Happy Thursday!

Today we highlight the following —

1. NORTH AMERICA: Goldman Custody Business Gains Steam With $1B Add From Prime Capital

2. EMEA: Smart Raises $95MM In Series E Funding

3. GEOGRAPHIC NEWS CURATION

An update on format — we are working to consolidate our coverage of the digital investing industry with other innovations in global financial services. To that end, we are likely to integrate the digital wealth takes with coverage of digital banking, lending, and payments to create a holistic view of how automation is transforming the sector. You will see an updated Short Takes that incorporates this approach.

Everything crypto and Web3 will be separated into a dedicated email, so for those of you focused fully on digital transformation but not digital assets, you should still be able to focus on your topic of interest.

As always, leave a comment below with a company of your interest and we’ll do a deeper take on it later!

Leave a comment

⭐🇺🇸 Goldman Custody Business Gains Steam With $1B Add From Prime Capital - InvestmentNews, May 17, New York

Goldman’s restructuring last year pointed to the rising importance of the Wealth and Asset management business over things like neobanks and lending. Custody for independents RIAs and money management shops, offered by Goldman Sachs Advisor Solutions, is in line with that direction.

This is a larger offensive chess move for recurring revenue in a volatile market, competing with companies like Schwab, Fidelity, TD Ameritrade, and Pershing. According to a 2020 report, these 4 custodians own ~80% of the RIA market.

A key step was an acquisition of Folio Investing in 2020, an online custodian with $11B in AUM. Now, we see Prime Capital choosing to bring in another $1B. The deal gives Goldman access to Prime Capital's $20B in AUM, but also signals that the firm is making a concerted effort to reach the RIA market. Of course Goldman also has $220B in AUM across its own advisors, as well as manufacturing a variety of proprietary funds.

It may appear that Goldman had somewhat of an identity crisis, first leaning into being a tech firm, and now emphasizing the wealth business. Rather, we think that the firm has done a good job of picking strategic direction, and then clarifying its path once more information became available with a nimbleness rarely available to large Wall Street banks. Only time will tell whether this effort becomes another Marcus, or builds to the company’s existing strengths. In all cases, we like seeing increased competition for RIA assets as independents have gotten bought out.

⭐🇬🇧 Smart Raises $95MM In Series E Funding - Businesswire, May 15, London

UK-based retirement tech platform Smart announced a round of $95MM to power its global expansion, bringing the company’s total funds raised to ~$400MM. The investment was led by Aquiline Capital Partners LLC with participation from Chrysalis Investments, Fidelity International Strategic Ventures, DWS, Barclays and Natixis Investment Managers.

Despite the contraction in fintech multiples, it is encouraging to see checks of this size in digital investing, as evidenced by our recent coverage of Altruist’s latest $112MM raise. Even during a difficult fundraising environment, investor activity remains active and resilient.

Smart is currently used by 70,000+ employers and has served over 1 million people in retirement planning through their enterprise cloud pension platform, Keystone, which claims to have $5B in AUM — a 2,000%+ increase since 2018. Much of this success can be attributed to UK pension reform, requiring employers to auto-enroll employees into workplace pensions. UK rules dictate that there must be an annual minimum contribution of 8% of qualified earnings between employers and employees.

If you’ve had multiple jobs, it could be hard to keep track of all the different pension providers, which is where Smart’s platform comes into play. In addition to being a provider for employers to meet auto-enrollment mandates, Keystone serves as a digital pension aggregator. Pensions can be a conservative industry, yet the total addressable market is $57T. Big data, analytics, and artificial intelligence will continue to push this space forward as it transitions to cloud-native, live data sets and away from legacy systems. We like that Smart combines digital interfaces with payroll integration, and expect that to be a strong competitive position.

Curated News

North America News

⭐🇺🇸 YCharts And Orion Release Integration Enhancement - Businesswire, May 16, Illinois

🇺🇸 Wealthtech Yield App Partners With Volt To Boost Crypto - Private Banker International, May 17, California

🇺🇸 TIFIN Wealth To Support The Growth Of Smaller Financial Advisors By Offering Its Personalized Investment Platform To NAPFA-Aligned Advisors At No Cost - PR Newswire, May 11, New York

🇺🇸 Wealthtech Groundfloor Is Recognized Again As One Of Atlanta's Fastest Growing Private Companies - PR Newswire, May 11, Georgia

EMEA News

🇬🇧 GBST Extends Strategic Partnership With Novia Global - Fintech Global, May 16, London

🇬🇧 London Real Ventures Invests In Swissborg, A Pioneering Wealth Management Platform Utilizing Blockchain Technology - Cryptoslate, May 5, London

🇬🇧 Investment Platform Joins Forces With Wealth Tech Firm - International Adviser, May 16, London

🇳🇬 4 Wealthtech Platforms Shaping The Financial Ecosystem In Nigeria - IBS Intelligence, May 17, Lagos

Asia Pacific News

⭐🇭🇰 Moomoo Expands Into Malaysia Following Success In Singapore - Hubbis, May 18, Hong Kong

🇵🇭 BPI Wealth Cuts Minimum Investment For Its UITFs - Business World, May 17, Makati

Blogs, Webinars, Podcasts

🇺🇸 Amid Shifting Market Dynamics, How Can Wealth Managers Create Value? - Tearsheet, May 17, New York

🇬🇧 European Wealth Management: Tech Race Is Driving Competition - Private Banker International, May 15, London

🇺🇸 Crypto ETFs Are Year’s Best Performers But Only Lure $12MM - Wealthmanagement.Com, May 15, New York

🇺🇸 The Arrival Of AI And ChatGPT In Wealth Management - Medium, May 17, California

🇺🇸 Crystal Capital Partners' Spring Survey Indicates Investment Caliber 'Key' for Financial Advisors - PR Newswire, May 11, Florida

Events & Reports

🇺🇸 Broadridge - U.S. Investor Study - Broadridge Financial Solutions, May 15, New York

🇺🇸 Broadridge Finds Increased ‘Democratization’ In Discretionary Investing - PlanAdviser

🇺🇸 Wealth Management Edge - Informa Connect, May 21 - 24, Florida

🇺🇸 Finovate Spring - Informa Connect, May 23 - 25, California

🇬🇧 Innovation In Wealth Management - Professional Wealth Management, June 8, London

🇬🇧Private Banking & Wealth Management London Conference & Awards 2023 - Arena International, June 14, London

Shape your Future

Wondering what’s shaping the future of wealthtech, Fintech, and DeFi? 

At the Fintech Blueprint, we go down the rabbit hole in the DeFi and Fintech industries to help you make better investment decisions, innovate, and compete in the industry. Subscribe now to level up your knowledge and get access to our weekly Long Takes!

Subscribe now

• Read our Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.

• Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Daniel, Daniella

• Want to discuss? Stop by our Discord and or reach out here anytime. Leave a comment below on what you think and what we should cover next.

  Leave a comment

North America News

⭐🇺🇸 Orion Advisor Technology Goes Live with Industry’s First ChatGPT Integration - Businesswire, May 10, Nebraska

The Redtail Speak application started out as a way for advisors to compliantly message clients, and is now being extended through an integration with ChatGPT. We expect that all chat interfaces in customer service are about to level up their capability for empathy and creativity using machine intelligence. This is why our Long Take this week is this —

🇺🇸 Tema, Backed by Index, Accel and Zinal, Expands Access to Innovative Investment Themes Through Launch of Active ETF Platform - Businesswire, May 8, New York

🇺🇸 Talos Snaps Up D3X Systems To Widen Pre-trade Capabilities - Fintech Global, May 10, New York

🇺🇸 Wealthfront Raises Account Yield To 4.55% After Fed’s Rate Hike - Forbes, May 5, California

🇺🇸 BrickMark Group Announces Strategic Partnership With PreIPO.com To Expand Access To Tokenized Real Estate - Yahoo Finance, May 9, Florida

EMEA News

⭐🇨🇭 Temenos Adds New Advisory Features To Its Digital Wealth Solution - Fintech News, May 10, Geneva

Temenos is one of the world’s largest banking technology providers. While in the US, banking and investent management infrastructure is separate, in other parts of the world such software is part of the same package. We are interested in this joint model, and to see if Temenos can get to the same level of scale in digital wealth.

🇬🇧 Evooq and Titanbay Announce Private Markets Partnership for Private Banks and Wealth Managers - Yahoo Finance, May 10, London

🇧🇪 Accuro Goes Live With Objectway’s Investment Management Service Solution For Private Clients - Businesswire, May 11, Brussels

🇬🇧 Twenty7tec Releases New Digital Marketing Platform For Mortgage, Wealth And Protection Advisers - Finextra, May 10, Bournemouth

Asia Pacific News

⭐🇮🇳 Fintech Startup Fisdom Plans To Launch Portfolio Management Services - The Economic Times, May 9, Bengaluru

Blogs, Webinars, Podcasts

🇺🇸 Key Data Trends Driving Success For Wealthtech Startups - Venture Beat, May 8, California

🇬🇧 European Wealthtech Seed Deal Activity Drops 23% YoY In Q1 2023 - Fintech Global, May 10, London

🇺🇸 32% Of Home Offices Invest In Digital Assets: Goldman Sachs - Investing, May 9, New York

Events & Reports

⭐ 🇸🇬 Endowus Wealth Insights Report 2023 - Endowus, May 10, Singapore

Check out the report to understand the curent economic views across generations in Singapore and Hong Kong.

🇺🇸 Wealth Management Edge - Informa Connect, May 21 - 24, Florida

🇺🇸 Finovate Spring - Informa Connect, May 23 - 25, California

🇬🇧 Innovation In Wealth Management - Professional Wealth Management, June 8, London

🇬🇧Private Banking & Wealth Management London Conference & Awards 2023 - Arena International, June 14, London

Shape your Future

Wondering what’s shaping the future of wealthtech, Fintech, and DeFi? 

At the Fintech Blueprint, we go down the rabbit hole in the DeFi and Fintech industries to help you make better investment decisions, innovate, and compete in the industry. Subscribe now to level up your knowledge and get access to our weekly Long Takes!

Subscribe now

• Read our Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.

• Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Daniel, Daniella

• Want to discuss? Stop by our Discord and or reach out here anytime. Leave a comment below on what you think and what we should cover next.

Leave a comment

Happy Thursday! Today we highlight the following —

1. NORTH AMERICA: Range Raises $12MM Series A Led By Gradient, Google's AI Fund, To Revolutionize Wealth Management

2. APAC: GBST Acquires WealthConnect

3. GEOGRAPHIC NEWS CURATION

Based on your feedback, we know that many of you are interested in reviews of companies or projects highlighted by our community. Leave a comment below with a company of your interest and we’ll do a deeper take on it later!

Leave a comment

Let’s Meet!

As a member of the Fintech Blueprint community, you are invited to our first-ever, in-person gathering with free drinks and live entertainment!

Join me (Lex) and other Fintech Blueprint team members at the Edison Ballroom in NYC on May 11 at 5:30pm to celebrate our partnership with Fintech Nexus.

RSVP Here

⭐🇺🇸 Range Raises $12MM Series A Led By Gradient, Google's AI Fund, To Revolutionize Wealth Management - PR Newswire, May 3, Virginia

Range has raised $12MM in a Series A funding round led by Google's AI-focused venture fund Gradient, with participation from Expa, Red Sea Ventures, and 8-bit Capital. The fintech is an evolution of the roboadvisor genre, planning to use AI to make human financial planners obsolete. While earlier startups focused on deterministic rules in investment management or financial planning software, new wealthtechs can play the same game while targeting the human touch of the financial advisor using LLMs.

The company’s investment planning service comes with a team of expert financial planners who provide portfolio analysis and investment recommendations. While each customer is currently assigned a human advisor, the company is leveraging its advisor knowledge and customer data to train AI/ML models that will eventually augment and replace those human advisors.

The standard investment management service generates portfolios for the usual 0.25% annual fee. The company's other offerings extend to tax, retirement, estate, insurance optimization, and education planning — an expensive set of feature for a single start-up to deliver. For context, the roboadvisor Wealthfront had secured $200MM+ in funding solely dedicated to investment management. Although complete AI model integration holds promise, achieving this will require far more scale and cost. We wonder what the MVP looks like.

Range is also competing against a wave of legacy and startup wealth management companies incorporating AI. One noteworthy example is Morgan Stanley, which made headlines in March when it announced that it would leverage GPT4 and feed its research data to provide AI-powered financial advice via its 16,000 advisors. Further, while favoring digital channels, younger customers still value human interactions for complex decisions. This preference has led to hybrid engagement models that blend AI-powered guidance with a human touch.

The question remains: will this preference persist if AI-powered advice becomes 2x or 3x, or even 5x cheaper? We think LLMs have the potential to match human empathy and experience, if not surpass it.

⭐🇦🇺 GBST Acquires WealthConnect - Finextra, May 2, Sydney

Sydney-based wealthtech GBST is acquiring wealth CRM platform WealthConnect, based on Salesforce, for an undisclosed amount. Previously, WealthConnect served as the flagship product of the now-defunct fintech CreativeMass, so we wonder if this is a distressed tech acquisition. It's been a tough year for tech companies, and the troubled state of the financial markets has been unforgiving. Compressed valuations have reduced risk appetite, and this is further amplified among young fintechs.

The acquisition comes shortly after GBST's March announcement of a complete rebrand that included updates to its existing cloud-native SaaS wealth administration platform, Composer. For context, as of Feb 2022, the Composer platform had £180B in AUM with 3MM+ active accounts.

GBST's current tech stack provides clients with a suite of services designed to streamline the administration of wealth products from the distribution channel through to the back office with its tools Composer and Catalyst. Other digital tools like Equate allow advisors to leverage GBST's built-in models/calculators that can be white-labeled on their own sites to create "what-if" scenarios for a more personalized customer experience and enable better lead generation. WealthConnect's CRM platform is built on Salesforce, which is particularly suited to large enterprise clients.

Though we've begun to see a consolidation of providers, the battle to differentiate between platform tech providers and advice tech (like CRMs) has not changed much. It's a competitive and fragmented market, leading to a frustrating experience for both the advisors and the customer. Additionally, the pool of quality advice tech platforms ready to be acquired is still relatively shallow, which we think is a function of wealth management market structure.

Curated News

North America News

🇺🇸 Deal Box Announces Integration With Fireblocks To Increase Security And Reliability For Digital Asset Management - PR Newswire, May 3, California

🇺🇸 Bunker Taps InvestCloud To Launch Digital Investment Platform In LatAm - Fintech Futures, April 28, California

🇺🇸 Envestnet Introduces Product Updates, New Partnerships At Annual Conference - Investment News, April 28, Pennsylvania

🇺🇸 Technology Problems at Envestnet Frustrate Advisors - WealthManagement, May 1, New York

EMEA News

🇬🇧 Wealth Intelligence Platform 1fs Wealth Secures Backing - Fintech Global, May 2, London

🇳🇴 Huddlestock Signs First Family Office To Use The Portfolio Management Platform - Huddlestock Fintech AS, May 3, Stavanger

🇦🇪 Property Tech Platform Stake Offers Golden Visas To Investors - Zawya, May 2, Dubai

🇦🇪 MEA-Focused Pyypl Rolls Out Micro-Investment Platform - Zawya, May 3, Abu Dhabi

🇦🇪 xCube Launches Retail Trading Platform In The UAE - Finextra, May 2, Dubai

Asia Pacific News

🇯🇵 Webull Expands To Japan - PR Newswire, April 27, Tokyo

🇮🇳 CoinSwitch To Diversify Into Wealthtech Platform In FY24 - Financial Express, April 28, Bengaluru

Blogs, Webinars, Podcasts

🇬🇧 Oxford Risk Predicts M&A Rise In UK Wealth Industry - 

Wealth Briefing, May 3, London

🇭🇰 Syfe’s Founder & CEO On Elevating & Scaling The Digital Investment Platform And Offering - Hubbis, May 4, Hong Kong

🇨🇭 The Rise Of The Retail Investor Continues – Here’s How The Financial System Can Accommodate Them - World Economic Forum, May 2, Cologny

Events & Reports

🇺🇸 Fintech Nexus USA - Fintech Nexus, May 10 - 11, New York

🇺🇸 Wealth Management Edge - Informa Connect, May 21 - 24, Florida

🇺🇸 Finovate Spring - Informa Connect, May 23 - 25, California

🇬🇧 Innovation In Wealth Management - Professional Wealth Management, June 8, London

🇬🇧Private Banking & Wealth Management London Conference & Awards 2023 - Arena International, June 14, London

Shape your Future

Wondering what’s shaping the future of wealthtech, Fintech, and DeFi? 

At the Fintech Blueprint, we go down the rabbit hole in the DeFi and Fintech industries to help you make better investment decisions, innovate, and compete in the industry. Subscribe now to level up your knowledge and get access to our weekly Long Takes!

Subscribe now

• Read our Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.

• Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Daniel, Daniella

• Want to discuss? Stop by our Discord and or reach out here anytime. Leave a comment below on what you think and what we should cover next.

  Leave a comment

Happy Thursday! Today we highlight the following —

1. NORTH AMERICA: Galaxy Digital to Develop European-Listed ETPs With Asset Manager DWS

2. EMEA: A First-Of-Its-Kind Partnership Between Syfe And PIMCO To Offer Fixed Income Portfolios

3. GEOGRAPHIC NEWS CURATION

Based on your feedback, we know that many of you are interested in reviews of companies or projects highlighted by our community. Leave a comment below with a company of your interest and we’ll do a deeper take on it later!

Leave a comment

Digital Wealth Short Takes

⭐🇺🇸 Galaxy Digital to Develop European-Listed ETPs With Asset Manager DWS - CoinDesk, April 26, New York

Blockchain investment bank Galaxy Digital and German asset manager DWS, which has $900B+ in AUM, are working together to release several exchange-traded products (ETPs) on digital assets, which will be accessible via traditional brokerage accounts. 

For context, Galaxy's asset management unit is split into Fund Management, which has $2.4B in AUM and offers crypto and blockchain exposure spanning passive and active strategies, and Galaxy Interactive, which focuses on gaming and metaverse venture investments. The Passive Funds include Bitcoin, Ethereum, and a Crypto Index strategy. The Galaxy Ethereum Funds, for example, invest directly in Ether and are priced based on the Bloomberg Galaxy Ethereum Index.  

The Galaxy Active funds, like the Liquid Alpha Fund, also focuses on blockchain and crypto. It requires a minimum investment of $1MM and has an investment process incorporating Macro, Fundamental, and Quantitative factors. For fundamental analysis, Galaxy looks at protocols, tokenomics, and their "relative value." Quantitative models use statistical analysis, and potentially machine learning (deep learning, neural networks), to execute asset selection. However, many traditional statistical methods apply poorly to the crypto markets given short data histories and unrealistic assumptions.

