4 Secrets of Successful RIA Rollups

Whether you call them RIA consolidators, aggregators or roll-ups, they are all fighting toward the same goal: keeping their advisors happy and growing their assets. Yet how they got their their current size and how they plan to keep growing is a story that often gets overlooked. Three successful RIA rollups recently appeared on stage […]
5 Reasons Why Banks Should Start Their Own RIAs

Twenty years ago, the majority of new accounts opened by banks were trust accounts, while only a small minority were advisory accounts. That has since flipped 180 degrees. Now, the majority of accounts are advisory, with only a small percentage being trust accounts. Yet, many bank wealth management groups still put all of their accounts onto […]
FundFire: 3 Reasons Most RIAs Are Unprepared for CyberSecurity Threats

This year has seen some of the most high profile hacking attacks in the Internet age. You would think that the near daily distribution of politicians’ emails would be enough to spur firms to increase their efforts to shore up their electronic defenses. But this has not been the case. While a recent study by the Financial Planning Association shows that cybersecurity […]
Advisor-Managed Portfolios Knocked Out by Home Office Performance – Cerulli

“I never attempt to make money on the stock market. I buy on the assumption that they could close the market the next day and not reopen it for five years.” — Warren Buffett, Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Warren Buffett is probably the best known investor on the planet and the high priest of […]
Too Digital to Fail: InVest 2015 Conference – Day 2 Summary

While the first day of the In|Vest 2015 Conference was devoted to startups and their potential to disrupt the traditional financial services landscape, day two turned the tables and gave the too-big-to-fail banks and other large wealth management firms a chance to show off their digital mojo and explain why they won’t be the ones to become disrupted. After […]
Can Client-Directed UMA’s Help Defend Against Robo-Advisors?

“Without change there is no innovation, creativity, or incentive for improvement. Those who initiate change will have a better opportunity to manage the change that is inevitable.” — William Pollard, Physicist The rate of change and innovation in the wealth management industry has been tremendous over the past few years. Technology-heavy, online registered investment advisors […]
Pershing Plans a Robo-Advisor White Label Product — Yip

The woman from the public relations had scheduled a meeting for me with Patrick Yip, Director of Advisory Market Technology Strategy at Pershing LLC. since we would both be at the Technology Tools for Today (T3) Conference in Dallas. Yip was looking to talk about some new technology initiatives undertaken by Pershing and their parent, the […]
What Robo Advisors Can Teach Us About Focusing on the Client

This is a summary of a TechOps Track Session titled, “Empowering Advisors: Delivering Tools that Support Today’s Client Needs” from the Money Management Institute’s 2014 Fall Solutions Conference. The discussion topic was supposed to be centered on how firms are delivering new advisor tools to help them customize solutions for different client segments. However, the […]