“We think of it as a big asset acquisition funnel that starts in the workplace or the self-directed investor on the E*TRADE platform, but ultimately is designed to end up in a full-service advice relationship,” Finn said.

Morgan Stanley is executing its multi-year technology plan with tax management at the core. They want to deliver the sizeable net gains Vanguard referenced—“up to 3%” per year”—using a variety of risk and tax-smart strategies, including LifeYield’s multi-account optimization methodology to provide comprehensive tax alpha. And they have gone further with Intelligent Withdrawals—an industry first—that maximizes income across multiple accounts.

Empower/Personal Capital Bets On The Workplace And Fintech
Workplace retirement company Empower has made some bold moves by acquiring Personal Capital and recordkeepers like MassMutual, Prudential, and many others to become the second-largest retirement plan provider behind Fidelity.

It’s a powerful example of how strategy, acquisitions, and execution create results:

• Retirement plan participants benefit from using Personal Capital and Empower’s suite of digital tools.

• Their advisors, plus many non-affiliated retirement plan advisors, are enabled to help participants with rollovers, taxable assets, and long-term financial concerns.

Ed Murphy, the CEO, is rightly proud of Empower’s strong value proposition and performance. He said surveys show their “user experience is viewed as simple, elegant, intuitive, outcome-oriented—all things customers want.”

“During our due diligence, we learned Personal Capital customers engaged 17 times a month with their advisor, on the web, or the app,” Murphy said. “Imagine if we could drive real transformational change around engagement as an industry, what the results could be. Wow.”

This is excerpted from an interview with Ed for my WealthTech on Deck podcast. Click here to be alerted when it’s available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Edward Jones: Where EQ Meets Financial IQ
Edward Jones is noted for its commitment to clients, and training advisors, who are in 68% of the nation’s counties. They have invested heavily in research and tech, spending $1 billion in 2022 and shaping how advisors can work more effectively with clients.

Ken Cella leads the branch system and calls this “human-centered, complete wealth management.” It’s based on work with The Harris Poll and gerontologist and Age Wave founder and CEO Ken Dychtwald, Ph.D. (for more Age Wave insights, go to edwardjones.com/newretirement.)

The research shows longevity combined with experience and recent events created four pillars of the new retirement: family, health, purpose, and finances. All are essential to well-being in retirement. All belong in conversations their advisors are encouraged to have with clients.

In a joint podcast interview with Cella, Dychtwald said the research found: “What mattered most to respondents was their health, the people they love and having some sense of purpose in one's life. Many boomers view this as a new chapter in life. That’s a different discussion than the average advisor is accustomed to having with clients.”

Edward Jones is working with Envestnet|MoneyGuide and other tech companies to arm its nearly 19,000 advisors with tools to help clients achieve their goals by maximizing retirement. Advisors are being trained in emotional intelligence (EQ) and tools that coordinate financial planning, tax-smart and risk-smart accumulation and retirement income.