Active investment strategies in crypto can capture market inefficiencies in spot, derivative, and DeFi markets. The Efficient Market Hypothesis has not yet sunk its economic truths into the space, given that memetic and sentiment-driven models tend to be more profitable. Galaxy points to more fundamental progress —

"As crypto markets mature, sub-sectors and tangible use-cases will continue emerging. When paired with lower intra-asset correlations, we now have a ripe environment for more thesis-driven, fundamental, or complex trading and investment strategies to drive alpha."

Unfortunately, intra-asset correlations have only increased since 2022 given the macro-environment.

That said, this story is about distribution. Putting crypto products in traditional ETP wrappers will grow investment flows. With the relative collapse of DCG and the political obstructionism of the SEC, there is a gap for traditionally accessible product. Even though it is inefficient, it is perhaps necessary.

⭐🇸🇬 A First-Of-Its-Kind Partnership Between Syfe And PIMCO To Offer Fixed Income Portfolios - PR Newswire, April 26, Singapore

Singapore-based digital wealth manager Syfe has a suite of regulated investment products, which includes trading and wealth management, and over 100,000 customers. The company has raised $50MM+ to date (the latest round in 2021) and has been aggressive with its geographic expansion. It is also now offering fixed-income products through a partnership with PIMCO. The new offering, Syfe Income+, will allow investors to select between two income allocation strategies, Income+ Preserve and Income+ Enhance, with expected yields of of 4% to 6%.

The backdrop of a high-rate environment and global macro uncertainties has created favorable conditions for fixed-income products, so Syfe’s timing makes sense — all roboadvisors, neobanks, and payments apps are rushing to offer nominal interest rate returns. The appetite for yield among investors remains high, with a risk-free rate of ~5% achieved through US short-term treasuries.

Singapore is an attractive place for foreign investment, with a wealth management sector full of tech-savvy consumers embracing digital investing solutions. The common thread that underpins the digital wealth space is a customer-centric interface, digital distribution channels, the flexibility to personalize the customer investing journey, and a basket of products at a fraction of the cost of traditional institutions with easy access to liquidity. Competitors include Endowus, StashAway, Bambu, and Kristal.AI, all doing something similar.

A recent EY survey revealed that among wealth management clients in Singapore, ~70% want to move money to another provider. While Singaporean interest in investing remains strong, 56% require more support and education to direct their investment decisions, citing that current platforms do not provide enough insights and quality content. Robots will help.

Curated News

North America News

⭐ 🇺🇸 Franklin Templeton Money Market Fund Launches On Polygon Blockchain - Businesswire, April 26, California

🇺🇸 Farther Surpasses $675MM AUM As Digitally Native RIAs Gain Traction - Investment News, April 20, New York

🇺🇸 iCapital® Launches Structured Investments Through The Envestnet Platform - Businesswire, April 25, New York

🇨🇦 CapIntel Announces Strategic Partnership with SEI - Businesswire, April 25, Toronto

🇺🇸 Morningstar Wealth Introduces Portfolio Analytics Enrichment From ByAllAccounts - PR Newswire, April 26, Illinois

🇺🇸 First Rate Acquires Wealth Management Platform And Partners For Compliance - PR Newswire, April 26, Texas

🇺🇸 Wealthtech  Crossover Plotify Raises $12.5MM In Equity Financing - PR Newswire, April 20, New York

EMEA News

🇩🇪 Wealthtech LIQID Launches LIQID Income Strategy And LIQID Smart Start - The Paypers, April 21, Berlin

🇬🇧 Platform One Acquires FCA-Restricted SIPP Provider - Financial Times, April 26, London

🇬🇧 Regtech SteelEye Partners With Wealthtech Company Enfusion - Fintech Global, April 26, London

🇳🇴 Infront Doubles Down On WealthTech - Finextra, April 20, Oslo

Asia Pacific News

🇸🇬 StashAway Launches The First Cash Management Portfolio With Guaranteed Returns - Hubbis, April 25, Singapore

🇭🇰 Endowus Launches Hong Kong Digital Wealth Services - Finews Asia, April 26, Hong Kong

Blogs, Webinars, Podcasts

🇭🇰 Asia-Pacific Investors More Likely To Switch Wealth Managers, EY Survey Finds - Financial Times, April 24, Hong Kong

🇬🇧 Europe’s Digital Investment Platforms Raise ETF Demand - Financial Times, April 24, London

🇭🇰 The Rise of Digital Wealth Management in the Growth Markets of ASEAN - Hubbis, April 24, Hong Kong

Events & Reports

⭐ 🇬🇧 2023 Global Wealth Research Report - Ernst & Young, April 24, London

⭐ 🇺🇸 Fintech Nexus USA - Fintech Nexus, May 10 - 11, New York

🇺🇸 Wealth Management Edge - Informa Connect, May 21 - 24, Florida

🇺🇸 Finovate Spring - Informa Connect, May 23 - 25, California

🇬🇧 Innovation In Wealth Management - Professional Wealth Management, June 8, London

🇬🇧Private Banking & Wealth Management London Conference & Awards 2023 - Arena International, June 14, London

Shape your Future

Wondering what’s shaping the future of wealthtech, Fintech, and DeFi? 

At the Fintech Blueprint, we go down the rabbit hole in the DeFi and Fintech industries to help you make better investment decisions, innovate, and compete in the industry. Subscribe now to level up your knowledge and get access to our weekly Long Takes!

Subscribe now

• Read our Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.

• Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Daniel, Daniella

• Want to discuss? Stop by our Discord and or reach out here anytime. Leave a comment below on what you think and what we should cover next.

  Leave a comment

Happy Thursday! Today we highlight the following —

1. NORTH AMERICA: Altruist Raises $112MM Series D To Take On Schwab And Fidelity In $128T RIA Market

2. NORTH AMERICA: Tradier Raises $24.6MM Series B Funding To Drive Choice, Value & Better Service For Active Retail Traders

3. EMEA: Wealth Management Fintech FNZ, Virgin Money To Launch Investment Solution For UK Clients

4. GEOGRAPHIC NEWS CURATION

Based on your feedback, we know that many of you are interested in reviews of companies or projects highlighted by our community. Leave a comment below with a company of your interest and we’ll do a deeper take on it later!

Leave a comment

Digital Wealth Short Takes

⭐🇺🇸 Altruist Raises $112MM Series D To Take On Schwab And Fidelity In $128T RIA Market - Businesswire, April 12, California

Altruist, the RIA-focused custodian founded by Jason Wenk, has raised $112MMM in a Series D funding round led by Insight Partners, bringing the company's total funding to $290MM+. Given where fintech is in the overall equities landscape, we find this raise particularly impressive, reflecting underlying performance. Together with recent news from Masttro, it appears that wealthtech is back in the favored cycle.

Altruist has taken a modern approach to integrating clearing, custody, and a full suite of advisory software into a single platform, intending to deliver a more affordable and streamlined digital experience for RIAs. The company places emphasis on its technology with a team of over 200 engineers, which has allowed it to reduce software application and TAMP expenses for RIAs by 90%.

By anchoring the offering in custody, the company may be able to avoid the pitfalls of previous wealthtechs that focused on being multi-custodial trading, performance, or digital investing interfaces, but capturing thin economics. For the latest example, see Vise.

While larger firms tend to gravitate towards established RIA custodians like Schwab and Fidelity, smaller players are left with fewer options. Of the 18,000 independent RIAs, most custody assets at Schwab, which holds $3.37 trillion in assets. Fidelity comes in second with $1.5 trillion, and Pershing trails with $350 billion. Schwab's TD Ameritrade acquisition further fuels this concentration. Larger platforms focus on larger players, leaving smaller RIAs searching for alternatives.

Enter Altruist — a recent entrant digitizing the RIA custody space. By acquiring advisory services firm Shareholder Services Group, Altruist has created a 3,300+ RIA firm, now ranked third in the number of RIAs served, surpassing Pershing. Altruist is banking on its modern technology stack to retain these clients.

Older custodians often require RIAs and their clients to use their portals for account opening, trading, and changing portfolio allocation. Altruist, on the other hand, offers an open API structure and a developer portal. This is the modern way. With new features and functionality added every two weeks, Altruist clearly wants to become that go-to platform for smaller and midsize players. For more, check out our interview with Jason below:

Fintech Blueprint 🤖🏦🧭

Podcast Conversation: Altruist CEO Jason Wenk on WealthTech, financial planning, advice, and generally improving financial health

Listen now (46 min) | Hi Fintech Architects, Welcome back to our podcast series! For those that want to subscribe in your app of choice, you can now find us at Apple, Spotify, or on RSS. In this conversation, we chat with Jason Wenk, who is the Founder & CEO at Altruist. Apart from this Jason is a writer, self-proclaimed math geek, and investment systems developer. He began his career at Morgan Stanley in NYC at age 20, working on investment research and asset management systems development. After this Jason founded FormulaFolios: quantitative, computer-driven investment models based on academic research to help remove emotion from investing. FormulaFolios would later develop into a standalone asset manager and go on to rank as a fastest-growing private company by Inc. magazine 4 years in a row, reaching as high as #10 in 2017…

Listen now

5 years ago · 4 likes · Matt Low

⭐🇺🇸 Tradier Raises $24.6MM Series B Funding To Drive Choice, Value & Better Service For Active Retail Traders - PR Newswire, April 18, North Carolina

Tradier, the API-driven brokerage platform that processes over 1B API calls per month, has raised $25MM in a Series B funding round led by PEAK6 Strategic Capital, with participation from F-Prime Capital and KF Business Ventures. The past year has been a record year for Tradier, with traders who signed up for the platform's subscription plans averaging an account size of $30,000 and executing an average of 150 trades per month.

Tradier's primary offerings include APIs for trading, market data, and brokerage services, as well as its trading platform, TradeHawk. The package links a trader's front-end system with Tradier's integrated tools — of which there are over 100, like eSignal, Quantcha, and Exeria. For instance, integrating Quantcha provides an options book manager, an options search engine that leverages 40 different strategies, and a stock and options screener. TradeHawk, which costs $10/month, offers trading for options and stocks, as well as charting that overlays implied volatility (IVol) periods on daily underlying price action.

Embedded finance has been growing everywhere in fintech as we digitize processes and update the settlement of various assets, including those in the trading / brokerage industry. Numerous brokers now offer APIs, such as Alpaca, Pepperstone, and Interactive Brokers. Institutional customers benefit from the ability to pull in and manipulate data and functionality, rather being stuck in a user interface.

Our AI overlords will enjoy those APIs even more in the years to come.

⭐🇬🇧 Wealth Management Fintech FNZ, Virgin Money To Launch Investment Solution For UK Clients - Crowdfund Insider, April 17, London

Virgin Money, the UK-based bank with 6.6MM+ clients, is expanding its offerings beyond traditional retail banking with its new roboadvisor platform, Virgin Money Investments. In collaboration with asset manager Abrdn, the platform will allow customers to save through stocks and shares ISAs.

Fees for the platform total 0.75% per year, with an account charge of 0.30% and a 0.45% charge for investment management. The roboadvisor offers three growth options - cautious, balanced, and adventurous. The cautious option mainly consists of a 60-40 bond-equity split, while the adventurous option primarily consists of UK and overseas developed stocks, emerging market shares, and high-yield bonds. Interestingly, all three funds have been below the performance comparator for almost every year since 2018.

Virgin Money Investments also partnered with wealth management platform FNZ for back-end operations and investor administration capabilities. When it comes to partnerships, FNZ keeps popping up — Abrdn moved onto FNZ's tech last year. The company has been inking deals like the one with Envestnet, and data integration is a super power in the world of finance. Of course, there are other players in the wealthtech game, like GBST (which FNZ sold to Anchorage in 2021), Bravura, Avaloq, and Orion, and newcomers like Seccl. That said, to meaningfully change market share requires either enormous capital outlay, or a technology platform shift.

Curated News

North America News

🇺🇸 Custom Indexing And Thematic Portfolio Construction Company ALLINDEX Selects BridgeFT's WealthTech API As Its Primary Source For Data Aggregation - PR Newswire, April 18, Illinois

🇺🇸 Skience Unveils Blueprint Process To Help Wealth Management Firms Better Manage Digital Transformations - Businesswire, April 18, Virginia

🇺🇸 Onramp Invest Teams Up With CoinDesk Indices To Deliver Leading Crypto Indices - Businesswire, April 19, California

🇺🇸 Betterment Agrees To Pay $9MM To Settle U.S. SEC Charges - Businesswire, April 19, California

🇺🇸 L1 Advisors Launches World's First Fully-On-Chain Crypto Wealth Management Platform To All Advisors - Accesswire, April 19, Texas

EMEA News

🇬🇧 Sharegain Announces Strategic Alliance With J.P. Morgan - PR Newswire, April 18, London

🇬🇧 Nickel DeFi Liquid Venture Fund Outperforms As Digital Assets Recover - Hedgeweek, April 19, London

Asia Pacific News

🇲🇾 Kapital DX Launches Malaysia’s First IEO Platform Regulated By The SC - Fintech News Malaysia, April 18, Kuala Lumpur

🇭🇰 Asia-Based Digital Asset Firm HashKey Group Introduces Wealth Management Service - CoinDesk, April 13, Hong Kong

🇸🇬 SC Ventures Invests In BetterTradeOff To Boost Digital Wealth Advisory Capabilities - Technode Global, April 13, Singapore

Blogs, Webinars, Podcasts

🇺🇸 Digital Advice Falling Short Of Potential Due To Lack Of Client Understanding, J.D. Power Finds - Businesswire, April 13, Michigan

🇬🇧 Overcoming Wealthtech Challenges Through Technology Transformation - Finextra, April 14, London

🇭🇰 The Wealth Management Industry And The Evolution Of Digital Assets & Tokenisation - Hubbis, April 19, Hong Kong

🇺🇸 ETFs Killed Off By Merciless Market At Double The Rate Of Last Year - Wealth Management, April 18, New York

🇨🇾 Wealthtech And The Rise Of Robo-Advisors: Opportunities And Risks For Investors - Finance Magnates, April 17, Limassol

Events & Reports

⭐🇺🇸 Envestnet Summit 2023 Elevate - Envestnet, April 26 - 27, Colorado

⭐🇺🇸 Fintech Nexus USA - Fintech Nexus, May 10 - 11, New York

🇺🇸 Wealth Management Edge - Informa Connect, May 21 - 24, Florida

🇺🇸 Finovate Spring - Informa Connect, May 23 - 25, California

🇬🇧 Innovation In Wealth Management - Professional Wealth Management, June 8, London

🇬🇧Private Banking & Wealth Management London Conference & Awards 2023 - Arena International, June 14, London

Shape your Future

Wondering what’s shaping the future of wealthtech, Fintech, and DeFi? 

At the Fintech Blueprint, we go down the rabbit hole in the DeFi and Fintech industries to help you make better investment decisions, innovate, and compete in the industry. Subscribe now to level up your knowledge and get access to our weekly Long Takes!

Subscribe now

• Read our Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.

• Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Daniel, Daniella

• Want to discuss? Stop by our Discord and or reach out here anytime. Leave a comment below on what you think and what we should cover next.

  Leave a comment

Happy Thursday! Today we highlight the following —

1. NORTH AMERICA: Moon Mortgage Launches Mortgage and Borrowing Products To Materialize Digital Wealth

2. EMEA: Rathbones Agrees Wealth Deal With Investec To Create £100B Business

3. APAC: LGT Wealth India And Asset Vantage Announce Collaboration

4. GEOGRAPHIC NEWS CURATION

Based on your feedback, we know that many of you are interested in reviews of companies or projects highlighted by our community. Leave a comment below with a company of your interest and we’ll do a deeper take on it later!

Leave a comment

Digital Wealth Short Takes

⭐🇺🇸 Moon Mortgage Launches Mortgage and Borrowing Products To Materialize Digital Wealth - The Daily HODL, April 4, Florida

Moon Mortgage, a crypto lending platform that raised $3.5MM last October, has launched a mortgage product for crypto investors. One of the recurring challenges for people who generate capital in the Web3 space is how to actually deploy it in order to improve their life in the real world. Providing a mortgage collateralized by digital assets is one of the more mainstream use cases that we have seen, especially as price of real estate remain unaffordable in the current rate environment

The core product, called “Trade and Borrow”, allows investors to borrow against the total value of their portfolio, offering loans with a minimum amount of $6,000 at a 12% loan percentage and an LTV of 40%. Supported assets include BTC, ETH, and USDC, with no origination fees or prepayment penalties, but positions will be liquidated if there is a 50% drop in a borrower's portfolio value.

In addition, the company has launched its mortgage product, allowing investors to use their assets as collateral to secure funding to purchase real estate. The minimum loan amount is $1MM. The application process takes six steps, and the expected close time is 14 days.

Moon Mortgage is not the only company in the crypto mortgage game. Milo, for example, offers 30-year loans of up to $5MM with rates starting at 9.95%. DeFi marketplace USDC.Homes offers crypto mortgages for an NFT-tokenized real-world property where the down payment of the crypto mortgage is staked, and borrowers accrue interest on the collateral, offsetting a part of the monthly mortgage payment.

The real risk in using digital assets as collateral is the possibility of a margin call if the price of the assets drops significantly. And, as we have seen with other lenders, there may be risk in dealing with a centralized counterparty. However, given high interest rates charged by banks, perhaps some of these collateralized solutions can be more capital efficient for a subset of customers.

⭐🇬🇧 Rathbones Agrees Wealth Deal With Investec To Create £100B Business - Financial Times, April 4, London

Rathbones, the UK-based asset manager with £60B+ in funds, is acquiring the UK wealth management arm of Investec for an all-share deal valued at ~£850MM. Rathbones is expected to onboard an additional £40B+ from Investec to create a conglomerate with $100B+ in funds under management. That’s about 2% of assets as a metric for valuation, consistent with industry practices.

Rathbones has grown by acquiring smaller wealth-management firms — see the £105MM buyout of Speirs and Jefferey in 2018, followed by the £150M acquisition of Saunderson House in 2021. The industry in the UK remains highly competitive and fragmented, with the UK wealth sector estimated to hit 2.1T by 2024. Horizontal consolidation strategies continue to be attractive for building scale and modern products — see Abrdn's £1.5B acquisition of Interactive Investor in 2021 and JP Morgan's $1B acquisition of Nutmeg. 

As traditional asset managers expand into digital distribution channels, they compete with modern players that offer clients a digitally native experience at a lower cost. A review of Rathbones' management fee structure compared to roboadvisor Moneyfarm shows that clients at Rathbone are paying significantly more. For an investment of £400K, fees at Rathbones run you £4,500 vs. £2,800 at Moneyfarm.

The other issue is that KPIs published by Rathbone in their 2022 annual report show that customer satisfaction is declining, and customers are 21% less likely to recommend the platform to someone than two years prior. The client experience is critical to the wealth management business proposition, so Rathbones must figure out how to reduce costs, stay competitive and retain customers. Some large asset managers struggle to compete — this week, Vanguard announced that it was shutting down its UK financial planning arm after a stint of fewer than 24 months. You can’t scale away from customer experience.

