WealthTech Spotlight 2024

T3: Rapid Uptick in Tax and Estate Planning Software By Advisors P. 4 Income Lab Carves Out ‘Life Hub’ One-Pager as Separate, Cheaper Tool P. 8

Apex Launches New User Interface For Advisors at T3 P. 14

CONTENTS

T3: Rapid Uptick in Tax and Estate Planning Software By Advisors By Rob Burgess 4 WealthTech SPOTLIGHT ARTICLE

Myriad Launches Cybersecurity and Strategic Business Planning Solutions 12 WealthTech SPOTLIGHT INTERVIEW

Sponsored By

Income Lab Carves Out ‘Life Hub’ One-Pager as Separate, Cheaper Tool By Rob Burgess 10 WealthTech SPOTLIGHT ARTICLE

WealthTech SPOTLIGHT ARTICLE

Founders Arena Will Be Back For Second Season Of Its WealthTech

Accelerator By Rob Burgess

WealthStack

WELCOME

Celebrating its 20th anniversary, the T3 Conference stands out not just as a conventional gathering but as a thriving community reunion. This event continues to be a focal point for decision-makers in IBDs, larger RIAs, hybrid firms, and rollups. Amidst discussions revolving around recent bank failures and persistent market volatility, the spotlight shifts swiftly to advisors’ concerns. The agenda encompasses cutting-edge topics such as artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and the latest tools empowering advisors in

advanced retirement, estate, and tax planning services.

Naturally, the conference serves as a platform for unveiling the newest innovations from technology service providers across the financial landscape. In this special edition of WealthTech Spotlight, we delve into the conference’s highlights, accompanied by exclusive onsite interviews with key players in the ever-evolving wealthtech space.

T3: Rapid Uptick in Tax and Estate Planning Software By Advisors By Rob Burgess

Double-digit percentage point gains in both were notable findings in the annual advisor tech survey revealed at the T3 conference this week, as was the persistently low adoption of cybersecurity tools.

Of note in this year’s survey was the finding that two out of 10 advisors that custody with Charles Schwab report they are considering switching or adding custodians in the wake of that firm’s conversion of TD Ameritrade advisors last year. Altruist and Fidelity topped the list of likely benefactors, the survey revealed. The TD Ameritrade conversion to Schwab took the custodian’s historically high rankings off the table, with Schwab Advisor Center jumping in market share from 26.05% in 2023 to 38.43% in 2024. Following close behind were Fidelity Wealthscape, with 16.66% market share, and Pershing NetX360+, with 9.46%. None of the three scored over 8 on the satisfaction score. Fourth on the list, SEI Wealth Platform, with a 3.98% market share, and Altruist, with 2.85%, each registered higher satisfaction ratings among users. The T3 data suggests that 19.71% of surveyed Schwab- affiliated advisors said they were considering changing or adding a new custodian in the next 18 months. Among those, 11.89% said they were considering Altruist and 10.1% said they were considering Fidelity. The most notable change revealed by the survey, however, was the dramatic rise in the percentage of advisors using tax planning and estate planning software. Tax planning software went from being used by some 29% of advisors in 2022 to 43% this year. The three firms leading the charge? Holistiplan, with 31.98% market share, FP Alpha, with 3.94%, and Intuit ProConnect/ProSeries, with 2.61%. All three had satisfaction levels of over 8, but Holistiplan had by far the highest, with a 9.14.

Financial advisor use of both tax planning and estate planning software spiked dramatically over the past two years.

That was among the more notable takeaways in the T3/ Inside Information Advisor Software Survey, unveiled at the Technology Tools for Today (T3) conference this week. The survey collected responses from 2,917 firms, about half of which had less than $1 million in revenue and fewer than 20 years in business. The annual survey is meant to uncover how many advisors are using different categories of software in their practices, and the market share of the most widely adopted firms. Beyond the double-digit percentage point uptick in tax and estate planning software since 2022, this year’s edition revealed new categories of tech making inroads with advisors, including healthcare planning, data warehousing and retirement income planning.

were Smarsh Entreda Unify, with 11.93% market share, KnowBe4, with 6.51%, and WebRoot, with 2.81%.

“These are impressive numbers,” said T3 founder Joel Bruckenstein. “I take my hat off to those folks. They’re doing a great job.” Estate planning software use also spiked sharply among advisors. In 2022 it was used by only 10.95% of advisors. In 2024, the usage rate jumped to 39.32%. Among the three most popular options were eMoney Module, with 17.21% market share, MoneyGuide/Wealth Studios, with 8.67%, and RightCapital Module, with 7.82%. Two of the three, eMoney and RightCapital, only appeared in the estate planning software category this year.

