March 2023 Riskalyze Fintech Five

Here is your Riskalyze Fintech Five for March, a focused take on what we think are the recent top five stories in wealth management technology.

Another Banner T3 Conference

Recent bank failures and ongoing market volatility couldn’t put a damper on this year’s T3 Conference, held in Tampa, Florida in early March.

Joel Bruckenstein and his team never disappoint, and this year’s event brought the goods again. The conference saw nearly 100 leading wealth tech companies come together to talk about the latest ways we’re innovating for financial advisors and their clients.

We also saw the release of the annual T3/Inside Information Advisor Software Survey, and everyone here at Riskalyze is thrilled to have our growth platform gain market share across all four segments where they included us.

T3 was an amazing kickoff to the 2023 conference season, and you can be sure you’ll see us there again next year.

ChatGPT Meets Advice Tech

Well, we may not have seen a SkyNet takeover when robo-advisors jumped on the scene, but the machines aren’t done with us yet.

The Advent of ChatGPT has advisors buzzing, with 33% saying in a recent survey that AI is the “most disruptive technology trend” facing our industry today.

Fintech providers are rushing to incorporate the technology–with perhaps the most intriguing application being how FMG announced its new AI-powered content personalization engine, and Redtail’s Brian McLaughlin sharing that he’s working on adding those capabilities to Redtail Speak.

A lot of advisors have asked my opinion on the technology, and I see language models like ChatGPT as the equivalent of a calculator in math class–it’s what Steve Jobs called a “bicycle for the mind.”

Sure, it can be used to cheat on tests, or pretend that you are doing work when you are not. Every piece of technology that transforms the world around us also gets misused from time to time.

Advisors and wealth management firms should be leaning in to leveraging these capabilities, not ignore them. The ones that do that will position themselves best in this brave new world.

Altruist Acquisition of SSG

There might not be another advisor technology team making more waves than Altruist right now.

Just weeks after announcing the launch of their own self-clearing platform, founder Jason Wenk dramatically shifted the custodial landscape with the acquisition of Shareholders Services Group.

The move adds 1,600 advisors and doubles the number of RIAs that Altruist services, but most importantly, it vaults it all the way to the No. 3 place among RIA custodians, right behind Schwab and Fidelity.

As the Schwab and TD Ameritrade merger nears its final months, this is a bold move by Wenk to best position his firm with the service and technology it needs to compete for advisors who are considering their custody options.

Comment Period Reopened For SEC Cybersecurity Rule

One of the key themes heard at this year’s TE conference was about the necessity of improving cybersecurity among advisory firms, and the SEC seems to agree.

They’ve reopened the comment period for a proposed cybersecurity rule that would require advisors to create policies and procedures to protect client information in the event of a breach, and to disclose incidents with updates to their Form ADVs.

This rule was originally proposed over a full year ago, and a main concern expressed is in the rule’s mandate that any significant cybersecurity events would need to be reported to the SEC within 48 hours–a timeline that might be too burdensome for some RIAs.

Regardless of how this rule shakes out, it’s clear that compliance is only getting more complicated.

The best way to navigate changes like this is to leverage technology that creates a unified compliance process and can give compliance teams the scale they need to efficiently identify and resolve issues, so firms can stay compliant and keep their client data safe.

Jolt is Back

We’ll close out today’s video with a look ahead. Martech innovator Snappy Kraken is closing in on the second annual Jolt Conference.

Taking place at The Aria Resort in Las Vegas in early May, Jolt brings a unique experience to the industry with a focus on bringing together the best marketing minds in finance to help advisors grow their firms with creative marketing practices.

The speakers list covers everything from digitally savvy advisors like Thomas Kopelman, to PR veterans like Jason Lahita of StreetCred, to award-winning entrepreneurs like Brittany Hodak.

And, I’m looking forward to speaking there as well.

It’s sure to be a great time, but you don’t have much time left to register. Head over to JoltConference.com to snag your ticket before registration closes.