⭐🇮🇳 LGT Wealth India And Asset Vantage Announce Collaboration - IBS Intelligence, April 5, Mumbai

Private wealth management company LGT Wealth India has partnered with Asset Vantage (AV), a performance reporting company, to create a Full Stack Digital Family Office and Portfolio Analytics Solution. LGT Wealth India's offerings range from portfolio management and family offices to private markets and alternatives, while AV's platform provides financial data aggregation, portfolio performance, and integrated general ledger capabilities.

For financial data aggregation, AV's platform offers a smart upload feature that handles custodian account and bank data feeds. Additionally, the platform supports multi-asset class data aggregation, allowing for tracking art, jewellery, and cars, as well as life and property insurance policies. AV's portfolio performance feature handles investment accounting and reporting requirements, and performance measurement reports across sectors, geography, liquidity, and entity. They can also track illiquid assets (e.g. private equity) and performance return metrics like IRR. As for the integrated general ledger feature, it provides book-keeping built on global IFRS and GAAP standards.

Family offices have historically focused on liquid bond and equity markets, passive alternative investments (i.e., hedge funds and PE), and real estate, but India's family office industry has nearly doubled their allocation to private markets in the last six years. It is expected that family offices will account for 30% of the total $100B of Indian startup funding by the year 2025. Offerings like AV's portfolio reporting engine are required to reflect the rising importance of the asset class.

Curated News

North America News

⭐ 🇺🇸 United Capital Co-founders Launch Modern Wealth Management With $200MM Equity Financing From Crestview Partners - Businesswire, April 5, California

🇺🇸 Flourish Launches Integration With Redtail Technology Platform - Globe Newswire, April 4, New York

🇺🇸 New Premium Income Barrier ETFs™ Seek To Offer High Income With Built-in Barriers Against Loss, Over A 12-month Period - Globe Newswire, March 30, Illinois

🇨🇦 Digital Mortgage Brokerage Perch Opens Mortgage Investment Fund To Retail Investors - CNW, April 5, Toronto

EMEA News

⭐ 🇬🇧 Newcastle Wealth Innovator True Potential Hails Record Results As Assets Top £24B - BusinessLive, April 4, Newcastle

🇱🇮 Digital Asset Tech Provider Metaco Secures Partnership With Liechtenstein Private Bank - CoinDesk, April 4, Vaduz

🇦🇪 Sarwa Soars: 2.5x Growth In 3 Months With High-Yield Cash Account Offering - Zawya, April 5, Abu Dhabi

Asia Pacific News

🇨🇳 Hywin Launches WealthTech Platform To Enhance Its Services For High-Net-Worth Clients Through Data Analytics By Leveraging IBM Technology - Globe Newswire, April 4, Shanghai

🇭🇰 illio Launches Direct-To-Consumer App, Helping Everyone Make Sense Of Their Wealth - Digital Journal, April 4, Hong Kong

🇹🇭 KTB Targets Virtual Banking, Wealthtech - PR Newswire, April 5, Bangkok

🇸🇬 SG’s Endowus Cuts Less Than 10% Of Staff, Citing Market Downturn - Tech in Asia, March 31, Singapore

Blogs, Webinars, Podcasts

🇺🇸  Investor Satisfaction With Full-Service Financial Advisors Crumbles As Markets Fall, J.D. Power Finds - J.D. Power, April 4, Michigan

🇺🇸  Asset Management Industry Transforms to Align with Changing Financial Advisor Needs - Advisorhub, April 3, Massachusetts

🇺🇸  Stock ETFs See Lowest Quarterly Inflow Since Start Of Pandemic - Bloomberg, March 30, New York

🇮🇱  Wealthtech And The Democratization Of Investing: Opportunities For Retail Investors - Finance Magnates, March 31, Tel Aviv

Events & Reports

⭐ 🇺🇸 Envestnet Summit 2023 Elevate - Envestnet, April 26 - 27, Colorado

⭐ 🇺🇸 Fintech Nexus USA - Fintech Nexus, May 10 - 11, New York

🇺🇸 Wealth Management Edge - Informa Connect, May 21 - 24, Florida

🇺🇸 Finovate Spring - Informa Connect, May 23 - 25, California

🇬🇧 Innovation In Wealth Management - Professional Wealth Management, June 8, London

🇬🇧Private Banking & Wealth Management London Conference & Awards 2023 - Arena International, June 14, London

Shape your Future

Wondering what’s shaping the future of wealthtech, Fintech, and DeFi? 

At the Fintech Blueprint, we go down the rabbit hole in the DeFi and Fintech industries to help you make better investment decisions, innovate, and compete in the industry. Subscribe now to level up your knowledge and get access to our weekly Long Takes!

Subscribe now

• Read our Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.

• Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Daniel, Daniella

• Want to discuss? Stop by our Discord and or reach out here anytime. Leave a comment below on what you think and what we should cover next.

Leave a comment

Happy Thursday! Today we highlight the following —

1. NORTH AMERICA: BloombergGPT: A Large Language Model for Finance

2. NORTH AMERICA: New Multi-Asset Robo Product Launched For U.S. Investors

3. EMEA: eToro Secures $250MM At A $3.5B Valuation After Scrapping SPAC, Seeing Slower Growth

4. APAC: Hamilton Lane Incorporated: Partners With Alta To Offer Expanded Access To Private Markets Assets For Investors Across Southeast Asia

Based on your feedback, we know that many of you are interested in reviews of companies or projects highlighted by our community. Leave a comment below with a company of your interest and we’ll do a deeper take on it later!

Leave a comment

North America News

⭐ 🇺🇸 BloombergGPT: A Large Language Model for Finance — Bloomberg, New York, NY US (via Theo)

• Bloomberg is training a general purpose financial AI on its entire data set. It performs exceptionally well understanding investment sentiment, headline summarization, and other financial tasks. See also👑 Hype vs. Reality: The impact of Generative AI in financial services on jobs, investing, and services👑

⭐ 🇺🇸 New Multi-Asset Robo Product Launched For U.S. Investors - Businesswire, March 30, New York

🇺🇸 Riskalyze And Orion Release Enhanced Integration - Businesswire, March 29, California

🇺🇸 AltExchange Launches ‘Digital Custodian’ For Asset Managers - Businesswire, March 27, Illinois

🇺🇸 Advice Engagement Platform Lumiant Announces $3.5MM Seed Funding Round - Businesswire, March 27, Illinois

🇺🇸 intelliflo redblack Doubles Cloud Clients, Gains Over 50 Enhancements - Businesswire, March 30, Georgia

🇺🇸 WBI Launches WarpSpeed Digital Onboarding - Businesswire, March 27, New Jersey

🇺🇸 PureFacts Announces Acquisition Of Xtiva Financial Systems, Becoming The Most Complete Revenue Management Solution For The Wealth Management Industry - Globe Newswire, March 30, Toronto

EMEA News

⭐ 🇮🇱 eToro Secures $250MM At A $3.5B Valuation After Scrapping SPAC, Seeing Slower Growth - TechCrunch, March 21, Israel

• See here to read our short take on this.

🇫🇷 New Amundi Low-cost Index Funds Now Available For Investing On Endowus Under CPFIS - TechCrunch, March 21, Paris

🇩🇪 Deutsche Bank Expands Wealth Management Service To South Africa - Finance Magnates, March 30, Frankfurt

🇬🇧 Abbove Awarded As Best Wealth Technology Outsourcing Solution In Europe - Businesswire, March 30, London

Asia Pacific News

⭐ 🇭🇰 Hamilton Lane Incorporated: Partners With Alta To Offer Expanded Access To Private Markets Assets For Investors Across Southeast Asia - MarketScreener, March 30, Hong Kong

🇮🇩  Mobee Obtains License To Operate Digital Asset Exchange In Indonesia; Raises Funds Led By 1982 Ventures - Technode Global, March 31, Jakarta

🇸🇨 OKX to Launch Hong Kong Entity, Apply For Virtual Asset Licenses - PR Newswire, March 28, Victoria

🇹🇭  Kiatnakin Phatra Securities Taps Temenos For Wealth Management Tech - Fintech Furures, March 28, Central Thailand

🇭🇰  Lion Announces Internal Testing Of Robo-Advisor LionAI - PR Newswire, March 31, Hong Kong

Blogs, Webinars, Podcasts

🇺🇸  3 Steps for Advisory Firms to Drive AI, Other Changes - ThinkAdvisor, March 22, Virginia

🇬🇧  The ‘Break Point’ for UK wealth managers - Private Banker International, March 28, London

🇬🇧  Bricking It - The Truth About Consumer Duty And Wealth Management - Finextra, March 30, London

Events & Reports

🇺🇸 Envestnet Summit 2023 Elevate - Envestnet, April 26 - 27, Colorado

🇺🇸 Wealth Management Edge - Informa Connect, May 21 - 24, Florida

🇺🇸 Finovate Spring - Informa Connect, May 23 - 25, California

🇬🇧 Innovation In Wealth Management - Professional Wealth Management, June 8, London

🇬🇧Private Banking & Wealth Management London Conference & Awards 2023 - Arena International, June 14, London

Shape your Future

Wondering what’s shaping the future of wealthtech, Fintech, and DeFi? 

At the Fintech Blueprint, we go down the rabbit hole in the DeFi and Fintech industries to help you make better investment decisions, innovate, and compete in the industry. Subscribe now to level up your knowledge and get access to our weekly Long Takes!

Subscribe now

• Read our Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.

• Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Daniel, Daniella

• Want to discuss? Stop by our Discord and or reach out here anytime. Leave a comment below on what you think and what we should cover next.

  Leave a comment

Happy Thursday! Today we highlight the following —

1. NORTH AMERICA: Securitize Partners With Onramp To Streamline Private Equity Investing

2. EMEA: Allfunds Launches Dedicated Alternatives Division

3. APAC: PAG-Backed Nuvama Wealth Buys Wealthtech Startup Pickright

4. GEOGRAPHIC NEWS CURATION

Based on your feedback, we know that many of you are interested in reviews of companies or projects highlighted by our community. Leave a comment below with a company of your interest and we’ll do a deeper take on it later!

Leave a comment

Currencycloud makes it easier, quicker, and more transparent to move money across borders. The Fuse Partner Programme for fintechs, banks and professional services firms brings together cutting edge cross-border payments technology, people and businesses to drive faster routes to market.

Join the likes of Moov, Thought Machine, and Accenture and take your business to the next level through a partnership with Currencycloud.

Click here to get in touch

Digital Wealth Short Takes

⭐🇺🇸 Securitize Partners With Onramp To Streamline Private Equity Investing - PR Newswire, March 21, New York

Digital asset company Securitize and wealthtech Onramp Invest unveiled four tokenized private equity feeder funds from investment firms such as Hamilton Lane.  Securitize's platform provides tokenization management services to issuers, simplifying the process of capital raising, asset management, and trading. 

Not all digital assets are created equally. Among others there are coins, protocol tokens, application tokens, CBDCs, and real-world assets (e.g., stocks and real estate) that have been tokenized. Onramp has historically helped RIAs access crypto assets — here we see an extension to tokenization of existing asset classes.

Onramp clients can access private markets through Securitize's tokenized feeder funds, with the first two feeder funds offering access to Hamilton Lane's Equity Opportunities Fund V. The minimum investment is $20,000, with each share valued at $1,000. The fund primarily invests in software tech, healthcare, consumer discretionary, and industrial sectors, and Securitize has tokenized the feeder fund on the Polygon blockchain. 

In the US, there are 2,800 public companies generating annual revenues over $100MM, and another 15,000 private businesses of similar size. These private businesses require funding for growth and attracting talent as much as their public counterparts. Tokenization of private equity is an infrastructure upgrade for these markets and their access to capital. On the other end, it also helps increase the audience of investors that can access these returns, and supports the digital wealth companies that distribute new products.

We would be interested to see more tokenized real world assets, digitized into APIs, and plugged in directly into roboadvisors and neobanks.

⭐🇪🇸 Allfunds Launches Dedicated Alternatives Division - Investment Week, March 21, Madrid

Allfunds, the Spain-based B2B wealthtech with €1.3T+ in assets under administration, is launching Allfunds Alternative Solutions. In the last 18 months Allfunds has been busy — partnership with Banco de Brasil and iCapital, multiple acquisitions (Web Financial Group and instiHub Analytics) and most recently, the Euronext M&A buyout that almost was. The intention behind launching a new division is clear — ride the alts wave and grow AUM. 

The high-rate macro environment has led to volatility across sectors, including in the bond market. Alternatives, however, remain an appealing asset class. According to Preqin, an investment data company for alts, as of 2021, AUM across alternative asset classes has grown from $7.2T to $13.3T. Wealth managers continue to see strong flows into assets such as private debt, private equity, venture capital, collectible art, and digital real estate, among others.

These products are potentially less volatile than public markets, and offer significant upside potential. Or, at least, they have lower liquidity, and therefore force investors to ride out the volatility over the long term. In all cases, these assets are powerful for diversification.

Wealth managers with digital distribution channels are making alternatives more accessible to investors as entry minimums come down, which in turn catalyzes companies focused on related data, analytics, and investment recommendations.

One of the biggest areas of growth is building liquidity and access for private markets, especially as retail investors generally have a shorter time horizon than institutions. We wonder whether such increased liquidity may actually make these securities feel as volatile as their public market counterparts, and generate issues for managers requiring “patient capital”. 

⭐🇮🇳 PAG-Backed Nuvama Wealth Buys Wealthtech Startup Pickright - Silicon India, March 21, Mumbai

Nuvama Wealth, a wealth management firm formerly called Edelweiss Wealth Management, has purchased a 74% stake in Pickright Technologies, a SEBI-registered wealthtech startup. Pickright Technologies provides investment portfolios based on an individual's risk appetite and financial goals and offers Investpacks, i.e., investments in stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, gold and fixed deposits.

With a customer base of 800,000, Nuvama offers a range of investment products, including stocks, insurance, funds, derivatives, and primary markets. Historically, Indian investors have preferred investing in physical assets, such as gold and real estate, rather than capital markets. However, the pandemic has reshaped investor preferences, increasing interest in the capital markets. This shift is apparent from the 63% surge in active dematerialized (demat) accounts, a digital record that tracks the ownership of tradable assets, including stocks, bonds, and mutual funds, which increased to 89.7MM in FY22.

We have also observed three significant trends in the Indian wealthtech sphere. First, there has been consolidation, as more prominent wealthtech players acquired many of the 34 deals in 2021. Second, there is favourable regulation, as the Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has supported the growth spurt in wealthtech and enabled e-commerce companies to offer mutual fund products. Last, India's HNWIs remain underserved. Wealth management firms currently manage only 9% of the HNW wealth in India, suggesting $2.8T in untapped assets.

As the market becomes more saturated and as Scripbox, ETMoney, Groww, Wealthy and IndMoney mature, we expect to see more wealthtechs tailored to HNWIs. The shape of those companies is likely to resemble what we see in other geographies — bundled investing, banking, lending, and payments.

Curated News

North America News

🇨🇦 Canadian Fintech Wealthsimple Introduces Private Credit Fund For Retail Investors - Crowdfund Insider, March 22, Ontario

🇺🇸 reAlpha Asset Management Inc. Launches Fractional Ownership Platform For Short-Term Rentals - Businesswire, March 20, Ohio

🇺🇸 Praxent Introduces Accelerator App, Helping Wealthtechs Speed Time To Market - Businesswire, March 20, Texas

🇺🇸 Pontera And AssetBook Announce Integration To Help Advisors Comprehensively Manage The Retirement Saver’s Full Portfolio - Businesswire, March 21, New York

🇺🇸 Wealthtechs Confluence, Fundguard Partner Up - Fintech Global, March 20, Pennsylvania

🇺🇸 Linqto Surpasses $200MM In Total Investments And Announces Lowest Accessible Entry Point In Private Equity - PR Newswire, March 22, California

🇺🇸 Envestnet Data Aggregation Delivered Substantial ROI For Financial Institutions - Crowdfund Insider, March 20, Pennsylvania

EMEA News

🇦🇪 Sygnum Bank Middle East Launches In Abu Dhabi - Emirates News, March 22, Abu Dhabi

🇦🇪 Accelex Introduces First Fully Automated Document Acquisition Solution for Private Markets - CNW, March 22, London

Asia Pacific News

🇮🇳 Wealthtech Addepar Expands To India With Pune Office - Crowdfund Insider, Pune, March 21

🇹🇼 HSBC Taiwan Wins 5 Wealth Magazine Awards - Taipei Times, Taipei City, March 17

Blogs, Webinars, Podcasts

🇬🇧  How Will Generative AI Impact Wealth Management? - Fintech Global, March 21, London

🇮🇱 The Future Of Wealthtech: Integrating Traditional Finance And Fintech Innovations - Finance Magnates, March 16, Tel Aviv

🇬🇧  Why The Independent Model Is Powering Industry Growth - WealthManagement, March 22, London

Events & Reports

🇺🇸 Envestnet Summit 2023 Elevate - Envestnet, April 26 - 27, Colorado

🇺🇸 Wealth Management Edge - Informa Connect, May 21 - 24, Florida

🇺🇸 Finovate Spring - Informa Connect, May 23 - 25, California

🇬🇧 Innovation In Wealth Management - Professional Wealth Management, June 8, London

🇬🇧Private Banking & Wealth Management London Conference & Awards 2023 - Arena International, June 14, London

Shape your Future

Wondering what’s shaping the future of wealthtech, Fintech, and DeFi? 

At the Fintech Blueprint, we go down the rabbit hole in the DeFi and Fintech industries to help you make better investment decisions, innovate, and compete in the industry. Subscribe now to level up your knowledge and get access to our weekly Long Takes!

Subscribe now

• Read our Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.

• Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Daniel, Daniella

• Want to discuss? Stop by our Discord and or reach out here anytime. Leave a comment below on what you think and what we should cover next.

Leave a comment

Happy Thursday! Today we highlight the following —

1. NORTH AMERICA: Masttro Secures $43MM Growth Equity Investment Led By FTV Capital

2. EMEA: Connectd Raises £2.2MM To Match Startups With Investors

3. APAC: Yangzijiang Financial To Work With ADDX On Distribution Of Capital Markets Products

4. GEOGRAPHIC NEWS CURATION

Based on your feedback, we know that many of you are interested in reviews of companies or projects highlighted by our community. Leave a comment below with a company of your interest and we’ll do a deeper take on it later!

Leave a comment

Shout Outs!

Thanks to everyone that helped us with the survey last month. Your feedback has been invaluable. Here are a few of the cool projects that our premium subscribers are working on — check them out!

• Scrypt, a regulated Swiss institutional crypto services business, provides a trusted access point to digital assets for institutions 👉 Learn more here

• WealthObjects is an award-winning digital wealth management technology and adviser software modular solutions company.👉Visit the website

Digital Wealth Short Takes

⭐🇺🇸 Masttro Secures $43MM Growth Equity Investment Led By FTV Capital - Businesswire, March 9, New York

Wealthtech platform Masttro, founded in 2010, serves single-family offices and wealth managers with an integrated platform. The company received a $43MM growth equity investment from FTV Capital and Citi Ventures. FTV and Citi are more conservative investors, than let’s say Sequoia or a16z. Putting a check of this size into the company suggests cashflow and reasonable traction with target clients.