“It’s one of my pet peeves,” said Bruckenstein. “You guys are not doing enough on cybersecurity. Incrementally you’re getting better, but every single person in this room should be able to say, ‘I have a cybersecurity expert.’” Notably, overall use of CRMs declined slightly over the past two years, but still used by over nine out of10ten advisors. Redtail was still the most popular among survey respondents, with a 45.59% market share, Wealthbox followed with 14.67%, and AdvisorEngine CRM, with 10.7%. AdvisorEngine more than doubled its 2023 market share of 5.32%.

Retirement distribution planning technology as a category was “moving in the right direction,” Bruckenstein said, as adoption was still “worrisomely low” as it rose from 10.7% market share in 2022 to 15.19% in 2024. The top three in this category were Income Lab, with 4.15% market share, FP Alpha, with 4.11%, and Income Solver, with 3.05%. For the first time, this year’s survey included categories for healthcare planning, which started to creep into some advisors’ tech stacks.

T3 founder Joel Bruckenstein

Digital marketing software dropped six percentage points over the past two years to 23% of all advisors in 2024, the report showed. Top three providers were FMG/Twenty Over Ten/MarketingPro, with a 10.9% market share, Nitrogen, with 4.35%, and Snappy Kraken, with 3.94%. All three of these scored less than an 8 on the satisfaction rankings out of a possible 10.

Healthcare planning firm Caribou by far the highest satisfaction score of the category, at 8.54 out of 10.

Christine Simone, CEO of Caribou, said advisors appreciate they are not selling insurance plans, but instead offer guidance on healthcare planning. “This is something that is tailored and most utilized amongst people who are about to retire or in retirement,” she said. “The untapped opportunity for advisors is younger clients that are going through life events as well.” Broad categories that had the highest level of reported satisfaction rates were document processing, scoring 8.1 out of a possible 10, cybersecurity, with 8.08, and tax planning, with 8.02. Though cybersecurity technology in general had high satisfaction ratings, overall market use remains low , with just one out of four advisors using cybersecurity software, up only three percentage points from 2022.

“Some of the tools folks are using in the industry, they’re not happy with,” said Bruckenstein.

Financial planning, already widely adopted, showed incremental gains, the survey revealed, with over eight in ten respondents using the tools. Most popular were MoneyGuidePro Elite, used by 33.36% of advisors, eMoney Pro, used by 29.5% of the market, and RightCapital, with 14.64%. Bruckenstein said MoneyGuidePro’s dominance in this category for over a decade “speaks well of what they’ve been doing. They continue to invest in the product.”

Rob Burgess Technology Reporter, WealthManagement.com

The top three firms in the category, according to the survey,

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Rob Burgess

Why the Future of Advic Be Holistic and Connect

SPONSORED BY

Molly Weiss Envestnet Group President Wealth Management Platform

Tom Sipp Executive Vice President Business Lines

Learn how Envestnet’s innovative approach to providing advisors comprehensive and client-focused services.

Envestnet has been delivering leading wealth management ecosystem for 25 years. What’s next? Molly: Successful integration of technology solutions within the organization relies on the use of data to enhance services for advisors and clients. The focus now shifts to empowering advisors to better serve clients by leveraging data efficiently. Acknowledging the data overload, the goal is to automate and streamline the process, providing actionable insights for advisors. The key is to make data meaningful by offering clear guidance on how advisors can use the information to

In this interview, Envestnet’s Group President, Wealth Management Platform, Molly Weiss, and EVP, Business Line, Tom Sipp, share the company’s revolutionary path to wealth management, which enable advisors to navigate data efficiently and to provide clients exceptional service.

SPONSORED BY

Myriad Launches Cybersecurity and Strategic Business Planning Solutions Myriad Advisor Solutions announces 2 initiatives to help clients navigate the digital landscape securely while optimizing their business legacies Danielle White, CEO of Myriad Advisor Solutions discusses cybersecurity trends impacting the wealth management industry, emphasizing the inherently human-centric nature of cybersecurity challenges and the inevitable flaws that arise from human error. She also explains how Myriad’s 2 new business solutions are making it safer for advisors and their clients to operate in an increasingly digital world.

