For a platform that can deliver tailored service to select clients, even RIAs are willing to invest in digital advice. With its focus on the high-net-worth client through multistrategy management, InvestmentPOD set out to distinguish its white labeled platform for advisors from automated passive, buy-and-hold offerings. Jacqueline Ko Matthews, CEO and co-founder of InvestmentPOD, now has the backing of three prominent advisory firms attached to ScratchWorks, an advisor tech accelerator:...

Charles Schwab dropped a plan for multicustodial platform for its portfolio management offering, PortfolioConnect, and announced it would increase its investment in building third-party integrations. Chief to benefit from the decision are Schwab advisors, who will ultimately gain more technology choices through a strengthened application programming interface infrastructure. It also opens up new growth opportunities for competing software providers jockeying for space on the advisor’s...

August and early September have been a busy time for executive hiring and promotions at banks of all sizes. A major bank has a new chief financial officer, two other big banks named new chief risk officers, and two holding companies announced new CEOs of their banking units. A telecom executive was named the human resources chief of a large bank, and two other banks promoted leadership from within. The Federal Reserve, too, will be looking to fill a key position after the central bank's...

Facet Wealth, an up-and-coming digital wealth management platform, landed $33 million in funding with the premise of providing holistic, personalized financial advice to the mass affluent. Unique to its growth model is that Facet Wealth acquires small clients from RIA firms, with the promise that if those clients reach over $1 million in assets, the firm will offer to move them back to the advisor. “We want to be seen as a partner to the industry, not as a competitor,” says Anders Jones, CEO...

More in Why have wealth management firms struggled to simplify the advisor and investor experience? ANDREW SALESKY: There’s a lot of reasons why financial services hasn’t gotten there. It’s an inherently complicated process; trust is paramount, it’s highly regulated, there’s legacy technology. There’s all these reasons we can say why it hasn’t happened, but that can’t be an excuse. The last best experience is what the client is expecting going forward and we’ve got to make things incredibly...