Masttro's SaaS platform extracts data about investments, processing and analyzing it using machine learning. The data is segregated by region, currency, custodian, asset class, and estate structure, with multiple reporting templates and timeframes. The platform offers customizable visualizations, portfolio performance, risk, and exposure analysis. Additionally, the platform integrates Know-Your-Customer (KYC), Anti-Money Laundering (AML) validations, documentation, and regulatory reporting requirements. 

Numerous wealthtechs, including Adeppar, Eton Solutions, Allfunds, and Canoe Intelligence, are targeting the intersection of UHNW clients and alternative investments. Given that this target client segment manages some of the most complex portfolios — alternatives and illiquid assets, administration of estate structures, differing compliance — financial data companies are racing to leverage AI technologies to assess risk more accurately and generate operational efficiencies.

For example, this week Stripe integrated OpenAI's GPT-4 into its digital payment processing. Klarity did the same to help automate document-centric workflows. Morgan Stanley Wealth Management uses GPT-4 to access and process insights into companies, sectors, asset classes, capital markets.

⭐🇬🇧 Connectd Raises £2.2MM To Match Startups With Investors - UK Tech, March 13, London

Connectd, a platform to manage relationships between startups and investors, has raised £2.2MM from LiFE Ventures, Blue Lake, Mail Venture Partners, Arch Law, Syndicate Room, and a host of angels, bringing total funding to £4.7MM. For founders, Connectd provides a way to meet with a community of active angel investors, family offices, and VC funds.

The company has three subscription offerings: a membership at £375 annually, a helping hand subscription at £2,000 annually, and a venture builder subscription at £5,000 annually. The most expensive option offers access to the investor network platform, three pro-bono advisors, "smart matching technology" that pairs founders with investors, portfolio reporting tools, investor-ready pitch day, monthly strategic consultations, four masterclass sessions, pitch deck development, financial modelling and company valuation.

Connectd combines ideas from three places: (1) equity crowdfunding platforms, like Seedrs and Crowdcube, and (2) incubators and accelerators, like YC or Startupbootcamp, and (3) private equity data rooms.

If you look at something like AngelList, the main product isn’t technology or the legal wrapper — it’s the underlying network connecting founders to capital, and capital to good founders. It is notoriously difficult to bootstrap such an ecosystem. The UK seems a bit more optimistic about algorithmic funding than the US experience proves out, in our view. We’re also a bit skeptical about charging people who are raising money recurring subscriptions.

⭐🇸🇬 Yangzijiang Financial To Work With ADDX On Distribution Of Capital Markets Products - The Tokenizer, Singapore, March 9

ADDX, a digital capital markets exchange known for using blockchain to tokenize and fractionalize security products, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Singapore-based asset manager Yangzijiang Financial. The partnership intends to use ADDX’s distribution channel to broaden Yangzijiang Financial’s investor reach and increase its AUM as it completes a newly established $600MM maritime-focused fund. 

ADDX raised $140MM in funding since 2017. The platform allows the “everyday” person to invest with a minimum investment threshold of $5,000 while offering access to 50+ investments across its customer base that spans most geographies except the US. Customers select from 3 investment strategies— Income, Balanced, Growth — and invest in various asset classes such as Private Credit, Private Equity, Venture Capital, Luxury, and Hedge Funds. Operating under a B2B2C model is also ADDX Advantage, which helps wealth managers introduce products to end-clients. 

ADDX reminds us of other emerging alts platforms like Moonfare (private-equity specific) and DBS Bank’s DBS Digital Exchange (more crypto-focused), among many others.

Alternatives are being positioned as the next wave for digital investors. Low-cost access to these previously “elite” asset classes is now available through digital distribution channels, exerting downward pressure on fees. Ironic, given that PE and VC firms remain pessimistic about fundraising conditions this year and valuation expectations among investors and startups have fallen. There is a natural time lag between when financial products get popular, and when access to them becomes possible.

Curated News

North America News

🇺🇸 Altruist Acquires Award-Winning SSG Custodial Platform To Expand Services Offering - Businesswire, March 15, California

🇺🇸 Morgan Stanley Wealth Management Announces Key Milestone In Innovation Journey With OpenAI - Morgan Stanley, March 14, New York

🇺🇸 TradePMR Launches A New Integration With CircleBlack Designed To Streamline Connectivity With The Wealth Management Platform - PR Newswire, March 15, New Jersey

🇺🇸 Envestnet Enhances MoneyGuide Platform To Drive The Future Of Digital Financial Planning - PR Newswire, March 13, Pennsylvania

EMEA News

🇬🇧 GBST Rebrands As It Launches Revamped Wealth Platform - Money Marketing, March 15, London

🇬🇧 Saxo UK, Moneyfarm Roll Out MF Portfolios For M&G’s &me Clients - Private Banker International, March 14, London

🇰🇼 Securities House Launches Zad App, A Shariah-Compliant Investment Platform With Alpaca - Crowdfund Insider, March 14, Kuwait City

Asia Pacific News

🇮🇳 Wealthtech Company Curio Capital To Raise Rs 200 Cr In India's First Land Opportunity With Ram Rattan Group - Business Standard, New Delhi, March 15

🇸🇬 Singlife Transforms Investment Capabilities Through Landmark Technology Partnership With Citi And BlackRock - Citigroup, March 9, Singapore

🇲🇾 Green-X Consolidate Its Digital Asset Exchange Businesses With CryptoSX - Accesswire, Kuala Lumpur, March 15

🇮🇳 Envestnet Data And Analytics Selects TCS To Accelerate Its Digital Transformation Journey - Tata Consultancy Services, Mumbai, March 15

Blogs, Webinars, Podcasts

🇬🇧  For Wealthtech Firms And Advisors, AI Has Entered The Chat - WealthManagement, March 9, London

🇺🇸 The WealthStack Podcast: Creating a Frictionless Wealth Management Experience With Stephen Daffron Of BetaNXT - WealthStack, March 10, New York

🇺🇸 What Advisors Really Want From Their Tech - WealthStack, March 29, New York

🇺🇸  Q&A With AdvisorHub CEO Tony Sirianni And Greg Cornick, President, Advice And Wealth Management At Advisor Group - Advisor Hub, March 14, Virginia

Events & Reports

🇺🇸 Envestnet Summit 2023 Elevate - Envestnet, April 26 - 27, Colorado

🇺🇸 Wealth Management Edge - Informa Connect, May 21 - 24, Florida

🇺🇸 Finovate Spring - Informa Connect, May 23 - 25, California

🇬🇧 Innovation In Wealth Management - Professional Wealth Management, June 8, London

🇬🇧Private Banking & Wealth Management London Conference & Awards 2023 - Arena International, June 14, London

Shape your Future

Wondering what’s shaping the future of wealthtech, Fintech, and DeFi? 

At the Fintech Blueprint, we go down the rabbit hole in the DeFi and Fintech industries to help you make better investment decisions, innovate, and compete in the industry. Subscribe now to level up your knowledge and get access to our weekly Long Takes!

Subscribe now

• Read our Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.

• Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Daniel, Daniella

• Want to discuss? Stop by our Discord and or reach out here anytime. Leave a comment below on what you think and what we should cover next.

  Leave a comment

Happy Thursday! Today we highlight the following —

1. NORTH AMERICA: Refounding Vise

2. GEOGRAPHIC NEWS CURATION

Based on your feedback, we know that many of you are interested in reviews of companies or projects highlighted by our community. Leave a comment below with a company of your interest and we’ll do a deeper take on it later!

Leave a comment

⭐ 🇺🇸 Refounding Vise - Vise, March 3, New York and The unraveling of fintech darling Vise - Business Insider.

Generally speaking, we want to cheerlead for young companies doing hard things.

Sometimes, however, the mismatch between what companies promise and what we know the market can sustain is too great. And the knowledge gap between generalist venture capitalists and specialist niche markets, such as RIAs and financial advice, is too great. Having founded on of the 2012 vintage wealth tech platforms, we are particularly skeptical of the claims of emerging wealth tech platforms that haven’t yet cracked distribution.

So when media reached out to us for comment on Vise — an AI-powered Envestnet type — in 2020, and the excitement about the company reached venture fever pitch, this was our grumpy answer (with some parts redacted for being too critical).

The Silicon Valley spin on this really wild. I don't see anything different in the positioning from what has been built by multiple teams over the last decade, including AdvisorEngine. … Maybe the recent exits of Folio and United Capital to GS, AdvisorEngine to Franklin Templeton, Motif to Scwhab, etc., are driving renewed interest in the RIA market in the Valley. Stash and Robinhood continue to raise too.

But the RIA theme is a 20 year theme and nothing is radically changing. Having VCs act as if they discovered it now, and therefore it is different and more important, is odd to me. It would be a shame to see a blitzscaled player come in and obliterate the current wealth tech ecosystem by pricing in an unsustainable way.

Last, I am having trouble understand where machine learning is implemented and what precise benefit it is providing in the portfolio management process. Maybe there is some absolutely insane AI-driven investment track record that is getting people excited, but the website does not communicate anything about AI that jumped out at me.

The fintech venture capital market is on fire right now. Take a look at GoHenry with $40M, Tink with €85M, Cleo with $44M, Step with $50MM; Monzo with £60MM, and Moov with $27MM. There is also the recent Addepar raise as a comp. Enabling technology and embedded finance in particular is in the cross-hairs and people are living more digital lives. So the market and the commercialization that's possible is far higher now than even 5 years ago. As an example, take Plaid being worth more than Envestnet.

The hires around the management team, and the size of the check, show that Sequoia wants to make a serious bet on the wealthtech market. There are not that many fresh ideas or choices available since that first SigFig / AdvisorEngine wave, though I am a fan of Altruist, Responsive.Ai, and Onramp. Vise's concepts around consumer customization, which will allow advisors to reflect the values of the investor through the investment product, are potentially compelling. But I think I have too much scar tissue to understand the pace of investment.

Today, we know that BlackRock is selling off the FutureAdvisor portfolio and many of these tech stacks are in disarray. Vise remains the last big bet standing, or does it?

In the blog post linked above, the management of Vise describes a “re-founding”, over the last year, including operational, team, and cultural restructuring. The company raised a whopping $130MM in funding from high quality fintech VCs, like Sequoia and Ribbit Capital, and expanded its workforce from six to 100+ within 18 months. Look, on $400MM of AUM, or even $1B, you can make 25 bps at best in digital wealth — so $2.5MM of revenue. The low end of that would be closer to $1MM instead. You just can’t hire 100 people at this scale.

We have to give credit to the company's founding — Vasavada and Mehrotra launched the firm when they were just 16 years old in 2016. The objective was to help RIAs offer tailored services to clients, using AI to customize each client's portfolio. The portfolio management platform also helped advisors create risk profiles for each portfolio and performs tax-efficient rebalancing. But you know, so did Riskalyze.

In early 2020, Vise appeared to be growing — expecting $800MM in pending AUM and $10B more in the pipeline. However, regulatory filings from mid-2020 underlined that Vise was managing only $4MM. Salespeople reported the total AUM of prospects as if they would bring it all to Vise's platform, inflating real values. Moreover, quotas for senior salespeople were as high as attracting $1B per annum. We point to the Business Insider here for more details of the drama. 

Vise eventually reset its headcount, transitioned its leadership team, increased employee equity packages, scaled back sales efforts, and focused on product development and iteration. These changes reduced burn rate from $3MM to less than $1MM a month and provided 60+ months of runway. Of that $130MM, about $60MM (according to the company) — which could have powered an entire wealthtech focused early stage venture fund — was the learning capital for the young entrepreneurs.

Advisors needs tools, and they manage nearly $4 trillion of assets in the United States alone. However, the market is fragmented, complex, and hyper local. It is driven by custodial oligopoly and technology coopetition with a web of integrations. Coming in and assuming no market structure or switching costs exist, and ignoring the reactions of the industry they were trying to serve isn’t a good look.

Fintechs in general are struggling for now in public and private markets, with EV/LTM revenues dropping from 20-30x in 2021 to 3-5x. Capital efficiency is at a premium and we are glad to see Vise restructure and continue to move forward. The new humility and focus on clients — and their real ability to pay — is step one. Step two is to really understand the path of those that have gone before and differentiate. Wealthtech does need real innovation.

Curated News

North America News

🇺🇸 Bestex Research Raises $10MM To Expand Algo Execution Solution Into New Asset Classes And Regions - Finance Feeds, March 3, Connecticut

🇺🇸 InvestCloud Launches White FMB+ - The new product offering includes integrated front, middle and back-office InvestCloud solutions, Fintech Finance News, March 2, California

🇺🇸 Pretium Announces New Partnership With iCapital- PR Newswire, March 8, New York

🇺🇸 Altruist Announces Self-Clearing, Becoming The Industry’s First Vertically Integrated Custodian - Businesswire, March 2, California

🇺🇸 BetaNXT Buys Mediant With Backing Of PE Affiliates - Businesswire, March 2, New York

🇺🇸 Empower Launches Personal Wealth Division With Digital-First Planning Experience To Help Americans Achieve Financial Freedom - Businesswire, March 8, Colorado

EMEA News

⭐🇬🇧 $1T Fintech To Unleash Hybrid Financial Advice On Australia - Financial Review, London, March 8

Asia Pacific News

⭐🇮🇳 Meet Daulat: A Digital Wealth Management Platform Tailored For India - Hacker Noon, March 8, West Bengal

🇦🇺 Low Barrier Ethical Investing Option For Islamic Australians Launched - Professional Planner, March 1, Sydney

🇮🇳 ORCA, India’s First One-Stop Platform For Learning, Analyzing, And Investing In Capital Markets, Launched By Enrich Money - The Hindu, March 6, Bengaluru

Blogs, Webinars, Podcasts

🇮🇱 The Next Generation Of Wealthtech: How Fintech Is Transforming Finance - Finance Magnates, March 3, Tel Aviv

🇺🇸 Just 10% Of Wealth Managers Say They Have All The Tech They Need - Financial Adviser, March 3, New Jersey

🇨🇦 What's Happened To All The Robos? - Wealth Professional, March 7, Ontario

🇬🇧 German FinTech Deal Activity Saw A Correction In 2022, Dropping 24% From Previous Year - Fintech Global, March 2, London

Events & Reports

🇺🇸 Envestnet Summit 2023 Elevate - Envestnet, April 26 - 27, Colorado

🇺🇸 Wealth Management Edge - Informa Connect, May 21 - 24, Florida

🇺🇸 Finovate Spring - Informa Connect, May 23 - 25, California

🇬🇧 Innovation In Wealth Management - Professional Wealth Management, June 8, London

🇬🇧Private Banking & Wealth Management London Conference & Awards 2023 - Arena International, June 14, London

Shape your Future

Wondering what’s shaping the future of wealthtech, Fintech, and DeFi? 

At the Fintech Blueprint, we go down the rabbit hole in the DeFi and Fintech industries to help you make better investment decisions, innovate, and compete in the industry. Subscribe now to level up your knowledge and get access to our weekly Long Takes!

Subscribe now

• Read our Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.

• Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Daniel, Daniella

• Want to discuss? Stop by our Discord and or reach out here anytime. Leave a comment below on what you think and what we should cover next.

  Leave a comment

Happy Thursday! Today we highlight the following —

1. NORTH AMERICA: Santander Bank Enlists SigFig For Digital Investment Tools

2. NORTH AMERICA: Riskalyze Partners With Opto Investments To Expand Access To Private Market Investment Solutions

3. EMEA: Wealthtech Huddlestock Acquires Dtech & Huddlestock Receives Ownership Approval For The Acquisition Of Trac Services

4. GEOGRAPHIC NEWS CURATION

Based on your feedback, we know that many of you are interested in reviews of companies or projects highlighted by our community. Leave a comment below with a company of your interest and we’ll do a deeper take on it later!

Leave a comment

Digital Wealth Short Takes

⭐🇺🇸 Santander Bank Enlists SigFig For Digital Investment Tools

Santander Bank NA has partnered with SigFig, whose wealth management platform serves 70MM+ users, to launch Santander PathFinder, a roboadvisor tool for Santander Investment Services.

The bank is focusing on adding digital and automation capabilities, while trying to stay connected to a personalized approach to financial planning. We know that HNW customers prefer hybrid channels, combining a digital and human experience. The advisor experience will also be integrated into a platform to view client investments, and connect with financial advisors.

This is a fairly conservative approach to roboadvice, well established by Betterment and Wealthfront — each sitting at around $35B in AUM today. Santander’s offering auto reviews and balances portfolios comprising ETFs tailored to customers' risk preferences, there’s a minimum of $2,000 to get started, and the annual fee is 50 basis points.

The rapid rise in interest rates drove the values of future cash flows downwards, resulting in poor equities performance of low-profit, high-growth companies. Asset allocations that were positioned overweight in such exposure suffered, as you can see in the rankings above (i.e., Performance category). Yet by now, most major banks and brokers have launched a digital or hybrid advice offering, while simultaneously closing physical branches.

US bank branch closures reached a new record high of 2,927 in 2021, rising by 40% year-on-year. In the UK in February, the leaders of Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds and Natwest assembled for a meeting in the UK parliament, in response to the fact that the banks shut down 5,000 locations in eight years. The rise of neobanks and digital investing has unfortunately led to a financial access issue for more vulnerable, lower income populations. But you’re already uploaded to the Metaverse, right?

⭐🇺🇸 Riskalyze Partners With Opto Investments To Expand Access To Private Market Investment Solutions

Opto Investments, a platform connecting independent investment advisors with access to the private markets, is partnering with wealthtech Riskalyze. Opto holds a $475MM valuation as of last September, while data available for Riskalyze shows total funding of $23.7MM and a $300MM valuation as of 2021 (when a majority stake of the business was sold to Hg Capital).

We previously covered the emergence of Opto and its growing client base of 80+ RIAs as it entered a space dominated by larger alt-tech incumbents such as iCapital, which has $135B in assets across 1,300+ RIAs. Opto benefits from notable venture backing from the likes of 8VC, Tiger Global, and MSD Capital. 

Riskalyze, founded in 2011, is known for its novel method of using the Prospect Theory to assign a “Risk Number” to identify a client’s risk tolerance and align portfolio expectations with investments that suit their risk profile. This feature, along with others (advisor marketing, compliance, benchmarking, etc.), has enabled them to scale to 1,500+ clients. 

Product innovation among players in the alt space is promising, but has a way to go. Historically, the asset class focused on large institutional investors, and did not focus on distribution and marketing infrastructure to reach smaller clients. Emerging platforms like iCapital or Moonfare demonstrate that low-cost access to more types of alternative investments through digital distribution is an attractive proposition for digital investors. The Riskalyze and Opto partnership is another symptom — clients and advisors increasingly seek alternative ways to diversify outside of traditional equity/fixed-income allocations.

