Financial planning software provider RightCapital announced on Tuesday that it has enhanced its platform to make it easier for advisors to comply with the Department of Labor's fiduciary rule, as well as address clients' retirement income, annuities, Social Security optimization and tax-efficient drawdown planning needs.
RightCapital was founded in 2015 by Shuang Chen and his brother, Song, who serves as chief technology officer.
"We're a relatively new player, but we're gaining a lot of momentum," Shuang Chen, co-founder and CEO of RightCapital, told ThinkAdvisor on Thursday. When the firm launched its DOL fiduciary rule solution at the Finovate conference in September 2016, he said, "that's when we added the annuity function, to Social Security [function], really targeted to help IBDs to react to the new DOL change."
Tuesday's release builds on that offering with an enterprise solution that allows reps to share clients, and gives managers control over who can access, monitor usage and review plans, according to a statement announcing the release.
"Part of the feedback we're getting from BDs is they're in process of deploying all this technology to the reps, and they want to be able to see the plans of their reps, so the compliance officer can monitor all the plans," Chen said.
He noted that "the DOL rule requires them to act in the best interest of the client, which involves, really, two components." One is customer discovery: "They absolutely have to know much [more] about their customer and their needs and goals."
The other component is being able to prove that they did in fact act in the client's best interest, Chen said. "If you want to recommend this life insurance, you have to go through a more holistic planning approach to understand the risk tolerance, to understand the needs and wants of the client, and now you can identify a life insurance coverage gap."
