WP Wealthtech Summit 2021 | E176

How the wealth industry is adapting to technology and revolutionizing the future of advice.

Host, Jason Pereira, talks to panelists gathered at the WP Wealthtech Summit. The topic of discussion was “How the wealth industry is adapting to technology and revolutionizing the future of advice.” 

Episode Highlights:  

  • 1.18: Kendra Thompson is associated as a partner in Deloitte consulting practice. She leads the business called future of advice in investing, which focuses on what Canadian families care about as related to their investments? What are they willing to pay for? and How the industry is transforming to deliver that at a scale of profit?

  • 1.55: Joseph Lo, Vice President for Wealth Product Innovation for Broadridge. It is a global fintech company focused on Artificial Intelligence (AI) to make the wealth management lifecycle better.

  • 2.05: Robert Smuk, President & CEO, Agora Dealer Services Corp. It is a B2B trading dealer created to help advisors and dealerships provide advice to all of their clients.

  • 2.33: Tom Burmeister, Vice President of Financial Planning with Naviplan and now happy to be a part of the InvestCloud family. 

  • 2.55: Jason’s first question is, “As per your experience in the fintech world, what is the most troubling trend you see happening and what are risks and opportunities coming from that?”

  • 3.25: Tom talks about e-based models that are getting more focus. The risk with that is – it is a massive change.

  • 4.13: Robert says the trend he sees right now is the client’s desire to have everything at their fingertips. “The financial services industry has been behind other industries, and our clients are now expecting what they get from other industries to be from this industry, and it is a real risk if we don’t move further.”

  • 5.12: Joseph says we need to be more open and have more APIs that enable prime ecosystems to provide choice for advisors and can use to provide the service need for clients.

  • 5.35: Kendra says she sees an acceleration in the pace of modernization and feels out differently whether you are sitting with regulators and the challenges they are going to have to deal with innovation and simplification.

  • 7.25: Jason says that the focus of fintech is often on the investment side. He inquires, “How do you see technology is used to support other areas of financial planning?”

  • 7.48: Kendra says we focus a considerable amount of our energy on the front end of value change, and that’s where a lot of noise and energy around fintech is heard.

  • 09.05: Joseph says the definition of advice is so much beyond investments now whether the advice is helping clients landing their insurance. 

  • 9.50: Robert says if we think about the expectations and if we think about the advisor’s ability to provide that meaningful advice, then, in that case, pieces of advice are much broader scope than it was in the past. You need to spend more time with the client and understand them.

  • 11.14: Jason says if you want to maintain margin, you don’t do that on the volume; you maintain base margin with volume. If you want to maintain margin, you have to be deep in that offering.

  • 12.04: Tom says we expect technology to come and transform. We need to work with stats, partners, and everybody else to make sure that when onboarding a client, we should personalize to what that client needs so that they can scale across the rest of your client base efficiently.

  • 12.20: Jason asks “How fintech influences vital space in traditional channels called banker and independent channels?”

  • 13.44: Robert says technology is at a point where the challenge in human nature is resistance to change. As people are willing to make several changes and we need to modernize our business, and so the role of fintech continues to guide us.

  • 14.16: Joseph agrees with Robert that advisors need to have a blueprint for what technology they introduce. He says fintech influence for independence is hunger for aggregation.

  • 15.45: Kendra says the most significant shift she sees, should benefit the independence is essentially recontamination of neighbor’s end from the outside.

  • 17.36: Kendra says for bank’s big challenge will be, they have a month of a merger of everything, and so for that, it must be like an internal merger about their platform and bringing all that to a single platform.

  • 18.48: Jason asks what should be the first step in terms of digitization? Joseph says the first step should be to focus on the things that are taking up the time you want to do, and secondly is really streamlining the conversations you have with clients and digitizing them.

  • 19.35: Robert says you need to understand your client’s willingness to do and willing to use.

  • 21.05: Tom affirms “You should always start with the process first, not necessarily what gets technology in reforms over process around that. You have to do several book works to find out techniques which can help you to make better from better you are.”

  • 21.30: Kendra says she will highly encourage the identification of the right partner. Added to that she will encourage a small group of individuals not to over customize any out-of-the-box technology.

  • 23.30: Jason asks What is the biggest issue in providing advice to clients in the mass market? What trends are you seeing in addressing this issue?”

  • 23.50: Tom says digitizing onboarding is the biggest battle in scaling advice and finding all the tasks.

  • 24.13: Robert says once you digitize how many systems are out there that need to go, and we are willing to accept it. Digitize it upfront first and figure out how to float it everywhere that needs to float.

  • 24.56: Joseph agrees with Robert that getting systems talking together is the expectation for the next generation. 

  • 25.31: Kendra does not agree to everything. She says, “When we think about scaling advice, we have to think about challenging the paradigm. You either get advice or you don’t.”

  • 30.48: The panelists talk about the most exciting and innovative technologies they have seen in the last 12 months.

  • 31.02: Robert talks about the “unified platform”; he has not seen it in Canada. Joseph is impressed by the AI-enabled search engine launched by “The Tifin Group.”

  • 32.34: Kendra votes for what Merrill Lynch’s digital team has done. She is really impressed by their latest launch, “Fully Digital On-boarding”. 

  • 33.21: Tom reiterates that technology is allowing us to get access to mainstream fashion. 

 

3 Key Points: 

  1. Today’s panelists are Tom Burmeister (VP of Financial Planning, NaviPlan by InvestCloud), Robert Smuk (President & CEO, Agora Dealer Services Corp), Kendra Thompson (Partner, National Wealth & Investment Management Leader, Deloitte Canada), Joseph Lo (VP Wealth Innovation, Broadridge).

  2. The panelist shares their views on the troubling trend that they see happening and what are the risks coming from that?”

  3. The wealthtech innovators talk about opportunities and unveil trends that are shaping the future of the wealth industry. They discuss the latest technology trends and how to incorporate a digital experience to accelerate business.

 

Tweetable Quotes:

  • “Clients are more tech-savvy than it ever been” – Robert Smuk

  • “Technology enables to open eco systems” – Joseph Lo

  • “It is easier to consume the trend and the changes that are closest to our own experiences” - Kendra Thompson

  • “Investment is just one slice of what we see” – Joseph Lo

  • “Technology is thought of equation of being successful in future” – Tom Burmeister

  • “Vendor space is really getting better” – Kendra Thompson

Resources Mentioned:

Fintech ImpactJason PereiraFintech