👑Related Coverage👑

• Podcast Conversation: Building an investment platform with a risk management heart, with Riskalyze CEO Aaron Klein

⭐🇳🇴 Wealthtech Huddlestock Acquires Dtech & Huddlestock Receives Ownership Approval For The Acquisition Of Trac Services

Huddlestock, Norway's first fintech company to be publicly traded and a new name to us, has agreed to acquire Dtech, a Norwegian software company for portfolio management and fund order technology for the pension market. The acquisition of Dtech is an all-share transaction, with earn-outs if revenue targets are met. Moreover, Huddlestock has just received approval for the all-share acquisition of Trac Services, which serves 12,000 end clients and $380MM in assets, providing Huddlestock with Trac's regulatory brokerage license and ability to settle various assets.

Thereafter Huddlestock offers: (1) a wealth management platform with access to portfolio creation, alternative data sets, and back-office and reporting tools; (2) a trading platform of stocks, ETFs, and funds, which can be integrated via APIs; (3) technology integration support for legacy systems using cloud-based solutions, and (4) business analysis, software design, development and project management consulting.

The acquisition of Trac makes Huddlestock one of the few European players in providing brokerage-as-a-service. Dtech, on the other hand, is a software-as-a-service model focused on pensions, serving 73,000 individual pension schemes for 6,000 corporate customers.

Whether this company can be a large regional champion remains to be seen. We are generally supportive of scaled companies, like FNZ or ENV, doing meaningful acquisitions across the industry to enhance their product suite. In this case, the component parts are still all small, so it may be difficult to grow and expand each one to market at the same time. Thinking of them as acquihires with equity maybe is more appropriate.

Curated News

North America News

🇺🇸 BlackRock Sells FutureAdvisor's Direct-To-Consumer Business To Ritholtz - WealthManagement.com, February 28, New York

🇺🇸 RealBlocks Launches $1B Liquidity Solution For Alternative Investment Funds - Businesswire, February 23, New York

🇺🇸 Assetco And Westwood Partner With Investcloud On Innovative Asset Management Distribution Solution - Businesswire, March 1, California

🇺🇸 Clearlake And Motive-Backed Software Platform BetaNXT Expands Capabilities, Growth Opportunities With Acquisition Of Mediant Communications - Businesswire, March 1, New York

🇺🇸U.S. Bancorp Invests In Digital Assets Fintech, Ownera - TMCnet, March 2, Minnesota

EMEA News

⭐🇳🇱 Euronext Pulls $5.8B Offer To Buy Allfunds - Reuters, March 1, Amsterdam

🇰🇪EFG Hermes Kenya Launches Digital End-To-End Registration Of New Trading Accounts - Kenya, February 27

Asia Pacific News

⭐🇵🇭 UNIONBANK: Blazing Digital Trails In The Philippines And Beyond - International Banker, March 2   

🇭🇰 Aspen Digital Launches Inaugural Web 3 Investment Summit for Traditional Private Wealth Investors - Asiaone, February 28 

Blogs, Webinars, Podcasts

🇺🇸 RIA M&A Set Another Record In 2022 - Investopedia, February 28, New York

🇬🇧 Europe Finally Serious About Growing ETF Market - ETF Stream, March 1, London

🇬🇧 Dealmaking Jumps As PE Drives Wealth-Management Consolidation - PitchBook, March 1, London

🇸🇬 Wealthtechs Win By Managing Wealth And Not The Wealthy - Singapore Business, February 28, Singapore

Events & Reports

🇺🇸 Envestnet Summit 2023 Elevate - Envestnet, April 26 - 27, Colorado

🇺🇸 Wealth Management Edge - Informa Connect, May 21 - 24, Florida

🇺🇸 Finovate Spring - Informa Connect, May 23 - 25, California

🇬🇧Private Banking & Wealth Management London Conference & Awards 2023 - Arena International, June 14, London

Shape your Future

Wondering what’s shaping the future of wealthtech, Fintech, and DeFi? 

At the Fintech Blueprint, we go down the rabbit hole in the DeFi and Fintech industries to help you make better investment decisions, innovate, and compete in the industry. Subscribe now to level up your knowledge and get access to our weekly Long Takes!

Subscribe now

• Read our Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.

• Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Daniel, Daniella

• Want to discuss? Stop by our Discord and or reach out here anytime. Leave a comment below on what you think and what we should cover next.

Leave a comment

Happy Thursday! Today we highlight the following —

1. NORTH AMERICA: Wells Fargo Introduces LifeSync®, A Digital Platform To Help Clients More Easily Plan And Track Their Money

2. EMEA: Euronext Launches €5.5B Bid For Allfunds

3. ASIA PACIFIC: SCB Focuses On Digital Bank Strategy

4. GEOGRAPHIC NEWS CURATION

5. REPORTS & EVENTS: The Robo Report | Fourth Quarter 2022

Based on your feedback, we know that many of you are interested in reviews of companies or projects highlighted by our community. Leave a comment below with a company of your interest and we’ll do a deeper take on it later!

Leave a comment

Digital Wealth Short Takes

⭐🇺🇸 Wells Fargo Introduces LifeSync®, A Digital Platform To Help Clients More Easily Plan And Track Their Money - Businesswire, February 22, California

Wells Fargo is launching a new in-app digital platform, LifeSync, for its existing wealth management clients. The latest offering aims to improve the collaboration between advisors and clients, tracking personalized financial goals in real-time.

For context, Wells is the fourth largest bank in the US with total assets of $1.7T and an advisor headcount of 12,000+. In its latest 4Q earnings report, the Wealth and Investment Management division reported $3.7B in revenue and $715M in net income, representing YoY increases of 1% and 27%, respectively.

However since 2017, the Fed has had Wells Fargo operating under an asset cap, prohibiting the bank from growing beyond $1.9T due to various internal scandals, which resulted in significant fines and a loss of customer trust. Spending time on remedying compliance failure, rather than on growth, slows the ability to innovate or launch new products. Meanwhile, competitors like Morgan Stanley and Bank of America have grown client assets to $4.2T and $3.4T, respectively. Conversely, Wells has had to downsize or sell off entire business functions — e.g., it sold its asset management division for $2.1B in 2021.

Wells Fargo faces a digital wealth space that has matured significantly since 2017 and a customer that demands more from their digital relationship manager. Recent investments into Fargo, a virtual digital assistant using Google AI, and the relaunch of roboadvisor Intuitive Investor serve as promising initial developments. It is difficult to tell how much traction these efforts will yield, but they are the right next step for a business trying to modernize and keep up with the fintech state of the art.

👑Related Coverage👑

• The Law of Unintended Consequences via Wells Fargo, Divergence Ventures, DeFi designs, and the Federal Reserve

• Wells Fargo $3B+ & Epic $520MM fines undermine positive-sum games and consumer surplus

⭐🇳🇱 Euronext Launches €5.5B Bid For Allfunds - Financial Times, February 22, Amsterdam

Stock market infrastructure company Euronext has made a cash and stock offer of €5.5B to acquire B2B wealthtech platform Allfunds, which services 3,000 fund groups and has €1.3T+ of assets under administration. Euronext is in discussions with Hellman & Friedman and BNP Paribas, who jointly own 46.4% of Allfunds, to gain their support for the acquisition.

Allfunds experienced a turbulent 2022, with assets under administration decreasing 8.6% year on year in Q3, to €1.3 trillion, primarily due to equity outflows totalling €13.7B. Taking out money from risk assets to generate cash was a common theme for investors in 2022. Nevertheless, Allfunds continued its horizontal integration strategy by acquiring digital solutions provider Web Financial Group, data analytics firm instiHub Analytics, and ESG platform Mainstreet Partners. 

The acquisition of Allfunds by Euronext is in line with the trend of stock exchanges seeking to diversify their revenue streams — Euronext is reducing its reliance on traditional trading and settlement services, which have become increasingly electronic. The deal also reflects the increasing importance of tech in the fund industry, where we have seen the London Stock Exchange Group acquiring data provider Refinitiv for $27B, Intercontinental Exchange buying mortgage software provider Black Knight for $13.1B and Interactive Data Corporation for $5.2B.

For Euronext, Citi analysts have highlighted their concern about Euronext offering €3.6B in cash without breaching its net debt/EBITDA thresholds. The analysts have also underlined the challenge for the Allfunds board considering an offer much lower than where the value of company was 18 months ago. We must note, however, that European-domiciled long-term funds saw net outflows of €130B in 2022, their worst year since 2008. With the end of the period of great moderation, in which fund investing was prevalent, Allfunds may benefit from the safety brought by the acquisition.

👑Related Coverage👑

• Distributing €1.4 trillion of investment funds on blockchain, with Allfunds' Ruben Nieto

⭐🇹🇭 SCB Focuses On Digital Bank Strategy

Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) has unveiled its "Digital Bank with Human Touch" vision. DBS Bank has had similar initiatives, launching its "digibank" app, offering personalized financial advice to millennials.

Over the next three years, SCB plans to complete its digital transformation, achieving an ROE of over 10% and lowering its cost-to-income ratio to below 40% by 2025. Thai banking has been challenged since 2015, with ROEs dropping from 14% between 2009-2014 to 7% and getting stuck there. Additionally, the bank aims to increase its share of the wealth wallet market to 40% and allocate an additional 100 billion baht ($2.9B) towards green finance.

The bank is pursuing three stragic initiatives: (1) transforming into a digital bank via the high adoption of financial apps in Thailand; (2) becoming a leader in wealth management by focusing on the "Emerging Wealth" group using digital solutions; and (3) improving the omnichannel service experience by modernizing infrastructure and increasing connectivity between client touchpoints. In other words, more digital distribution and onboarding.

Thailand's banking industry is at a critical juncture, with the country's economy facing a slowdown. As such, Thai banks are adopting new technology, such as AI, cloud, blockchain, and digital assets, to meet changing consumer preferences. Per the McKinsey report linked above, these banks need to shift from a product-centric to an advisory-centric approach, with wealth management, advisory services, and retirement and estate planning, increasing customer engagement, and growing fee-based income.

That said, it can be tough for traditional players to invest a lot in technology and see the returns promised from innovation. Those initiatives takes multi-year commitments, patient investors, and high customer centricity.

Curated News

North America News

🇺🇸 Orion Launches Advisor Academy, A Free On-Demand Learning Platform For Fiduciary Advisors - Businesswire, February 22, Nebraska

🇺🇸 Dynasty Financial Partners And BridgeFT Announce A Strategic Partnership To Make BridgeFT’s WealthTech API The Primary Data Aggregation Partner For Dynasty’s Integrated Technology Platform - Businesswire, February 22, Illinois

🇺🇸 Wealthtech Addepar Introduces New Tools, Data And Access To Insights As Financial Market Shifts Continue - Crowdfund Insider, February 19, New York

🇺🇸 GoLogiq’s Nest Egg Completes Integration Of GPT-3 AI Technology Into Consumer Investing Platform - Globe Newswire, February 21, New York

🇺🇸 QUODD Acquires Xignite To Capture Larger Portion Of Cloud-Native Market Data Industry - Businesswire, February 16, New Jersey

🇺🇸 Groundfloor Surpasses $1B In Investments, Celebrates 10-year-anniversary - PR Newswire, February 21, Georgia

EMEA News

🇳🇴 Bricknode And Quantfolio Team Up To Deliver Digital Wealth Management Tools To The Advisory Sector - Market Screener, February 16, Norway

🇬🇧 Ad Infinitum Capital Seeks To Change The Game For Retail Investors With A Smart Portfolio Program - EIN Presswire, February 15, London

Asia Pacific News

🇸🇬 Digital Assets Platform FalconX Expands Global Presence To Singapore - PR Newswire, February 22, Singapore

Blogs, Webinars, Podcasts

🇺🇸 Apex Fintech Solutions’ Data Highlights Millennials As The Most Active Traders In 4Q; Three-Year Lookback Shows Rise of Self-Directed And Wealth-Tech Traders - Businesswire, February 22, Texas

🇸🇬 McKinsey: Asia’s Booming Affluent Segments Introduce New Opportunities in Digital Wealth - Fintech Singapore, February 17, Singapore

🇬🇧 Trust And Wealth Tech Providers Merge - International Adviser, February 21, London

🇺🇸 Prepare To Meet The New Generation Of Clients - Advisor Perspectives, February 21, Massachusetts

🇲🇾 Singapore Records Highest Fintech Funding In Three Years Amidst A Global Slowdown - Techwire Asia, February 20, Kuala Lumpur

Events & Reports

⭐🇺🇸 The Robo Report | Fourth Quarter 2022 - Condor Capital Wealth Management, February 21, New Jersey

Here is the full-year picture of roboadvisor returns across 2022. Our prior coverage of the Robo Report demonstrated a poor 3Q, with average returns at -20% YTD. For full year 2022, average returns across 30+ roboadvisors stood at a slightly improved -15%. Still not great, but understandable given the state of the markets and diversified their investment product.

According to the report, the top 3 best overall roboadvisor rankings based on a balance of product depth, simplicity, functionality, and customization were given to: Wealthfront, SoFi, and Fidelity Go, respectively. Wealthfront had a rollercoaster year, see our coverage of the acquisition that never was by UBS.

🇺🇸 Wealth Management Edge - Informa Connect, May 21 - 24, Florida

🇬🇧 Private Banking & Wealth Management London Conference & Awards 2023 - Arena International, June 14, London

Shape your Future

Wondering what’s shaping the future of wealthtech, Fintech, and DeFi? 

At the Fintech Blueprint, we go down the rabbit hole in the DeFi and Fintech industries to help you make better investment decisions, innovate, and compete in the industry. Subscribe now to level up your knowledge and get access to our weekly Long Takes!

Subscribe now

• Read our Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.

• Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Daniel, Daniella

• Want to discuss? Stop by our Discord and or reach out here anytime. Leave a comment below on what you think and what we should cover next.

  Leave a comment

Happy Thursday! Today we highlight the following —

1. NORTH AMERICA: Canoe Intelligence Raises $25MM Series B Funding To Transform The Alternative Investment Data Ecosystem

2. EMEA: Landytech Secures $12MM Series B Funding From Aquiline Technology Growth

3. ASIA PACIFIC: Interactive Brokers Launches Crypto Trading Powered By OSL In Hong Kong

4. Geographic news curation

5. Reports and Events

We are going to slightly change around with the format today to improve readability, and mirror the experience of the short takes. Let us know what you think of this layout!

Leave a comment

Digital Wealth Short Takes

⭐🇺🇸 Canoe Intelligence Raises $25MM Series B Funding To Transform The Alternative Investment Data Ecosystem - Globe Newswire, February 8, New York

Alternative investment intelligence company Canoe Intelligence, which works with clients that support over $5T in assets, has raised $25MM in a Series B funding round. The investment is led by F-Prime Capital with participation from Eight Roads Ventures and other strategic investors. Canoe's client base grew over 200% in 2021 and has continued that pace into 2022, highlighting the appeal of the Alts asset class. 

Canoe's platform provides a database of 20,000+ funds, supporting improvements in the workflow of fund processing. The company sources investment documents (e.g., K-1s, capital calls, account statements, HF fact sheets, quarterly reports) from fund administrator portals, scans the documents, and categorizes them into a database for extraction and validation through machine learning, and delivers extracted data throuh APIs to downstream accounting and reporting systems. 

By 2026, BCG expects the revenue from Alternatives to grow to more than half of all global asset management revenues, in part because traditional assets are also getting less expensive. As the asset class grows, there is an emergence of tech companies that manage related documents and data. Longer term, blockchain anchoring and tokenization will affect both the asset management and investment reporting tech industries. Companies like Allfunds are already working on related initiatives.

👑Related Coverage👑

• Podcast Conversation: Distributing €1.4 trillion of investment funds on blockchain, with Allfunds' Ruben Nieto

⭐🇬🇧 Landytech Secures $12MM Series B Funding From Aquiline Technology Growth - Fintech Global, February 14, London

Investment reporting technology company Landytech has raised $12MM in a Series B funding round led by Aquiline Technology Growth with participation from Adelie Capital. Landytech's last raise was a $6MM Series A in March 2021. 

Sesame, Landytech's core software, is used by 170 custodians across 15 countries and reports on $30B+ assets.

The platform provides (1) automated and standardised bookkeeping with the latest market data; (2) analytics powered by MSCI BarraOne and RiskMetrics such as VaR, portfolio sensitivities, risk contributions, customisable scenario analyses, stress tests, what-if simulations, liquidity analysis, performance attribution, and pre-trade compliance; (3) simplified regulatory reporting via resourcing support and templated reports; and (4) for family offices, consolidated reporting across public and private assets and breakdowns of management fees.

Many asset managers are still in a manual workflow world in their backoffice. In a prior analysis, we showed that family offices waste 20-40% of working hours on manual processes, using a combination of spreadsheets, accounting software packages, and tax systems. Meanwhile, according to Bain returns to scale are 35% higher with a digitally designed model. Yet finance firms often downplay the importance of modern investment tech and remain complacent. There are plenty of solutions — Eton, Adeppar, Envesnet, Orion — and many others. Just automate your performance reporting already!

👑Related Coverage👑

• Building an investment platform with a risk management heart, with Riskalyze CEO Aaron Klein

⭐🇭🇰 Interactive Brokers Launches Crypto Trading Powered By OSL In Hong Kong - Fintech News, February 15, Hong Kong

Interactive Brokers has partnered with crypto exchange OSL Digital Securities to offer its existing client base in Hong Kong the ability to trade crypto products like Bitcoin and Ethereum. Despite the volatility, there is increasing demand for exposure to digital assets among HNWIs in the region.

A KPMG study of HNWIs and FOs found that 92% of respondents (based in Hong Kong/Singapore) said they were interested in investing in the asset class. The main reasons were its high upside potential (64%) and mainstream institutional adoption (35%).  

The trend of Mastercard integrating crypto trading for bank partners attests that adoption is becoming mainstream. And this week, Singapore's DBS Bank also plans to launch cryptocurrency services in Hong Kong. Asian regulatory authorities have also recently softened their stance on the asset class, with regulations passed in Hong Kong subjecting crypto exchanges to the same laws governing TradFi products. 

Interactive Brokers is charging commissions relative to trading volume — 0.12% on >$1MM, 0.15% on >$100k - $1MM, and 0.18% on <$100K, with a $1.75 minimum per order, and no added spreads or markups. Clients must either be native residents with HKD 8MM (~$10MM) in investable assets or institutions with more than HKD 40MM (~$51MM).

Industry players that integrate traditional and crypto assets on a unified platform are merely reflecting back consumer demand. We would advocate the wealth management industry think about asset allocation and risk-adjusted returns in figuring out the right balance, which would be an improvement on straight brokerage.

