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The Future of Fintech Collaboration Defined by Data

Fintech providers and RIAs looked into the future and found that data is key to building a better business for advisors during a Wealth Management Industry Awards Technology Roundtable discussion.

Financial advisors need better tools to run better businesses. It’s really as simple as that … if only it were that simple. During a technology roundtable discussion at the Wealth Management Industry Awards last week, a group of technology providers and RIAs discussed how best to provide advisors with those tools.

From onboarding to cybersecurity to plain-old computer printouts, the needs of advisors—and their clients—vary from advisor to advisor. That makes it especially difficult for tech providers to create a one-size-fits-all tool for everyone.

“Ask any advisor; ask 10 advisors about technology, and you’ll get 11 opinions,” said Oleg Tishkevich, founder of Invent.us, a “cloud native” software development consulting company. “Every advisor has a very unique approach to how they do business.”

To combat that, instead of monolithic tech providers in the financial advisory space, there are many, generally, smaller ones that each service a niche aspect of an advisor’s business. Or, among those monoliths—think Envestnet—different types of additional technology are available via integrations for advisors to pick and choose the tools they need. The quality and depth of these integrations, most often using application programing interfaces (APIs), varies greatly and there is no standard for judging or comparing them.

To David Lau, CEO of DPL Financial Services, it’s really simple: “Technology platforms are built for advisory needs and what do advisors want and how can we help you do your job, and very little focus on the end consumer,” Lau said.

“In other industries, there's so much study into consumer behavior and how do consumers interact with this website and how do we get it more efficient? How do we drive efficiency and user experience? That doesn't really happen in financial services,” he said. “It's how can we focus on ourselves, do our job, and then we'll present the client what we want to present them, rather than, ‘let's talk to the clients. Let's get consumer feedback. Let's hear what they want.’”

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