American Portfolios Boosts Offerings: Tech Roundup

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American Portfolios has enhanced its technology offerings for its broker-dealers and RIAs with a new investment in tools.

Specifically, the Holbrook, New York firm has made a stepped-up commitment to Xtiva Financial Systems, a provider of sales performance management technology and services for the financial services industry.

The new pact with Xtiva "builds upon a nearly two-decade relationship with the technology provider," the firms said Tuesday in a joint announcement. Xtiva's platform has already been used by American Portfolios for accounting and commissions as the method of payment for compensating its affiliated advisors.

Via an upgrade to Xtiva Reward, American Portfolios will "leverage next-generation compensation tools purposely built for modern financial services organizations," the firms said.

The addition of Xtiva Intel, meanwhile, will "unlock powerful performance optimization opportunities, delivering insights direct to the desktop and mobile devices of head office staff, field leaders and, most importantly, financial advisors and their practice partners," they said.

The "key benefits of the expansion," according to the firms, include: (1) enabling compensation capabilities that support growth, as well as organizational and practice flexibility; 2) improvements in operational efficiency and scalability; 3) performance optimization across the organization; and 4) practice management tools and key performance indicators for enhanced intelligence and reporting.

Franklin Templeton Rolls Out Turnkey Robo-Advisor

Franklin Templeton teamed with Apex Clearing and cloud-based wealth technology provider Bambu to create Tango, a new turnkey robo-advisor the companies said is designed to empower advisors to provide personalized, goals-based wealth management at scale.

Tango was "designed for seamless implementation and cost efficiencies that can be deployed quickly and easily into an advisor's practice," the companies said in a joint announcement. Firms can implement the solution without upfront technology costs in just eight to 10 weeks versus several months for competing solutions.

Franklin Templeton provides personalized, goals-based portfolio management advice to advisors via its proprietary Goals Optimization Engine, while Bambu's white-label platform is the digital solution for clients and advisors; Apex facilitates trading and custody through its back-end platform.

GOE combines Franklin Templeton Investment Solutions' portfolio construction with dynamic programming to deliver individualized portfolio pathways based upon an individual's unique goals, the firms said.

Bambu, funded by Franklin Templeton and PEAK6 Investments, has integrated with Apex's suite of application programming interfaces (APIs) that include new account opening, automated customer account transfer systems, funding and trading.

Franklin Templeton says it aims to continue expanding its offerings beyond traditional investment products via planning and advice, digital tools and advisor and retirement platforms.

"Tango leverages these expanded offerings to weave active investing strategies and advice into a digital platform, enabling financial planners to efficiently run their businesses with custom, optimized portfolios in an open-architecture environment," the firms said.

Vestrata Offers New Wealth Platform

The new fintech firm Vestrata has launched, providing integrated investment solutions.

The startup is led by an experienced management team and completed a $4 million investment round to support the launch in the wealth management and private banking sector, it said.

Vestrata's proprietary technology platform is unique, and intends to deliver a suite of discretionary, advisory, alternatives and environment, social and governance investment solutions that helps wealth managers "drive improved client engagement, control risk and reduce cost," it said.

Vestrata's services are developed in collaboration with asset managers, research houses and alternatives providers, and will be delivered via an integrated, scalable and modular platform.

The business is led by Mark Le Lievre, co-founder and CEO, who was previously global head of products and platforms at JPMorgan Private Bank and head of investment content at UBS Wealth Management.