👑Related Coverage👑

• eToro CEO Yoni Assia on the purpose of investing, crypto assets, and building a $10B fintech

Curated News

North America News 

🇺🇸 SYSTM Launches As A Comprehensive Wealth Ecosystem For Financial Advisors And Asset Managers - PR Newswire, February 9, Colorado

🇺🇸 AdvizorStack Adds Zephyr To Their Financial Advisor Tech Stack - PR Newswire, February 15, Massachusetts

🇺🇸 SMC Signs Letter Of Intent To Acquire AI-enabled Wealth Management Technology Platform - Accesswire, February 15, Florida

🇺🇸 Interactive Brokers Cuts Some Roboadvisor Fees - Barron’s, February 10, Connecticut

🇺🇸 Merrill Readies Advisors For Their Close Ups With New Virtual Video Studio - Financial Planning, February 15, New York

🇺🇸 FusionIQ, DriveWealth To Form Digital Investing Platform Alliance At BISA 2023 Annual Convention - PR Newswire, February 15, Massachusetts

EMEA News

🇬🇧 Wealthtech Firm Aiviq Signs Multi-Year Deal With AllianceBernstein - Fintech Global, February 14, London

🇸🇦 SNB Capital Launches “Idikhari Program” Digital Robo Advisory - Fintech Global, February 14, Riyadh

🇬🇧 Ad Infinitum Capital Seeks To Change The Game For Retail Investors With A Smart Portfolio Program - EIN Presswire, February 15, London

Asia Pacific News

🇨🇳 Hamilton Lane Expands Presence In Asia, Opening An Office In Shanghai  - PR Newswire, February 15, Shanghai

🇸🇬 Eton Solutions Selects Singapore For Its International Headquarters And Launches New Administrative Family Office Solution To Support Clients In The Middle East - PR Newswire, February 14, Singapore

Blogs, Webinars, Podcasts

🇺🇸 Digital Wealth Management Is A Golden Opportunity For Growth - BankDirector.com, February 15, Tennessee

🇬🇧 Reinventing Wealth Management - Is Your Technology Future-Ready? - The Wealth Mosaic, February 15, London

🇺🇸 As RIA Industry Matures, M&A Is Here To Stay - Private Wealth, February 13, New Jersey

🇬🇧 Reinventing Wealth Management - Is Your Technology Future-Ready? - The Wealth Mosaic, February 15, London

Events & Reports

🇬🇧 Digital Integration In Wealth Management 2023 - Arena International, February 21-22, London

🇺🇸 Wealth Management Edge - Informa Connect, May 21 - 24, Florida

🇬🇧Private Banking & Wealth Management London Conference & Awards 2023 - Arena International, June 14, London

Shape your Future

Wondering what’s shaping the future of wealthtech, Fintech, and DeFi? 

At the Fintech Blueprint, we go down the rabbit hole in the DeFi and Fintech industries to help you make better investment decisions, innovate, and compete in the industry. Subscribe now to level up your knowledge and get access to our weekly Long Takes!

Subscribe now

• Read our Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.

• Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Daniel, Daniella

• Want to discuss? Stop by our Discord and or reach out here anytime. Leave a comment below on what you think and what we should cover next.

Leave a comment

Due to a mailing glitch, we are doubling up with the Podcast and Digital Wealth email today. Here we highlight the following news —

1. NORTH AMERICA: Conquest Planning Closes $24MM Series A Raise

2. EMEA: FNZ Buys Luxembourg-based Fund Platform

3. ASIA PACIFIC: Endowus Forges New Alternatives Partnership With Amundi

4. REPORTS: Digital And AI-enabled Wealth Management: The Big Potential In Asia

Thanks as always for your time and attention. To dive deeper into our covered topics, check out the premium options below.

Subscribe now

North America News

⭐🇨🇦 Conquest Planning Closes $24MM Series A Raise - Fintech Global, February 7, Winnipeg

Conquest Planning, an AI-powered financial planning platform, has raised $24MM (CAD) in its Series A funding round, bringing total funding to $35MM (CAD). Fidelity led the latest round with support from Portage, BNY Mellon, and RBC. Conquest uses a proprietary digital assistant called SAM (strategic advice manager) to simplify the client onboarding process and help advisors create personalized client portfolios. 

An October 2022 report sizes the financial planning software market at $3.7B in 2021, reaching $16.9B by 2031 with a CAGR of 16.6%. The structure of the market has always been fragmented with a few key leaders — in 2022, the most popular software providers were MoneyGuide Pro Elite, eMoney Pro, and Right Capital. Together, these three providers represented 73% of the market, with MoneyGuide alone at ~33%. Also remember that MoneyGuide is owned by Envestnet and eMoney by Fidelity — there aren’t *that* many independing financial planning apps that make for great companies.

According to Michael Kitces, an advisor can spend 10+ hours developing a financial plan and 35 hours during the onboarding, data gathering, analysis, plan recommendation & monitoring lifecycle. A winning playbook should use technology to reduce advisor/client areas of friction, offer planning depth in a unified platform across a client’s assets, and be interoperable and visually appealing, while adding value to a customer’s personal finance journey.

Planning is often caught in an awkward part of the user journey, because it doesn’t always lead to the investment management product sale. As a result, it acts more like a diagnosis rather than the surgery itself. Putting “AI” into that diagnosis may make it faster, but we think that the integrations required into the rest of the human advisor workflow will continue to undercut the effectives of technology solutions. For more, see the McKinsey Digital And AI-enabled Wealth Management report.

🇺🇸 Opto Investments Partners With Merchant To Provide Advisors With Access To Comprehensive Private Market Investment Solution - Businesswire, February 8, New York

🇺🇸 Fierce Launches Out Of Stealth With $10MM Seed Funding To Empower Customers To Take Control Of Their Finances - Businesswire, February 8, New York

The company has a great founder, but is there really space for another fintech B2C superapp?

🇨🇦 Scotiabank Empowers Customers To Take Control Of Their Investments With The Launch Of Scotia Smart Investor - Cision Newswire, February 6, Toronto

🇺🇸 UNest And Wealth Announce Strategic Partnership To Market Financial And Estate Planning Tools - Businesswire, February 8, California

EMEA News

⭐🇬🇧 FNZ Buys Luxembourg-based Fund Platform - International Adviser, February 8, London

Wealthtech platform FNZ has acquired Luxembourg-based B2B fund platform International Fund Services & Asset Management (IFSAM) for an undisclosed sum.

IFSAM offers (1) fund dealing/execution services, providing access to 135,000+ funds ranging from Mutual Funds and ETFs to Hedge Funds; (2) fund custody, offering 1,750+ depository access in 45 jurisdictions with an open architecture; (3) fund data, offering fund target market data (e.g., trading, prospectuses, reports, factsheets, KIIDs, PRIIPs, and KIDs; (4) fund research using in-house research and external analysis of Morningstar and Scope Analysis GmbH; (5) and distribution support, administrative workload via automated bundling of order and settlement processes. IFSAM also helps meet regulatory requirements such as AML, KYC or FATCA.

The acquisition of IFSAM scales FNZ's European operations into Luxembourg, the largest fund centre in Europe. Previously, FNZ acquired Fondsdepot Bank, a German B2B bank with €60B+ in assets under administration, working with 330+ fund providers and 200+ distribution partners, and Appway, the Switzerland-based client onboarding firm that provides low-code no-code workflow automation solutions. 

We are still amazed at the differences between European and American infrastructure in asset management. ETF adoption into asset allocations across most US-based investment management has put pressure on anything not resembling that structure. Further, we are also amazed at the incredible amount of technology required to keep international fund distribution going — certainly a prime target for tokenization and an open source architecture.

👑Related Coverage👑

• Podcast Conversation: Distributing €1.4 trillion of investment funds on blockchain, with Allfunds' Ruben Nieto

🇩🇪 Deutsche Bank’s Asset Management Arm Eyes Crypto Investments - Bloomberg, February 8, Frankfurt

🇩🇪 Moonfare, the retail private equity platform, Sees Overwhelming Demand In Extended Series C Round At Record Valuation - Businesswire, February 8, Berlin

🇬🇧 Roboadvisor Exo Investing Shuttered After Abrdn Scraps Acquisition Plan - Altfi, February 6, London

🇸🇦 Madkhol Launches Its Roboadvisory Platform For Shari’a Investments - IBS Intelligence, February 8, Riyadh

🇬🇧 Dacxi.com Rebrands To Wealth99 - Investors Observer, February 2, London

Asia Pacific News

⭐🇸🇬 Endowus Forges New Alternatives Partnership With Amundi - Private Banker International, February 7, Singapore

Digital wealth platform Endowus partnered with Amundi's Alternatives business to provide clients with investment strategies from Bridgewater Associates, Ray Dalio's hedge fund. Endowus and Amundi already have a partnership for active and passive investments. In its last round, Endowus raised about $25MM in 2021.

Endowus is a leading Asian digital advice platform, with a private wealth service that includes a personal advisor and a customized portfolio, and access to 200+ institutional share-class funds and alternative assets. The company has added many funds to its offerings, including private market and Alts strategies from KKR, Partners Group, Millennium, Blackrock, QuantEdge, UBS, and now Bridgewater.

Amundi Alternatives has $71B in AUM across Europe. It offers (1) real estate solutions ($47B in AUM), whereby Amundi develops, structures and manages European-focused property funds, club deals, impact funds, co-investments, and advisory and multimanagers' structures for institutional and retail investors; (2) private markets ($13B in AUM) covering PE, private debt, infrastructure, and real estate via hedge fund managers; and (3) private debt ($9B in AUM) specializing in senior corporate debt, commercial real estate, and LBOs.

This is a fast growing geography — total AUM in Singapore rose 16% in 2021 to $3.8T — fuelled by a 30% year-on-year jump in the alternatives sector. In January, Endowus also partnered with iCapital, an alts-focused B2B fintech with $150B+ in AUM. The partnership helped Endowus investors in Singapore and Hong Kong to access private market funds. And in October, Endowus acquired a 60% stake in Carret Private Investments Asia.

We are very interested in the integration of Alternatives into digital offerings, and impressed with the traction of Endowus to date. One key difference to companies like Betterment is that you end up charging the client a lot more than 25 basis points when selling private equity — so fees are a key thing to watch.

🇸🇬 SG Wealth Management Platform Kristal.AI Eyes $30MM Series B Funding - Deal Street Asia, February 2, Singapore

🇮🇳 South Indian Bank Announces The Launch Of SIB Wealth - A Wealth Management Platform - PR Newswire, February 7, Mumbai

🇮🇳 Scripbox Partners With Wealth Managers  - United News of India , February 6, Chennai

Blogs, Webinars, Podcasts

🇳🇬 Unleashing The Digital Wealth With Prudent And Sound Means - TDPel Media, February 1, Lagos

🇫🇷 Fintech’s Impact on Traditional Wealth Management  - SIA Partners, February 6, France

🇬🇧UK Asset Managers Suffer Record Outflows In 2022 - Financial Times, February 3, London

Events & Reports

🇻🇳 Digital And AI-enabled Wealth Management: The Big Potential In Asia - McKinsey & Company, February 2, Hanoi

🇺🇸 Wealth Management Edge - Informa Connect, May 21 - 24, Florida

🇬🇧 Private Banking & Wealth Management London Conference & Awards 2023 - Arena International, June 14, London

🇬🇧 Digital Integration In Wealth Management 2023 - Arena International, February 21-22, London

Shape your Future

Wondering what’s shaping the future of wealthtech, Fintech, and DeFi? 

At the Fintech Blueprint, we go down the rabbit hole in the DeFi and Fintech industries to help you make better investment decisions, innovate, and compete in the industry. Subscribe now to level up your knowledge and get access to our weekly Long Takes!

Subscribe now

• Read our Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.

• Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Daniel, Daniella

• Want to discuss? Stop by our Discord and or reach out here anytime. Leave a comment below on what you think and what we should cover next.

Leave a comment

Due to a mailing glitch, we are doubling up with the Podcast and Digital Wealth email today. Here we highlight the following news —

1. NORTH AMERICA: BlackRock Partners With Digital Platform To Launch ETF Savings Plans Across Europe

2. EMEA: M&G Launches D2C Platform One Year After MoneyFarm Deal

3. ASIA PACIFIC: Zorion Selects WealthOS To Support International Expansion

4. REPORTS: M&A In Wealth And Asset Management: How Deals Will Shake Up the Industry

Thanks as always for your time and attention. To dive deeper into our covered topics, check out the premium options below.

Subscribe now

North America News

⭐🇺🇸 BlackRock Partners With Digital Platform To Launch ETF Savings Plans Across Europe - ETF Stream, January 31, New York

BlackRock has partnered with digital wealth platform Bux, which has 700,000+ users, to launch ETF savings plans across the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Austria and Ireland. The company is a new name to us, but has been around since 2013 and clears via ABN AMRO.

Bux's investment brokerage platform will help investors build individual portfolios with BlackRock's iShares ETFs, offering asset allocation into bonds, stocks, themes, sectors, factors and sustainable ETFs with a minimum investment of €10 a month and a €1.5 commission fee per trade.

Alongside savings and thematic investing, Bux lets investors purchase fractional shares in stocks and ETFs on BUX Zero. BUX Zero also enables investors to trade with 30 cryptocurrencies, whereby users can avoid fees on crypto trading altogether by holding at least 1000 $BUX, Bux's native token. This is similar to Bitpanda's BEST (Bitpanda Ecosystem Token).

The platform's fee structure is interesting — (1) zero orders, which are executed between 16:00 CET and market close (€0 fee), we assume done in batches; (2) market orders, which are are executed immediately (€1.5 fee); and (3) limit orders, which are executed once the asset reaches the price you set. 

Given number of digital wealth platforms that use iShares ETFs as part of their model portfolios, one can recognize BlackRock's distribution strategy into European retail investors. The company offers 1,300+ iShares ETFs to 35MM users, 3MM+ of which are European, a 22% increase since 2021. BlackRock predicts that ETF investments on European digital wealth platforms will hit €500B by 2026.

Bux is just yet another digital broker to sell the default vehicle for market exposure. That said, we commend it to integrating all the key attributes of digital investing in the last decade — free trades, roboadvice, crypto assets, and fractional shares. Cash account should be next!

⭐🇺🇸 Yield App Acquires Structured Product Provider Trofi Group - Crowdfund Insider, January 31, California

⭐🇺🇸 Schwab Buys Wealth Management Platform Focused On Ultra-Wealthy - Financial Advisor, January 26, Texas

🇺🇸 Orion Champions Effort To Connect 10,000 Advisors To Families Facing Financial Hardships - Businesswire, January 30, Nebraska

🇺🇸 Pontera Announces Integration With Envestnet, Incorporating Its 401(k) Management Capabilities Into Envestnet’s Ecosystem - Businesswire, February 1, New York

🇺🇸 FLX Networks Taps Broadridge To Offer Distribution Platform To Asset Managers - Private Banker International, January 27, New Jersey

EMEA News

⭐🇬🇧 M&G Launches D2C Platform One Year After MoneyFarm Deal - FT Adviser, January 31, London

Moneyfarm, the UK digital investing app, has 90,000 customers and £2B+ on its platform. It raised £44MM in a Series D led by asset manager M&G Wealth, which manages £350B in AUM. Since its inception in 2012, Moneyfarm has raised £139MM, and is now valued between £300-350MM (surely the floundering Wealthfront sale to UBS didn’t help comps). The silver lining is that the asset managers — M&G, Allianz Asset Management, Poste Italiane and UniCredit — have partnered with MoneyFarm for its digital wealth tech.

A year after the partnership announcement, M&G has unveiled its new digital investing platform, &me. The incredibly named effor (who is your SEO expert!?) leverages MoneyFarm's platform and helps clients to invest in &me classic or targeted portfolios, starting from £500.

Classic portfolios comprise ETFs and the targeted portfolios invest in a blend of active and passive funds (equities, bonds and alternatives) from First Sentier, iShares, M&G, Manulife, Pictet, PIMCO, Robeco and Wellington. Each portfolio is also ranked 1-6 (1 = least risky; 6 = most risky), and there is a maximum of 35% of the active funds that any one firm can manage. &me also offers free personal consulting services for portfolio construction. 

Hargreaves Lansdown, Interactive Investor and Fidelity have a 62% market share in the UK direct investment sector, which reached £351B by the end of June 2021. But the demand for digital investment services has accelerated, accounting for 19% of all UK direct customers, with M&G Wealth going full force to capture a more significant market share of Gen Z and Millennial investors from companies like MoneyBox, Shares.io, Wealthsimple, and Wealthify. Nutmeg was bought by JPM.

Since late 2021, M&G Wealth initiatives include launching ''MAP your future," which is a hybrid financial advisor; acquiring financial advisor business Sandringham Partners; partnering with MoneyFarm; acquiring TCF Investments to provide model portfolio services (MPS); adding six ESG-focused model portfolios; and taking an initial 49.9% stake in National IFA Continuum Financial. Asset managers are hungry for distribution, and digital is the main storefront.

👑Related Coverage👑

• Podcast Conversation: Adam Nash, Daffy CEO & former Wealthfront CEO, on using technology to improve people's financial lives

🇫🇷 Credit Agricole Subsidiary Buys 70% Stake In Global Wealthtech Firm - International Adviser, January 26, France

🇦🇪 Globaleye Launches New Wealth Management Platform In The UAE - IBS Intelligence, January 31, Dubai

🇬🇧 Wealthtech Start-up Nucoro Reshapes Its Business - Fintech Futures, January 26, London

🇩🇪 Wealthtech Startup Beatvest Closes €1.3MM Round - Fintech Global, January 30, Munich

Asia Pacific News

⭐🇸🇬 Zorion Selects WealthOS To Support International Expansion - Finextra, January 31, Singapore

Zorion, a Singapore-based early-stage investment app with $500K in funding, has partnered with WealthOS, a SaaS platform improving the technology and infrastructure for digital investing and wealth management. 

Zorion enters a digital wealth arena in Singapore that includes established firms such as Syfe, Bambu, Kristal.AI, and StashAway. It offers (1) fractional shares with investing as little as RM 5 (~ $1 equivalent); (2) analytics that measure investment risk-profile; (3) thematic portfolios; and (4) Shariah-compliant and ESG-risk rated stocks for those with a socially-driven investing approach.

In an Investor Pulse 2022 survey, over 66% of Singaporeans stated that they are "unlikely to meet their investment goals within the timeframe they planned," while 56% stated that "they require more support, education and insights to direct their investment decisions." — highlighting the need for increased financial education. And yet, traditional online brokerages remains the preferred type of digital investing platform in Singapore. For the long term, investment outcomes suffer in transactional business models, and succeed in advisory or asset allocation business models.

That said, Singapore is friendly and developed market for wealth management where, according to a report from KPMG, strong internet penetration and a wave of tech-savvy consumers are embracing digital investing solutions. WealthOS can save B2C footprints time and money in standing up the back and middle office, and the game is a race to acquire customers.

