastructure players, focusing on vendors and companies that provide the backbone of cloud computing and stand to capture a major portion of cloud spending—an estimated 60% to 70% of cloud spending over the next four years.

The constituent companies of IVES focus on infrastructure equipment, software as a service (SaaS), connectivity, data backup and storage services, and data center management for enterprise-based software applications. The companies are also engaged in enterprise cloud services.