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Apex Launches New User Interface For Advisors at T3

By Davis Janowski

It is currently being used in production and has been rolled out to some of Apex’s firms. The interface is meant to provide far more efficient, intuitive and responsive access to Apex’s processes and services, and more seamless integration and connectivity to the custodian’s 15 third-party applications, including AdvisorArch , Orion , Panoramix , and Zoe Financial . It was built using React, which, in simplest terms, is not a programming language but a very popular JavaScript library specifically for building web applications.

Apex Fintech Solutions has launched a new user interface for advisors, called Astra, the company announced on the first day of the annual T3 technology conference in Las Vegas. Apex, long known as a master of API integrations, has built a fast, modern user interface for advisors called Astra.

One of the many advantages of creating interfaces with

React is the ease and flexibility with which developers can provide features on a cloud-based application that make it feel as though it is a program running locally on a laptop or desktop computer. In other words, the new interface can feel as simple to use as a Microsoft or Google spreadsheet, with the ability to drag and resize columns, filter data, and drill down to additional data easily. “This is super refreshing,” said Jon Patullo, chief product officer for Apex Fintech Solutions, who ran advisor technology development for more than 16 years at TD Ameritrade Institutional, including rollouts of the popular Veo and Veo Open Access platforms. “It is a much more modern interface than anything else on the market right now,” he said of Astra during an interview and online demo with WealthManagement. com. With it advisory firms can access everything from straight through processing for new account opening, to trading, and rebalancing. The rebalancer, which is provided through a partnership with AdvisorArch, can perform security level or asset class rebalancing as well as tax loss harvesting. “AdvisorArch ties into our robust fractional share trading, allowing our advisors the flexibility to work “ The new interface can feel as simple to use as a Microsoft or Google spreadsheet, with the ability to drag and resize columns, filter data, and drill down to additional data easily.

with accounts of all sizes,” said Olivia Eisinger, general manager of advisory at Apex Fintech Solutions. The two also said the new interface aims to bake in as much automation for advisory firms—whether that’s the advisors, administrative or operations staff—as possible. The last thing an advisor wants to do is pick up the phone and call their custodian for something he said. “Advisors may sometimes want to see, say all those accounts [in their book of business] with RMDs coming up; where today they may need to go to their custodian to ask for that, we are bringing that right to the interface,” said Patullo. That’s one example of the new do-it-yourself features. On the main “My Apex” page an advisor would see menus labeled Accounts, Client View, Trading, Move Money, Tools, each with an additional level of submenus that are easily accessible and intuitive. And thanks to the use of React, hovering over certain fields within an account can bring up other relevant data automatically. It is also easy for advisors to drill down or filter based on account level views or that of a household. New features and third-party applications will be added on an ongoing basis, according to Patullo and Eisinger.

Davis Janowski Senior Technology Editor, WealthManagement.com

GMO Launches Nebo Wealth At T3

By Davis Janowski

When asked whether the platform and its new features were meant to displace existing portfolio accounting, management and reporting products, Tarlie said, “No.” “It doesn’t matter what portfolio accounting system your firm is using, we integrate with Orion Eclipse, for example—if you want to use Nebo to do shortfall optimization, go ahead—we are not going to replace Orion, or Black Diamond. It will work with them. Our business strategy is to integrate into the ecosystem as much as possible,” he said. If anything, Tarlie said the new platform could disrupt the model marketplace space; it can replace the spreadsheets that too many advisors rely on, as well as off-the-shelf models.

Global investment manager GMO launched Nebo , short for Needs-Based Optimization platform, about two year ago. This week, the firm has introduced its new platform, Nebo Wealth, an end-to-end platform that its growing customer base of RIAs have been asking for, according to product lead Martin Tarlie. When Nebo launched in 2022, the open architecture platform had as its core offering a proprietary multiperiod, shortfall optimizer. Nebo Wealth has that same shortfall optimizer at its core, as well as several new features, including automated trading and rebalancing, performance reporting, billing, advisor and client portals, and back-office support for account opening and administration. The new platform is meant to help advisors achieve portfolio personalization at scale, and bridge an industry gap between financial planning and asset allocation.

Nebo Product Lead Martin Tarlie

“ Tarlie said the new platform could disrupt the model marketplace space; it can replace the spreadsheets that too many advisors rely on, as well as off- the-shelf models.

