FIDx Opens Annuity Supermarket

Fiduciary Exchange LLC — FIDx — has started to open up the Envestnet Insurance Exchange for Envestnet Inc.

Exchange organizers are predicting the new exchange will help financial advisors do a better job of helping clients with retirement and income planning, by plugging an easy-to-use sales tool into the same systems many advisors already use to sell mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, and separately managed accounts.

(Related: Alliance Adds Advisor Version of Retirement Readiness Assessment Tool)

Envestnet is a company that builds information technology systems for financial advisors and financial institutions.

The company’s Envestnet Insurance Exchange team has recruited six carriers to offer annuities through the new FIDx exchange. The founding issuers are Allianz Life, Brighthouse Financial, Global Atlantic Financial Group, Jackson National Life Insurance Company, Nationwide and Prudential Financial.

The issuers will sell both fee-based and commission-based contracts through the exchange, according to Envestnet.

Envestnet expects the menu to include fixed annuities and indexed annuities as well as variable annuities and structured annuities.

The menu could, eventually, offer other types of insurance-based products as well: FIDx said last week, in an exchange launch announcement, that the exchange will connect advisors to “annuities and insurance solutions.”

FIDx: The Organization

Envestnet announced the annuity exchange project about a year ago. The company describes itself as having a partnership with FIDx.

In March, Envestnet said FIDx is “a technology-empowered network that seamlessly integrates the brokerage, insurance and advisory ecosystems.”

Dan MacKinnon, the chief executive officer of FIDx, has been with FIDx since April 2017, according to his LinkedIn entry. He also has ties to EVIDITY Inc., a data analysis firm, and previously managed ENSPIRE Investments, an investment firm.

Brian Serfass, a product marketing specialist who worked for Capital One from 2014 through August 2018, has been a strategic marketing consultant at Envestnet Inc. since he left Capital One. Serfass has also been the FIDx chief marketing officer.

MacKinnon said in a statement that FIDx will provide a retirement solution, by bridging the gap between carriers and the wealth management industry.

“Through a single relationship with FIDx, carriers can gain access to an ever-increasing pool of advisors while wealth planners finally have the power to offer protected income and downside protection as part of a holistic managed portfolio solution,” MacKinnon said.

FIDx has offices in Berwyn, Pennsylvania; a website at https://fid-x.com/; and a Twitter feed at https://twitter.com/FIDxTech/.

FIDx started the Twitter feed in March. At press time, the FIDx Twitter feed had seven followers.

— Read Envestnet Aims to Open Its Insurance Exchange in June, on ThinkAdvisor.

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