United Capital announced Wednesday the launch of FinLife Partners, a turnkey advice and planning platform that allows advisors to white label the tools on United Capital's Financial Life Management system to use in their own firms.
"We're taking everything that we've built out for United Capital advisors and making it available through the independent channel," Mike Capelle, chief strategy officer at United Capital, told ThinkAdvisor during a demonstration of the platform.
Capelle said, "We've been around for 10 years and built a client experience and a technology platform to help advisors differentiate the experience their clients have with them versus traditional, more investment-focused relationships that advisors might have."
He noted that United Capital's net promoter score, a measure of how likely customers would be to recommend a business to a friend, has grown from 63% in 2012 to 72% in 2015, compared with 33% for the industry at large last year. "It's very satisfying to know that clients are satisfied," he said.
Capelle pointed to some of the issues advisors are currently facing. "Advisors are really challenged with the evolving marketplace: what's happening with online advice, what's happening with low-cost investments," Capelle added. On top of that, they're "looking at the entire technology landscape and struggling with, 'How do I put together all these different solutions that are out there? What makes sense for me? How do I piece this all together?'"
The FinLife Partners platform gives advisors access to United Capital's proprietary Honest Conversations, Money Mind and Investment Viewfinder online tools to help them develop personalized guidance for clients based on their inputs.