🇭🇰 Hong Kong’s Livi bank Forays Into Wealth Management Space - Private Banker International, February 1, Hong Kong

🇮🇳 Indian Wealth Manager Wealthapp Enters Family Office Business - Private Banker International, January 30, Bengaluru

Blogs, Webinars, Podcasts

🇺🇸 Advisors Must Evolve To Survive In The AI Era - Investment News, February 1, California

🇺🇸 How Model Portfolios Work in the Real World: Advisors' Advice - ThinkAdvisor, February 1, New York

🇺🇸 The WealthStack Podcast: 2023 WealthTech Outlook with Davis Janowski - WealthManagement.com, February 1, New York

Events & Reports

⭐🇺🇸 M&A In Wealth And Asset Management: How Deals Will Shake Up the Industry - Bain & Company, January 31, Massachusetts

🇺🇸 Wealth Management Edge - Informa Connect, May 21 - 24, Florida

🇬🇧 Private Banking & Wealth Management London Conference & Awards 2023 - Arena International, June 14, London

🇬🇧Digital Integration In Wealth Management 2023 - Arena International, February 21-22, London

Shape your Future

Wondering what’s shaping the future of wealthtech, Fintech, and DeFi? 

At the Fintech Blueprint, we go down the rabbit hole in the DeFi and Fintech industries to help you make better investment decisions, innovate, and compete in the industry. Subscribe now to level up your knowledge and get access to our weekly Long Takes!

Subscribe now

• Read our Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.

• Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Daniel, Daniella

• Want to discuss? Stop by our Discord and or reach out here anytime. Leave a comment below on what you think and what we should cover next.

Leave a comment

Welcome back to Digital Wealth. Today we highlight the following news —

1. NORTH AMERICA: FNZ To Acquire YieldX, Accelerating The Personalization Of Wealth Management Solutions Across The U.S. Market

2. EMEA: Wealthtech Startup Everon Closes CHF 2.5MM Seed Round From TX Ventures

3. ASIA PACIFIC: Indiassetz Inks Partnership Deal With Wealthy

Thanks as always for your time and attention. To dive deeper into our covered topics, check out the premium options below.

Subscribe now

North America News

⭐🇺🇸 FNZ To Acquire YieldX, Accelerating The Personalization Of Wealth Management Solutions Across The U.S. Market - Businesswire, January 19, Florida

FNZ, an investment platform with $1.5T in assets under administration and 20MM+ clients, has announced that it acquired YieldX, a fixed-income portfolio management startup. YieldX raised $5MM in seed funding in April 2019 and closed another $5MM round in September 2021. The startup is led by CEO Adam Green, co-founder of MoneyLion, and President and Chief Innovation Officer Steve Gross, formerly founder of AlphaParity, acquired by Franklin Templeton in 2017.

YieldX has workflows to build and optimize yield portfolios, so that you don’t need to be a traditional asset manager to get exposure. Their tools let users build or optimize a personalized portfolio across a wide array of interest-bearing securities by answering questions. The (1) Optimizer allows users to leverage YieldX's multifactor optimizer to adjust a portfolio; (2) AssetExplorer lets users search, filter and sort through 2 million fixed income interest; (3) BestFit lets users build personalized corporate bond portfolios, aggregating data around ESG consideration, AI-driven valuation, and to real-time liquidity; and (4) LadderBuilder creates a bond ladder portfolio in seconds.

FNZ had previously acquired Appway in December 2021, a platform offering low-code workflow automation solutions for faster client onboarding times. By 2025, 70% of new applications developed by organizations will use low-code or no-code tech, up from less than 25% in 2020.

We also think that investment technology platforms have no choice but expand their capabilities into fixed income in the current market environment, where Treasuries may perform better than stocks through the coming recession. Same goes for Alternatives.

🇺🇸 Zoe Financial Launches New Digital Wealth Platform - Private Banker International, January 19, New York

🇺🇸 BridgeFT Launches WealthTech API To Power Digital Wealth Transformation By Creating A New Cloud-Based, API-First Infrastructure For Data, Analytics, And Applications - Yahoo Finance, January 24, Illinois

🇺🇸 Kestra Financial Closes Out 2022 With $8.5B In New Recruitment Assets - Businesswire, January 24, Texas

🇺🇸 Asset-Map Partners With Cetera To Empower Financial Professionals With The Leading Advice Engagement Experience - Businesswire, January 24, Pennsylvania

Coverage Suggestion

We’d love to hear from you what companies to cover for our short takes. If you are interested in any specific news or a review a certain company, feel free to share your request in the comments below.

Leave a comment

EMEA News

⭐🇨🇭 Wealthtech Startup Everon Closes CHF 2.5MM Seed Round From TX Ventures - Fintech Switzerland, January 19, Zurich

Zurich-based wealthtech Everon closed its first fundraising round at CHF 2.5MM, led by TX ventures and investor participation from Swiss 5 Group, QBIT Capital, and Wolfgang Wienand. In a 2022 publication that ranked some of Switzerland’s best asset managers, Everon placed 2nd among “asset managers of the year” and 1st among “conservative returns and Sharpe ratio strategy”. Roboadvisors perform well relative to active management in down-markets.

However, the company is competing in a crowded arena of Swiss-based digital wealth management solutions that have emerged in recent years focused on the private wealth space. See: Avaloq, Additiv,  AlgoTrader, True Wealth, and Selma Finance. Weep for the analog private bank!

Everon offers (1) Wealth Management, (2) Vested Benefits, and (3) Pillar 3a. With Wealth Management, customers undergo an assessment during the onboarding process to evaluate their risk appetite and asset-class allocation using the Nobel-prize-winning Prospect Theory developed by economists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. They can then elect to manage their portfolios themselves or have them managed by Everon through a partnership with a family office, the Swiss 5 group.

With Vested Benefits and Pillar 3a (a Swiss pension plan with tax benefits), Everon partners with pension provider Liberty to allow customers the ability to invest their vested pension accounts (i.e., divorce or employer change), which are often non-interest bearing and also support their private pension plans through the platforms direct investing approach. 

We appreciate Everon’s effort to allow the “everyday” person to invest with a minimum investment threshold of CHF 30,000. The marketing seems to be combining traditional banking positioning — upmarket, luxury, exclusive — with digital distribution. It feels less about technology and more about a digital interface to value. That said, underneath the hood is a pretty traditional robo / digital investing entrant.

🇩🇪 ECB Contemplates Development Of Basic Digital Euro App - Finextra, January 25, Frankfurt

🇧🇪 Bank Nagelmackers Partners With Objectway To Implement Their New Private Client Offering - Businesswire, January 19, Brussels 

Asia Pacific News

⭐🇮🇳 Indiassetz Inks Partnership Deal With Wealthy - Silicon India, January 25, Bengaluru

Indian real estate wealthtech Indiassetz, which has 10,000+ customers providing $2B+ in assets, and invest-tech Wealthy, which has 5,000+ wealth partners and $430MM in assets, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to offer wealth solutions to respective customers, whereby Wealthy customers will get an Indiaassetz's Gold membership for the first year.

Real estate investing is not as popularized as equity and fixed income portfolios. The partnership between Indiassetz and Wealthy aims to bridge the gaps and bring a portfolio-based approach to total net worth, including real estate. The hope is to leverage data and machine learning models to provide a real estate super app that includes tenancy management, liaison work with the government, property advisory, maintenance of properties, interiors, valuations and buying and selling properties — all monitored in real-time. 

For context, there are 2.4B monthly active super app users just on China's WeChat and AliPay, India's Paytm, Singapore's Grab, Indonesia's Gojek, and South Korea's Kakao. India's digital economy, which consists of 800MM+ internet users, is dominated by these super apps.

When we look at Indiassetz competitors, we have "Housing", which has raised $157MM in funding and offers listings for new homes and rental agreements, home loans, legal services, and home inspections. Or NoBroker, which has raised $426MM and offers rental contracts with property management services like painting, moving, electrician, etc. And you get discounts on services too. As the market becomes over-saturated with super apps, only a few can survive in the long term. 

Regardless, real estate is part of net worth, and there’s no good reason it shouldn’t be managed and marked-to-market from the same interface as all your other investments. This already happens in Web3 and digital real estate stored as NFTs.

🇸🇬 Leo Wealth Boosts Asia Presence With Jachin Capital Acquisition - Private Banker International, January 18, Singapore

🇭🇰 Stashaway’s UAE Head On Building A Future-Focused Robo Platform In The Middle East - Hubbis, January 25, Hong Kong

Blogs, Webinars, Podcasts

🇺🇸 Best TAMPs Grew 67% On Average In 2022 While Markets Erased $6T In Investor Wealth - PR Newswire, January 24, California

🇺🇸 Financial Firms Scaled Investments in Next-Gen Tech in 2022, Signaling New Phase of Digital Transformation - PR Newswire, January 25, New York

🇺🇸 How Wealth Management Firms Can Create The Ultimate Experience With Best-of-Breed Technology - Nasdaq, January 25, New York

🇭🇰 The Rise Of Digital Platforms For Investment And Wealth Management - Hubbis, January 18, Hong Kong

🇺🇸 For The Wealthy, Technology Cannot Replace Advisors (Yet) - Private Wealth, January 23, New Jersey

Events & Reports

🇭🇰 How Retail Banks in China Can Elevate Digital Banking - Bain & Company, January 19, Hong Kong

🇺🇸 Wealth Management Edge - Informa Connect, May 21 - 24, Florida

🇬🇧 Private Banking & Wealth Management London Conference & Awards 2023 - Arena International, June 14, London

🇬🇧Digital Integration In Wealth Management 2023 - Arena International, February 21-22, London

Shape your Future

Wondering what’s shaping the future of wealthtech, Fintech, and DeFi? 

At the Fintech Blueprint, we go down the rabbit hole in the DeFi and Fintech industries to help you make better investment decisions, innovate, and compete in the industry. Subscribe now to level up your knowledge and get access to our weekly Long Takes!

Subscribe now

• Read our Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.

• Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Daniel, Daniella

• Want to discuss? Stop by our Discord and or reach out here anytime. Leave a comment below on what you think and what we should cover next.

  Leave a comment

Welcome back to Digital Wealth. Today we highlight the following news —

1. NORTH AMERICA: Blue Owl Capital Inc. Expands Private Wealth Distribution Channel Through iCapital and Allfunds

2. EMEA: yeekatee Receives $1.9MM In Pre-seed Financing

3. ASIA PACIFIC: Endowus Partners With iCapital On Private Markets

Thanks as always for your time and attention. To dive deeper into our covered topics, check out the premium options below.

Subscribe now

North America News

⭐🇺🇸 Blue Owl Capital Inc. Expands Private Wealth Distribution Channel Through iCapital and Allfunds - PR Newswire, January 18, New York

Blue Owl Capital, an alternative asset manager with $130B+ in AUM worth around $17B on the public markets, has expanded its private wealth distribution to iCapital and Allfunds, B2B wealthtechs for the fund industry. With this partnership, Allfunds' clients will access Blue Owl’s direct lending strategy, Owl Rock.

Owl Rock, Blue Owl's direct lending platform with $65B+ in AUM, provides investors with risk-adjusted returns by originating, executing, and managing investments, including senior secured, subordinated, or mezzanine loans and equity-related instruments. The platform is powered by iCapital, which has $150B in assets across 1,000+ funds.

Owl Rock's investment strategies use business development companies (e.g., OWL ROCK TECHNOLOGY FINANCE CORP - ORTF) that focus on originating loans to and making debt investments in high-growth tech and software companies. BDCs are a very particular, subsidized structure. Erik Bissonnette, managing director at Owl Rock, describes the investment philosophy as a downside-protected approach, focusing on significant and stable software assets, rather than early to mid-stage opportunities. 

Today, banks are slowing corporate underwriting given the pressures on investment banking divisions — Hyman Minsky's theory about periods of economic (in)stability comes to mind, as capital returns to being a more a scarce resource. Public SaaS company valuations are down by 53% from Q3FY2021 to Q1FY2022, and these companies are re-evaluaing their growth expectations.

As a result private equity companies have been working to take these cashflow-generating businesses private. To do so, PE firms need debt — debt that the bank won't give them now. And that's exactly where Owl Rock comes in.

🇺🇸 Broadridge Extends Digital Wealth Platform Partnership with IGM Financial - PR Newswire, January 18, New York

🇺🇸 Schwab Sends Settlement Checks to Robo-Advisor Clients - Think Advisor, January 17, Texas

🇺🇸 Reverence Capital Partners Selects CAIS for Efficient Access To The Independent Wealth Channel - PR Newswire, January 18, New York

🇺🇸 Merrill Grows Advisor Headcount 2% Despite Market Drop - Wealth Management, January 13, New Jersey

🇨🇦 Mako Fintech and PortfolioAid Announce Strategic Partnership To Harmonize KYC & KYP - Businesswire, January 17, Montreal

EMEA News

⭐🇨🇭 yeekatee Receives $1.9MM In Pre-seed Financing - Fintech Global, January 18, Zurich

Zurich-based social investing platform yeekatee raised $1.9MM led by Avaloq co-founder Ronald Strässler. Last year, we covered Shares, a similar platform in the UK, which raised $90MM and, as of last July, had 150,000 users. The social investment app space saw a surge during the pandemic as many individuals took advantage of new zero-commission mobile apps to trade and invest. Charles Schwab and E-trade had to revise existing investment models to better compete with platforms such as Robinhood, which led the way with zero-commission and fractional shares. 

yeekatee enters a crowded Europe where platforms like Freetrade, IG, Trading212, and eToro own a large share of the investing app market. While competition will pose a significant revenue challenge, it will benefit from not being UK-based, where payment-for-order-flow (PFOF) has been banned since 2012 and cannot be used to generate income. Robinhood’s reliance on PFOF is well known.

Platforms outside of the UK that attempt to become the Euro-version of Robinhood should review Robinhood’s challenging November 2022 report — (1) Monthly active users (MAU) are down 33% year over year; (2) assets under custody (AUC) are down 35%; (3) total equity trading volume is down 54%. Since its IPO, Robinhood’s market cap has fallen by 70% — so there’s also the benefit of staying private longer.

Studies conducted by the SEC and FINRA found that individual investors who use social media platforms to make investment decisions are more likely to be less financially literate, have lower levels of income, and are more likely to invest in high-risk products (queue AMC and GME), and more likely to be targeted and fall victim to investment fraud. Momentum trend investing is a fashionable but not a reliable long-term strategy.

Social investment platforms offer a convenient and simplified view of the markets, but investors should be aware of the potential risks (see $BUZZ and $SOCL). Play money should be separate from the broader long-term asset allocation.

👑 Related Coverage 👑

• Podcast Conversation: Robinhood's order flow disrupting equities and crypto market structure, with Paul Rowady of Alphacution

• 2022 Capital Markets Primer: Fintech Equities, SPACs, and Venture (part 1)

🇩🇪 FNZ Acquires Germany's Fondsdepot Bank - Finextra, January 16, Munich

🇪🇪 Sustainable Investment Startup Grünfin Scores €2MM - Fintech Global, January 18, Tallinn

🇴🇲 Ahlibank Llaunches Brand New Digital Wealth System For Its Wealth Management Customer - Zawya, January 17, Muscat

Asia Pacific News

⭐🇸🇬 Endowus Partners With iCapital On Private Markets - Fund Selector Asia, January 18, Singapore

Digital wealth platform Endowus has partnered with iCapital, an alts-focused B2B fintech with $150B+ in AUM. Endowus' accredited investors in Singapore and Hong Kong will have access to a range of private market funds powered by iCapital's private markets solutions. In October, Endowus acquired a 60% stake in Carret Private Investments Asia, a Hong Kong-based wealth manager, which was a move towards entering the Hong Kong market.

Besides Endowus's cash investing, savings, pension and retirement plan offerings, the firm provides wealth management solutions to investors with S$1MM+ to invest. The private wealth management service includes a personal wealth advisor and a team of investors who help create a customized portfolio alongside access to 200+ institutional share-class funds and alternatives. As aforementioned, iCapital is the alts incumbent that uses its Portfolio Intelligence model, a cloud-based, ML-powered analytics solution, to provide personalized investment recommendations, starting at $25,000. iCapital also allows clients to conduct due diligence on potential investments, such as reviewing fund documents and tracking the performance of existing portfolio companies.

According to BlackRock, the decades-long "Great Moderation" of low inflation, low rates, and globalization has given way to a new era of high inflation, rising rates and supply-driven economies. In 2022, amongst the failures of portfolio heuristics, the 60/40 portfolio was one such casualty. As a result, the upcoming years will garner a lot more investment and focus on the private market sector.

As revenue multiples drop and expected earnings diminish, PE firms will take advantage of lower purchase-price multiples to drive economies of scale. As a result, the alternatives secondary market may grow as LPs seek liquidity options. On that note, companies like Forge, which offer private markets to the public, will also benefit from the shift. 

🇨🇳 Soochow Securities Enables Use Of E-CNY In Financial Trading - Finance Feeds, January 18, Suzhou

🇮🇳 Groww Makes Investment In Fintech Startup Digio - VC Circle, January 12, Bengaluru

🇮🇳 Fintech Startup SayF Raises Pre-Seed Round Funding - VC Circle, January 17, Karnataka

Blogs, Webinars, Podcasts

🇺🇸 Rising Need For Wealth Management Services Is Expected To Fuel The Wealth Management Market - Globe Newswire, January 16, Massachusetts

🇬🇧 AdviceBridge Survey Reveals 23% Of Advice Firms Don’t Undertake Research On Tech Solutions - IFA Magazine, January 17, Bristol

🇮🇳 How Wealthtech Is Transforming The Investing Landscape For Individuals - The Financial Express, January 15, Uttar Pradesh

Events & Reports

🇺🇸 Wealth Management Edge - Informa Connect, May 21 - 24, Florida

🇬🇧 Private Banking & Wealth Management London Conference & Awards 2023 - Arena International, June 14, London

🇬🇧Digital Integration In Wealth Management 2023 - Arena International, February 21-22, London

Shape your Future

Wondering what’s shaping the future of wealthtech, Fintech, and DeFi? 

At the Fintech Blueprint, we go down the rabbit hole in the DeFi and Fintech industries to help you make better investment decisions, innovate, and compete in the industry. Subscribe now to level up your knowledge and get access to our weekly Long Takes!

Subscribe now

• Read our Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.

• Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Daniel, Daniella

• Want to discuss? Stop by our Discord and or reach out here anytime.

Welcome back to Digital Wealth. Today we highlight the following news —

1. NORTH AMERICA: GoLogiq To Acquire Nest Egg For $30MM, Adding Wealth-Building Platform For Gen Zs And Millennials

2. NORTH AMERICA: Wealthfront Pounces After Betterment Jacks Up Prices On Small Investors, But Betterment Claims Last Laugh -- 'Thousands' Of New Customers, It Says

3. ASIA PACIFIC: India’s CoinSwitch Exchange To Add Non-Crypto Products Amid Punishing Taxes On Digital Asset Trading

Thanks as always for your time and attention. To dive deeper into our covered topics, check out the premium options below.

Subscribe now

North America News

⭐🇺🇸 GoLogiq To Acquire Nest Egg For $30MM, Adding Wealth-Building Platform For Gen Zs And Millennials - Globe Newswire, January 10, New York

Data analytics company GoLogiq announced the signing of a binding letter of intent to acquire retirement-focused roboadvisor Nest Egg Investments in an all-stock transaction valued at $30MM. The transaction will supposedly build upon GoLogiq's recent $320MM merger agreement with fintech ecosystem GammaRey, which claims to offer its own commodity-backed digital currency, a digital wallet, and a trading platform.

