Northern Trust Enhances Digital Advisor Platform: Tech Roundup

Northern Trust Asset Management's Emotomy digital investment platform has been redesigned with enhancements including simplified navigation, 10x speed improvements and access to all U.S. securities exchanges.

"Further modernization initiatives" are planned "over the next year that will further meet the needs of advisors and investors," according to Sabrina Bailey, president of Emotomy.

"Our goal is to continue to build out Emotomy's capabilities based on client feedback, allowing advisors to spend less time on administrative tasks and more time doing what matters most to their practice," she said in a statement.

The latest release of the Emotomy platform is "just one in a series of 2020 updates" the company says "have combined to deliver enhanced performance, heightened cybersecurity, greater access to open-architecture investment strategies and improved custodial interfaces."

The platform recently created a new single sign-on experience for Schwab advisors that allows seamless access to Schwab Advisor Center via Emotomy, creating workflow efficiencies by getting assistance faster. The platform also added a new series of exclusive portfolios, including a multi-factor income one for advisors seeking income in a low-yield environment.

Northern Trust said last year it entered into an agreement to acquire Belvedere Advisors, the owner of Emotomy.

IncomeConductor Adds Tiered Pricing

WealthConductor has launched a new tiered pricing structure for its IncomeConductor retirement income planning software allowing advisors to find a plan that best fits their practices.

IncomeConductor is now available at two pricing levels: $50 a month (or $540 if paid annually) for a Basic plan or $249 a month (or $2,700 if paid annually) for a Premium plan.

The Basic version gives advisors full access to IncomeConductor's dynamic plan editor, on-demand video training, monthly roundtable continuing education webinars and personalized client reports.

The Premium version adds one-on-one case consulting, personalized marketing materials, account data integrations, plan tracking dashboard, automated practice and de-risking alerts and one-click client review reports.

Advisors can also opt to white label IncomeConductor to their firms' retirement income service brands.

Addepar Gets New Funding

Wealth management tech platform Addepar has closed on a $117 million Series E funding round led by WestCap Group.

WestCap's investment from its flagship Strategic Operator Fund was led by Laurence A. Tosi, its founder and managing partner, as well as a board member, and by Scott Ganeles, another WestCap partner.

Other investors in the round include 8VC, the venture fund founded by Joe Lonsdale, the founder of Addepar. Sway Ventures also participated in the round, which brings Addepar's total funding to date to about $325 million.

The funding will be used to support the expansion of Addepar's data aggregation, analysis and reporting platform for advisors and investors, it said. Addepar now has more than $2 trillion in client assets on its platform, according to the company.

Redtail Releases Advisor Survey Results

Eighty-six percent of advisors were technologically prepared to work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the findings of a Redtail Technology "Working Remotely" survey.

The fintech firm surveyed more than 1,750 advisors and discovered most of them found that existing modes of communication, such as phone (97.4%), email (96.3%) and video (80%) were the most effective ways to communicate with clients, it said.

However, working remotely brought on new challenges, including how to continue to build and maintain client relationships, the respondents said.

Although 66.7% of respondents said they never or rarely worked from home in 2019, 64.7% of respondents now said they expect to work from home at least one day of the week moving forward.

Most advisors (74.3%) said they did not experience an interruption of their revenue stream due to working from home, and almost 5% said they grew their revenue after the transition.

MaxMyInterest Adds Customers Bank

Customers Bank has become the latest bank to join the MaxMyInterest cash management platform for advisors and individual clients, the companies said in a joint announcement.

Gary Zimmerman, MaxMyInterest's CEO and founder, told ThinkAdvisor earlier this year that the platform supported seven of the leading Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.-insured online banks and he expected that number would soon be growing. At the time, online banks supporting MaxMyInterest were Ally Bank, American Express, Barclays, Marcus by Goldman Sachs, Radius Bank, Sterling National Bank and UFB Direct, according to MaxMyInterest.

The MaxMyInterest platform recently became integrated with the Morningstar ByAllAccounts aggregation service for advisors.