Nearly 800 financial advisors, fintech innovators and industry consultants gathered in San Diego this month for the 17th annual T3 Advisor Conference, where they discussed trends in the financial advisory profession and how technology can support the creation of a more profitable and enjoyable business for the advisor and a better experience for the client. Acceleration and the pace of change were recurring themes throughout the event.

Over 100 companies set up booths in the exhibit hall and made presentations at the conference. Many big announcements were made, including:

Timeline Announces Livetrack Feature

Timelineapp Tech Limited (Timeline), a fintech company that provides advisors with retirement income software, announced Livetrack, the first in a series of features that the firm will announce this year.

MaxMyInterest Integrates With Orion

MaxMyInterest announced an integration with Orion Advisor Tech, a division of Orion Advisor Solutions, which is a portfolio accounting service provider for advisors.

Orion Advisor Tech Announces Updates To Integration With Salesforce AppExchange

Orion announced it has updated the Orion Connect integration on Salesforce AppExchange, which may enable advisors to work more efficiently through a more flexible and customizable data sync. The upgrade offers advisors options for data mapping, faster data syncs, and supportive error message prompting. Built on the Salesforce Platform, Orion is currently available on AppExchange.

StockOpter Adds 10b5-1 Trading Plan Tracking

StockOpter.com, an application for equity compensation valuation and risk analysis, has added capabilities to track client 10b5-1 trading plans. These trading plans established under SEC Rule 10b5-1 provide defense against charges of insider trading because they are setup before the employee knows information that may affect the company’s stock price. This allows trades to be executed when stock price targets are met, even during blackout periods.

RightCapital Introduces RightPay

RightCapital, a financial planning solution, has introduced RightPay, a web-based service that enables financial advisors to collect financial planning fees from clients via credit card. RightPay integrates with the advisor’s branded RightCapital portal where clients can access their live financial plan, task list, and now can review, approve and pay via credit card for financial planning services received.

Covisum Now Offering Practice Management Resources

Covisum announced The Financial Advisor’s Guide to Lead Generation, a practice-management resource that helps advisors create digital content that speaks to their target clients’ needs.

fpPathfinder Announces Interactive Resources

fpPathfinder announced upgrades to its checklist tools. The new checklist experience will also include customer relationship management (CRM) integration in partnership with Redtail Technology.

CircleBlack Selects Redi2’s BillFin For Advanced Fee Billing

CircleBlack announced that it has selected Redi2 Technologies’ BillFin solution as their provider of hosted advanced fee billing.

RIA in a Box Launches Open API For MyRIACompliance

RIA in a Box, announced the release of an open API for its MyRIACompliance tool, which will allow technology providers and RIA firms to connect into the platform to ensure that compliance requirements are addressed. One use-case includes integrating third-party data sources from portfolio management systems with the software to allow firms to track registrations and notice filings in real-time.

Fidelity Adds New Self-Service Capabilities In Its Open Architecture Digital Store, Integration Xchange

Fidelity announced that Integration Xchange is rolling out self-service functionality to help wealth management firms to test, deploy and manage technology platforms. With Integration Xchange, firms can explore a range of integration options in a single location to develop technology platforms that help them streamline business processes and workflows.

Skience 12.0 Launches Household-Level, Multi-Account Opening Functionality For Advisors

Skience announced version 12.0 of the its platform, which includes functionality enabling advisors to open multiple new accounts for households and deliver all required forms to their clients in one electronic signature experience. The new account opening process is available for all the major clearing and custody providers and is launched directly from the advisor’s CRM.

Whealthcare Planning Names Kevin Ruth As Interim CEO

Whealthcare Planning announced today that Kevin Ruth is joining the company. Ruth was most recently head of wealth planning and personal at Fidelity Investments and Fidelity Private Wealth Management.

Altfest Launches AI-Driven Advisor Technology

FP Alpha was launched during the conference by Andrew Altfest, President of Altfest Personal Wealth Management. FP Alpha is a wealth management platform that utilizes artificial intelligence (AI).

Orion Rolls Out New User Interface

Orion Advisor announced the new Orion Connect experience, a reimagined user interface, at the conference. The new experience blends Orion’s core app-centric model for grouping essential capabilities with a flexible dashboard-based layout.

Folio Financial Presents On Digital Wealth And Direct Indexing Capabilities

Folio Financial gave a presentation entitled “Personalization Matters: Digital Wealth Technology to Reshape the Client Experience,” covering clients’ increasing expectation for customized wealth management, and how fintech can help.

ETFLogic Announces Model Marketplace And Portfolio Building Tools

ETFLogic’s tools allow the advisor to explore hundreds of asset allocation ideas and iterate over them to achieve various objectives such as reducing overall portfolio risk, tilting towards factors and themes and enhancing potential returns. These new tools allow advisors to load in a portfolio of ETFs and individual stocks. Based on a combination of Modern Portfolio Theory and ETFLogic’s workflow technology, the tool provides options to reduce overall risk in portfolios and explore alternative outcomes using a simple sliding scale.

LPL Financial Enhances Clientworks, Adds New Account Opening Tools

LPL Financial announced that it has integrated its account opening tool and the AdvisoryWorld proposal generation tool, making it even easier for advisors to move through the process of turning prospects into clients.

Advice Systems Unveils AI-Driven Automated Personal Financial Advice Software

Advice Systems unveiled its flagship product, Intelligent Decision Tools (IDT). According to Ronald E. Newton, Advice Systems founder and CEO, the software will automate much of advisors’ information gathering from their clients.

E*TRADE Acquired By Morgan Stanley

Morgan Stanley and E*TRADE Financial Corporation have entered into a definitive agreement under which Morgan Stanley will acquire E*TRADE, a leading financial services company and pioneer in the online brokerage industry, in an all-stock transaction valued at approximately $13 billion. Under the terms of the agreement, E*TRADE stockholders will receive 1.0432 Morgan Stanley shares for each E*TRADE share, which represents per share consideration of $58.74 based on the closing price of Morgan Stanley common stock on February 19, 2020.

Fidelity Parent Spins Off Personal Financial Data API

To give consumers more control over their data, FMR LLC, the parent company of Fidelity Investments, announced the spin-off of Akoya as an independent company that will be jointly owned by Fidelity, The Clearing House Payments Co. and 11 of its member banks. Akoya operates a secure application programming interface-based network that acts as a bridge between financial institutions and data recipients, such as fintechs/data aggregators.

Marie Swift is president and CEO of Impact Communications