Nest Egg was an acquisition target of GammaRey, and is getting swept up as part of the transaction. The IRA roboadvisor, still in beta and not open to the public, claims to allow users to set savings goals and automatically invest in a portfolio of ETFs tailored to their specific goals and risk tolerance, as well as provide tools to track progress and readjust investment strategies.

Something’s a bit off here for us. Check out the disclosure on the site, which looks like it was pulled with errors from Stash Financial.

Broker check doesn’t return a Nest Egg Securities, although there is a Nest Egg Investments, which is affiliated with a different company with a similar brand, “my bank Nest Egg”. Buying a landing page without a clear regulatory entity and established technology for $30MM doesn’t make any sense — unless the stock in which that consideration is paid isn’t particularly valuable.

Which maybe is the case? GoLogic trades at $70MM in OTC equity markets, but is somehow issuing $320MM to GammaRey, of which $30MM is going to Nest Egg? The entire things looks pretty unreal to us.

So why did we spend the time to pull it apart? Because in 2010, Lex founded a roboadvisor called NestEgg Wealth, and we want to protect the good reputation of nest eggs everywhere. Stay clear here.

⭐🇺🇸 Wealthfront Pounces After Betterment Jacks Up Prices On Small Investors, But Betterment Claims Last Laugh -- 'Thousands' Of New Customers, It Says - RIABiz, January 9, California

Roboadvisor Betterment has replaced its annual fee of 25bps with a new subscription fee of $4/month for accounts under $20,000. Alternatively, customers with less than $20,000 in assets can bypass the fee if they elect to set up a direct deposit of $250 into their accounts. This economic change comes after Betterment acquired crypto roboadvisor Makara, partnered with Gemini to offer customized crypto portfolios, and launched its crypto offerings.

This recent move strikes us as a counter to the spirit of digital investing. It also seems punitive to the company's customers, many of whom likely have assets in the lower single thousands. If you have $1,000 in assets and pay $50 per year in fees, that’s a good 5% of AUM! Unfortunately, such dynamics are typical in the wealth industry, and all firms struggle to serve small clients at scale. In older wealth management firms, this is because the fixed costs are high, and the marginal costs of servicing are high. Technology is meant to solve this by absorbing all the marginal cost into the initial build of the platform. 

The way we interpret this price raise is either (1) people are price insensitive about a $4 monthly minimum like other subscriptions -- which is fine but bad for the customer -- or (2) Betterment has seen much more profit from direct deposit customers and therefore is pushing them aggressively into that behavior, or (3) they are fine losing small accounts and firing the small customers that they were founded to serve. Maybe their marginal servicing infrastructure is not zero cost, meaning that between data aggregation for net worth assessments, trading fees, and other embedded fintech services, the marginal customer actually costs them a few dollars per month as a run rate. 

When Betterment was growing rapidly in its early stages, that could have been interpreted as an investment into a hyper-growth footprint. Now, it's just cost, and as fintechs generally become less valuable based on multiples, they are forced to squeeze more economics from the customers it has. By shifting its focus from client growth to profitability, Betterment may be looking to make its balance sheet more attractive for an IPO — either more revenue or less cost. 

🇺🇸 Fidelity Launches BDC To Expand Alts Offerings - Globe Newswire, January 10, Massachusetts

🇺🇸 J.P. Morgan Wealth Management Introduces QuickDeposit For Investments - J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., January 10, New York

🇺🇸 Crypto Conglomerate DCG Closes Wealth-Management Business - CoinDesk, January 5, Connecticut

🇺🇸 Advisor360° Acquires The Wealth Management Technology Assets Of Agreement Express - PR Newswire, January 10, Massachusetts

🇺🇸 Onramp Launches SMA Solution for Advisors, Asset Managers - Think Advisor, January 5, California

🇨🇦 Mackenzie Investments Onboards CapIntel's New Link Offering, A First-To-Market FinTech Tool For Wholesalers And Financial Advisors - Businesswire, January 5, Toronto

EMEA News

⭐🇬🇧 OneDome Acquires CMME Mortgages - BestAdvice, January 11, London

🇸🇪 Swedish FSA Grants Binance 7th Regulatory Approval In EU - PR Newswire, January 11, Stockholm

🇩🇪 Scalable Capital Surpasses One Million ETF And Stock Savings Plans  - ETF Express, January 10, Munich

Asia Pacific News

⭐🇮🇳 India’s CoinSwitch Exchange To Add Non-Crypto Products Amid Punishing Taxes On Digital Asset Trading - Yahoo Finance, January 11, Bengaluru

Indian crypto exchange CoinSwitch Kuber, which raised $260MM in funding last year, has announced its expansion into non-cryptocurrency investment products. The platform, which has 19MM+ registered users, will now offer traditional investment options such as fixed deposits, ETFs, mutual funds, stocks, bonds and US equities.

This launch comes as a response to the Indian government's imposition of a 30% flat tax on all crypto income and a 1% tax on transactions exceeding 10,000 Indian rupees. Visits to Indian exchanges Wazir X, CoinDCX, CoinSwitch Kuber and ZebPay fell 80% between February 1 – October 31. App downloads fell 93%. There’s taxes, and then there’s death.

CoinSwitch's decision to expand into non-crypto investment products may be the silver lining to regulatory strategic headwinds. The wealthtech sector in India is projected to grow from $20 billion in 2021 to $230 billion by 2030. The government has also been supportive of the growth of the wealthtech industry through initiatives such as a regulatory sandbox and allowing e-commerce entities to sell mutual funds from their platforms. Barriers to entry have been lowered for new players in the market.

With this in mind, CoinSwitch will face increased competition from both established players such as Zerodha, which acquired an AMC license and will likely also target the passive fund investing space, and startups such as Dezerv, which achieved $120MM in AUM on its platform within a year of launch. The other thing to note is that the behavioral profile of traders and investors is quite different.

🇮🇳 Fintech Start-Up BankSathi Raises USD $4MM As Pre-Series A Round - Techgraph, January 9, Bengaluru

🇮🇳 CTBC Bank Selects TCS BaNCS To Digitally Transform Its Banking And Wealth Landscape - Techgraph, January 4, Mumbai

🇮🇳 Centricity Wealthtech Announces People Centric Policies - Business Newsweek, January 10, New Delhi

Blogs, Webinars, Podcasts

🇺🇸 Wealth Management – 2023 Outlook - Alvarez & Marsal, January 6, New York

🇭🇰 The Era Of The Digital Investment Platform And Its Role In The Independent Wealth Industry - Hubbis, January 5, Hong Kong

🇺🇸 Cover Story: Robo-Advisors vs Actively Managed Funds — Who Wins? - The Edge Markets, January 9, California

🇺🇸 Now More Than Ever, Advisors Need A Marketing Makeover - Financial Advisor, January 10, New Jersey

🇮🇳 Decoding The Wealth Management Market In India: Trends & Building Blocks Of A Successful Model - Inc42, January 7, Delhi

Events & Reports

🇺🇸 Wealth Management Edge - Informa Connect, May 21 - 24, Florida

🇬🇧 Private Banking & Wealth Management London Conference & Awards 2023 - Arena International, June 14, London

🇬🇧 Digital Integration In Wealth Management 2023 - Arena International, February 21-22, London

Shape your Future

Wondering what’s shaping the future of wealthtech, Fintech, and DeFi? 

At the Fintech Blueprint, we go down the rabbit hole in the DeFi and Fintech industries to help you make better investment decisions, innovate, and compete in the industry. Subscribe now to level up your knowledge and get access to our weekly Long Takes!

Subscribe now

• Read our Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.

• Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Daniel, Daniella

• Want to discuss? Stop by our Discord and or reach out here anytime.

Welcome to the first Digital Wealth publication of 2023. To kick off the new year, we're going to start differently than usual and take a deep dive into Masterworks, the fractional art investment platform.

Thanks as always for your time and attention. To dive deeper into our covered topics, check out the premium options below.

Subscribe now

North America News

⭐🇺🇸 Rising Startup Masterworks Beset By Internal Rifts, Alleged Recklessness, And Staff Cuts - ARTnews, December 27, New York

Since 2017, Masterworks has gained a reputation for introducing the world to securitized blue-chip art investing. The startup has amassed a lineup of world-famous artworks by Picasso, Warhol, and Monet in the last five years. It is known as a fractional art investment platform, letting retail users acquire portions of famous painting in order to get exposure to the high end asset class. And we aren’t talking about NFTs.

However, recent coverage reveals a more challenged business model in the current financial market — struggling to sell multiple paintings to prospective investors, driving up a painting's market value, spending $1MM a day on marketing, potentially hitting against various FINRA and SEC regulations, pitching the idea of "deaccessioning" art to Museums, and more.

In 2021, Masterworks raised a mammoth $110MM in a Series A funding round led by Left Lane Capital, valuing the startup at over $1B. By May 2022, the company purchased 100+ paintings for $475MM, available to its 400,000+ registered users. Reportedly according to a former employee, 5% of those users are actually invested, which is not an unreasonably conversion into paid from free, but not enough for a large wealth management business. 

To acquire an art piece, Masterworks' acquisitions team works with auction houses and private dealers to select "investment quality" works. The company's licensed brokers then sell fractional shares of securitized artworks by blue-chip artists to retail investors. Paintings include Basquiat's All Colored Cast (Part II), valued at $22.5MM, which Masterworks sold for $20/share (with a minimum investment of $5,000). Once a piece is purchased, Masterworks must sell all the painting's fractional shares before the money can leave the company's escrow account to the seller of the artwork. Behind the scenes, however, the company has had conflicting business strategies and rifts between management, leading to high pressure attempts to capture more sales despite the cost. Combine brokerage with start-ups existential risk.

The Art News article does a good job covering Masterworks recent challenges. Here’s what stood out to us:

(1) targeting HNW men over 35 specifically, instead of everyday consumers as advertised, and encouraging employees to use investor bank account information via Plaid during prospective investor calls;

(2) using heat maps to chart which employees were selling the most shares to stoke internal competition around quotas — FINRA and the SEC have strict guidelines related to sales contests to ensure that representatives do not engage in unethical or deceptive practices when selling securities to customers, see SEC ruling and FINRA rulings 2010 and 2111;

(3) waiving investment minimums to as low as $100 instead of $5,000 to close deals, potentially creating a false impression of the type of financial product offered. Boiler room sales cultures have always been a problem for financial asset distribution businesses — think of the 2016 investigation into Wells Fargo, which revealed a culture pressuring workers to create fake client accounts to meet quotas, costing Wells Fargo $3B in fines; and

(4) placing the company's needs above those of investors by pushing sales reps to sell shares in paintings that were seeing little interest. End of the day, this isn’t a fiduciary RIA advisor trying to take care of a customer’s portfolio.

Despite the internal rifts at Masterworks, we see a lot of promise in the fractional art investing industry. A Bank of America study showed that demand for portfolio diversification away from traditional stocks and bonds and more towards alternative assets appeals to younger investors with at least $3MM in investable assets.

Last September, we had analyzed Artory / Winston, a joint venture between Artory and Winston Art Group, which created a $25MM tokenized art fund. The offering is available on Securitize, a digital asset platform that uses blockchain tech for private companies to tokenize assets and raise capital. The fund, which has a 1.25% management fee, contains 68 artworks — 3 x Blue Chip ($2MM average value), 15 x Mid-Career ($600K average value), and 50 x Emerging ($200K average value). Masterworks introduced this index-fund approach to "close out" commercial works that brokers were struggling to sell out, targeting accredited institutional investors, starting at a $100K minimum investment. 

The concept of investing in art for purely financial purposes isn't new. The early generation of art investment funds (e.g., the British Rail Pension Fund in 1974) has long attracted interest among investors looking for higher returns and diversification benefits. Today's fractional ownership model is an extension of the same desire to provide access to investing in an alternative asset class that has long been limited to UHNWIs.

Securitization and fractionalization of the asset class make art more accessible to the retail crowd. That creates volatility in the short term, but opportunity in the long term.

Considering today's macro environment, it is notable that art has historically been able to rebound and grow faster than traditional asset classes during volatile markets. In 2021, aggregate sales of art and antiques by dealers and auction houses reached an estimated $65B, up 29% from 2020, surpassing pre-pandemic levels of 2019. The market becomes more exciting when we acknowledge how much blockchain-based art has challenged the status quo, whereby auction houses are introducing tokenization into the art world, thereby guaranteeing digital proof of the authenticity of an artwork. The latter is critical, considering that 83% of wealth managers said lack of transparency was a key factor that undermined trust in the art market. 

But will this time be different? Given the bond market pricing in a semi-high likelihood of a recession, investor fears are high, even in relatively "safe" asset classes — the S&P 500 finished 2022 down ~20% YTD, its worst year since 2008. Masterworks and other similar fractional art investing platforms have a challenging year ahead as investors flock towards the safety of cash. We expect the art market, and all risk assets incidentally, to continue to be slow in 2023, especially with non-blue-chip artists, and investing in emerging artists could lead to no liquidity for an extended period.

🇺🇸 Miami Startup ML Tech Raises $2MM To Make Crypto Trading Easier - The Business Journal, January 4, Florida

🇺🇸 Sanctuary Wealth Chooses Wealthbox For Enterprise CRM Relationship - PR Newswire, January 4, Rhode Island

🇺🇸 Hamilton Lane Closes Direct Equity Fund At Nearly $2.1B In Commitments - PR Newswire, January 4, Pennsylvania

EMEA News

⭐🇦🇪 Digital Wealth Advisor Sarwa Educates New Generation Of Investors In The Middle East - IssueWire, December 28, Dubai

🇬🇧 Bondsmith Becomes A Principal Member Of Visa - Finextra, January 4, London

🇮🇪 Akt.io: Next-Generation Wealth Management App Now Officially Available In Italy - AMB Crypto, January 3, Dublin

Asia Pacific News

⭐🇮🇳 InCred Capital Enters Retail Wealth Tech Space With Orowealth Takeover - Private Banker International, January 3, Mumbai

🇮🇳 HDFC Bank Partners With Microsoft As Part Of Its Digital Transformation Journey - Microsoft News, January 3, Mumbai

Blogs, Webinars, Podcasts

🇺🇸 Digital Assets Inflows Reached $433MM In 2022: Report - Cointelegraph, January 4, New York

🇬🇧 Digital Done Right: Striking A Balance In Modern Wealth Management - IFA Magazine, January 4, Bristol

🇺🇸 Technology And The Succession Disconnect Between HNW Next-Gens And Family Offices - Financial Planning, December 30, New York

🇺🇸 Capitalizing On Digital Marketing Key To Growth For RIAs And IBDs - National Association of Plan Advisors, December 29, Virginia

Events & Reports

🇺🇸 Wealth Management Edge - Informa Connect, May 21 - 24, Florida

🇬🇧 Private Banking & Wealth Management London Conference & Awards 2023 - Arena International, June 14, London

🇬🇧Digital Integration In Wealth Management 2023 - Arena International, February 21-22, London

Shape your Future

Wondering what’s shaping the future of wealthtech, Fintech, and DeFi? 

At the Fintech Blueprint, we go down the rabbit hole in the DeFi and Fintech industries to help you make better investment decisions, innovate, and compete in the industry. Subscribe now to level up your knowledge and get access to our weekly Long Takes!

Subscribe now

• Read our Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.

• Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Daniel, Daniella

• Want to discuss? Stop by our Discord and or reach out here anytime.

Welcome to the final Digital Wealth publication of 2022, brief but to the point. We wish you all a happy New Year. Today we highlight the following news —

1. NORTH AMERICA: Wealthtech Addepar Introduces New Ways To Identify Key Performance Metrics

2. EMEA: Swedish Robo Advisor Lysa Expands To Germany

3. ASIA PACIFIC: Indian Fintech Money View Valued At $900MM In New Funding

Thanks as always for your time and attention. To dive deeper into our covered topics, check out the premium options below.

Subscribe now

North America News

⭐🇺🇸 Wealthtech Addepar Introduces New Ways To Identify Key Performance Metrics - Crowdfund Insider, December 28, California

🇺🇸 Empaxis And EXL Join Forces To Help Wealth Management Firms Transform Their Operations - PR Newswire, December 22, California

🇺🇸 Wealth Made Easy: Save, Invest, Insure And More With Citibank’s New Digital Wealth Solution - Honeycombers, December 22, New York

🇺🇸 Rising Startup Masterworks Beset By Internal Rifts, Alleged Recklessness, And Staff Cuts - ARTnews, December 27, New York

EMEA News

⭐🇸🇪 Swedish Robo Advisor Lysa Expands To Germany - The Paypers, December 22, Stockholm

🇦🇪 Standard Charter Has Come Up With Digital Wealth Solutions On Dubai's DOOH - Mondaq, December 27, Dubai

🇫🇷European Union: European Banking Authority Publishes Final Guidelines On The Use Of Remote Customer Onboarding Solutions - Mondaq, December 29, Paris

Asia Pacific News

⭐🇮🇳 Indian Fintech Money View Valued At $900MM In New Funding - TechCrunch, December 26, Bengaluru

⭐🇮🇩 Akulaku Announces $200MM Investment From MUFG - PR Newswire, December 26, Jakarta

🇯🇵 Nomura Launching Crypto Trading Platform - Akihabara News, December 29, Tokyo

🇰🇷 Fintech Startup Quantit Launches Asset Management Robo-Advisor Olly - KoreaTechDesk, December 23, Seoul

🇸🇬 Singapore-Based Family Office Whampoa Goes All-In On Digital - Finews Asia, December 23, Singapore

Blogs, Webinars, Podcasts

🇺🇸 How Interval Funds Can Become An Advisor's Access Key To Alternatives - Financial Planning, December 28, New York

🇺🇸 DriveWealth Celebrated As Category Leader With Top-Tier Industry Accolades From Deloitte, Forbes, CB Insights, More, During Landmark Year - Businesswire, December 23, New York

🇬🇧 Robo-Advisory Usage Expected To Surge Throughout The Coming Decade - Private Banker International, December 29, London

🇺🇸 RIA Megatrends: Catalysts For Disruption, Differentiation And Dominance - Docupace, January 11, Webinar

🇺🇸 Authoritative Voices On Advisor Technology - Docupace, January 17, Webinar

Events & Reports

🇺🇸 Wealth Management Edge - Informa Connect, May 21 - 24, Florida

🇬🇧 Private Banking & Wealth Management London Conference & Awards 2023 - Arena International, June 14, London

🇬🇧Digital Integration In Wealth Management 2023 - Arena International, February 21-22, London

Shape your Future

Wondering what’s shaping the future of wealthtech, Fintech, and DeFi? 

At the Fintech Blueprint, we go down the rabbit hole in the DeFi and Fintech industries to help you make better investment decisions, innovate, and compete in the industry. Subscribe now to level up your knowledge and get access to our weekly Long Takes!

Subscribe now

• Read our Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.

• Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Daniel, Daniella

• Want to discuss? Stop by our Discord and or reach out here anytime.