Envestnet Introduces New Retirement Plan Solutions for Advisors: Tech Roundup

Envestnet has teamed with Vestwell to offer turnkey retirement plan solutions to financial advisors.

Vestwell is a digital recordkeeping platform that specializes in 401(k) and 403(b) plans. Through the new collaboration, advisors who use Vestwell’s platform can now access Envestnet’s 3(38) investment management services through Envestnet Retirement Solutions to provide clients with a turnkey solution.

In the future, “the relationship will expand to include other Envestnet offerings, helping bring advisors closer to their clients while helping them further differentiate through greater customization,” the companies said in a joint announcement Wednesday.

Together, the providers “will make it easier for advisors to effectively scale while focusing their attention on participation and outcomes for 401(k) plan provider clients versus set-up and implementation,” the companies said.

Advyzon Adds Prospect Portal, Mobile App

Advyzon has added a prospect portal and mobile app for Android and Apple iOS mobile devices to its digital tool chest.

The new tools are free to Advyzon users and available now, the company said, noting they “come at an opportune time for RIAs, many of whom recently switched to a 100% virtual business model due to COVID-19 lockdowns and related restrictions.”

The company’s software platform, which it said is used by hundreds of RIAs in North America, includes cloud-based reporting, billing, client relationship management and document management capabilities.

Last year, Advyzon started developing a prospect portal that would make it faster and easier for RIAs to connect with and onboard new clients, it pointed out Tuesday.

“The idea was to allow prospective clients to self-administer when it comes to sharing personal info and documents with potential advisors, thus freeing advisors to focus on helping clients achieve their investment goals,” it explains.

Ventura, California-based Anacapa Financial was among the first RIAs to test the new prospect portal, Advyzon said.

The portal is “helping us bring new clients into the mix faster than ever,” Jack Green, Anacapa CEO, said in a statement. “We literally have 10-15 meetings set up in the next few weeks because the process of getting prospects into our sales funnel and digitally opening accounts is so much easier due to the portal.”

Seven Group Launches Campaign Feature

Seven Group has launched new campaign functionality allowing advisors to deploy customizable, out-of-the-box email campaigns directly from the platform.

This marks the “official rollout of the feature,” Alex Cavalieri, co-founder of Seven Group, said Wednesday. “We ended up testing it with a small group before the official rollout and built out another aspect to it which took a few months,” he noted.

Cavalieri told ThinkAdvisor about the feature in August.

Advisors now have the “ability to upload and manage multiple lists,” he explained. “Before it was two lists,” but now advisors can “segment out their lists and upload five,” he said. Advisors can also now “easily download all of the content for compliance — pre-packaged documents that are ready for submission,” he noted, adding they can also now insert their own custom links in each email.

LaSalle St. Introduces Growth Acceleration Platform

LaSalle St. has rolled out a Growth Acceleration Platform for financial institutions-based wealth management programs.

The new platform was “designed to assist financial institutions in expanding and fully leveraging the potential of their wealth and investment management capabilities, thereby growing those lines of business and supporting each institution’s overall strategic goals,” the family of wealth management firms encompassing independent broker-dealer and RIA platforms said Wednesday.

The Growth Acceleration Platform offers banks, credit unions and their financial advisors features including:

• Extensive training and onboarding assistance to educate new financial professionals on LaSalle St.’s services.
• Ongoing support from LaSalle St. in all aspects of practice management and business development.
• On-demand support for institutions’ leadership teams on structuring advisor compensation and incentives.
• Support and guidance for institutions seeking to launch wealth management capabilities for the first time, including assistance in determining whether to hire advisors or outsource wealth management functions to third-party independent advisors.
• Support for independent advisors who wish to partner with banks or credit unions to provide wealth management services to the institutions’ customers.
• Access to LaSalle St.’s GuideTrack technology-enabled financial planning platform.

Skience Hires Ex-Riskalyze Exec

Wealth management sector cloud service provider Skience has appointed Kyle Van Pelt, a former Riskalyze and SS&C Advent executive, to serve as executive vice president, sales.

Van Pelt’s responsibilities include leading the Skience sales team, “accelerating revenue and contributing to the company’s marketing and business strategies,” it said Tuesday.

Skience works with broker-dealers and RIAs across the U.S. to help firms “unify their technology, increase productivity and position themselves and their advisors to give clients a top-notch service experience,” it says.

Its “flexible Skience platform helps wealth management firms extend their capabilities and increase their efficiency using a broad array of automated solutions and integrations,” it adds.