Envestnet to Offer New Data, Digital Solutions: Tech Roundup

Envestnet announced two new initiatives to enhance and expand its data and digital solution offerings.

The company entered into a partnership with Door, a global digital due diligence and risk management platform, to “streamline and optimize its research on asset managers and their investment strategies across the Envestnet ecosystem, and the industry,” the firms said in a joint announcement Wednesday.

Research analysts have typically used the same common information from investment managers during the due diligence process, with information often gathered using Microsoft Word and Excel documents exchanged via email, the firms noted.

But the “lack of a centralized source of information and notifications has made it cumbersome to manage due diligence questionnaires in many varied formats, and identify and monitor critical metrics,” they said.

The Envestnet/Door partnership “will help solve these inefficiencies by digitizing the due diligence experience, and enabling Envestnet | PMC manager research teams to benefit from” several Door offerings, they noted.

Those offerings include: digital due diligence questionnaires the firms said are “customized to meet Envestnet’s process that simplify the management of due diligence requests by reducing redundant content preparation, speeding up response times, and improving risk controls;” real-time updates on criteria including investment risk; and Door’s content database.

The latter “easily integrates with other research tools and makes it easy to edit documents and process and archive information,” the companies said.

Over 400 manager research firms and asset managers from more than 39 countries are represented on the Door platform, they added.

Separately, Envestnet said Monday it’s expanding into the small- to medium-sized business market by introducing data and digital solutions that “empower SMBs to intelligently connect, grow, protect, and manage the financial wellness of their business all in one place.”

The solution will be offered by Envestnet to its advisors and other clients to help their SMB clients better run their businesses by integrating data from across all the applications they use, the company said.

The initiative is part of Envestnet Data and Analytics’ “overall mission to drive financial wellness with data, artificial intelligence and an exceptional user experience,” Envestnet said, “while also optimizing/broadening Envestnet’s wealth capabilities and platform for advisors  — all of which help bring the Intelligent Financial Life to a new market.”

WisdomTree’s New Portfolio and Growth Solutions

WisdomTree Investments launched Portfolio and Growth Solutions to help RIAs  and independent broker-dealers build, implement and manage their client portfolios while also offering strategic growth guidance for advisors, the company said Monday.

WisdomTree’s asset gathering approach is concentrated on two main focus areas: large distribution networks where advisors use WisdomTree’s model portfolios across their book of business, and customized portfolios to RIAs and IBDs that they can use to support most of their books of business, it said.

As part of the new initiative, a team of specialists will collaborate with individual advisors to learn their specific objectives and create model portfolios designed to achieve their goals, the company said.

Meanwhile, via a deal with Vestmark subsidiary Adhesion Wealth, WisdomTree will provide advisors rebalancing and trading services for their clients’ model portfolios. Adhesion Wealth creates customized, integrated, single-source managed account solutions for advisors, giving their advisor clients direct access to a platform that will deliver a more customizable approach with advisor input.

Specialists will also guide and coach advisors through processes WisdomTree said are focused on sales, marketing, operations and leadership.

U.S. Bank Teams With Apex

U.S. Bank entered into a real-time payment collaboration with Apex Fintech Solutions to provide greater speed and security to money movement between individual investors and broker-dealers, the firms said Thursday in a joint announcement.

Through its Apex Clearing Corp. subsidiary, Apex provides clearing and custody services to online brokerages. With the new real-time payment solution, brokerages using Apex will now be able to offer individual investors a “more streamlined payment solution that enables instant funding of their brokerage accounts and instant disbursement from their brokerage accounts to their bank accounts,” the firms said.

U.S. Bank and Apex worked together in recent months to create a tailored solution they said will create a “frictionless payment experience” for individual investors.

From their BD’s app or website, investors will be able to use real-time payments to request movement of funds from their bank accounts instantly into their brokerage accounts at any time, “reducing the risk and operational hassles of an ACH return for broker-dealers,” the companies said.

Real-time payments are expected to be available for brokerages using the Apex platform in the third quarter of this year, they added.

Separately, Apex Fintech Solutions is partnering with Zogo Finance and its financial education app to “transform the way investors learn on their own,” the firms said Wednesday in a joint announcement.

Mutual clients and investors of Apex and Zogo now have access to more than 450 “easy-to-digest learning modules tackling important topics and giving users the ability to earn rewards for their ever-higher levels of financial literacy,” the companies said.

The education modules will start rolling out more broadly to investors across the U.S. through seamless integration into fintech platforms including Fintron and UNest, who are mutual clients of Apex and Zogo, the firms said.

Zogo currently serves more than 500,000 users and partners with more than 180 financial institutions, including BDs, banks, credit unions and multinational corporations. Since Zogo’s founding in 2018, its users completed more than 16 million lessons, with the average person completing 38 lessons, it said.

(Pictured: Envestnet CEO Bill Crager)