He says there are two types of advisors in need of Nebo. The first are those advisors invested in personalization but who are in “spreadsheet hell” tracking client portfolio weights and data, “and we move them over to automating all of that.” And the second type are those firms where 90% of their clients are in “the moderate model.” Tarlie said that Nebo’s customer base ranges from small startup firms to large and mature ones that are reliant on sophisticated models. For those large firms, the key problem is bridging the gap between financial planning and asset management. “Asset management is about a lot more than the securities you choose,” said Tarlie, providing the example of a large RIA firm Nebo had recently engaged with. He noted that this firm, as is often the case, had two advisors per client relationship, one on financial planning and the other on investment management. “The firm changed their capital market assumptions and that basically blew up their plans, and this firm is planning out for the next 40 years,” he said, adding that this has been a common refrain with RIAs, indicating a fundamental and widespread problem. “We interact with a lot of firms, and they all have their own identity and want to preserve how they approach

their investment identity. Some have very refined views, and that portfolio design element is very important to them. Others are less confident in their views, but Nebo is open architecture and transparent in how you choose to address your assumptions; it is not a black box,” said Tarlie. Separately, Nebo announced that Adam Scully-Power has joined the firm to run business development and relationship management; he had spent more than 20 years in various roles at Columbia Threadneedle Investments prior to joining Nebo.

Davis Janowski Senior Technology Editor, WealthManagement.com

One of the half-dozen participants in last year’s inaugural round, Sora Financial, was honored last week with the T3 Emerging Technology Award. Season Of Its WealthTech Accelerator By Rob Burgess Founders Arena Will Be Back For Second Following its inaugural round last year—which resulted in new partnerships, investors and customers for some of its participants—the second cohort of the Founders Arena WealthTech Accelerator is now being assembled. A grant-funded nonprofit based in Arlington, Texas, the Founders Arena is focused on providing early-stage wealthtech companies with resources, mentorship and opportunities for collaboration.

looking at post-revenue companies who are involved in a seed or Series A round of funding. “We’re focused on how we get them in front of the buyers of the product,” she said. The companies involved in the first cohort have already started to fundraise, with one completing an angel round. Two of the six selected last time, InvestSuite and Lumiant, are international companies (though Lumiant already has a US presence and offices), something Cytron said she hoped to continue this year. One area she said she hoped would be expanded was representation of female founders. Of the 90 applicants in last year’s round, only one was founded by a woman. Unfortunately, that lone

In 2023, a half-dozen companies participated in the 10-week program, including Charityvest, out of Atlanta ; InvestSuite, of Leuven, Belgium; Lumiant, headquartered in Sydney, Australia ; Manifest, from Chicago; Sora Finance, of San Francisco ; and TaxStatus, out of Frisco, Texas. Pamela Cytron, president of The Founders Arena, said the common element between several of the entrants in the first cohort was that they were entering less crowded territories in wealth management and exploiting openings in the market. Charles Almond, the founder of TaxStatus, an IRS account monitoring service, said the accelerator was beneficial because it had made them more aware of the

“

e merging market of tax planning in wealth management (the company had started out in the banking sector). “They helped educate me and my team on ways that the wealth managers can use the product,” he said. “They were an absolute godsend to be honest.”

female founder’s company was pre-revenue, and thus, did not meet the criteria for the program. “We can’t just select on that measure alone, but I do hope that we can find a little bit of balance in that because I think it’s good for the program and wealth management,” she said. At the Founders Forum, Cytron said it was their job to arrange a minimum of 50 meetings with what she referred to as VIPs, potential buyers of the services of the cohort participants. These meetings, she said, could provide valuable insights into how these companies are presenting themselves.

A mere three months after the WealthTech Combine was held over two days in October, graduates of last year’s program are already basking in the spotlight.

A mere three months after the WealthTech Combine was held over two days in October, graduates of last year’s program are already basking in the spotlight. During the recent Technology Tools for

Today (T3) conference in Las Vegas, Sora Finance was honored with the T3 Emerging Technology Award for its AI-powered liability planning software. “With all the movement in interest rates over the last year … this is an opportune time for advisors to reconsider spending more time on the liability side of the balance sheet,” said Joel Bruckenstein, co-founder of the T3 conference, before presenting Sora Finance with its award. Cytron said the selection criteria for this year’s cohort will remain the same as the last. Unlike most traditional accelerator programs, the companies selected have all been previously funded (an average of $6 million, according to the Arena), and already have an annual recurring revenue of $1 million. She said they will be

“When you go through the process, you learn more about them,” she said. “One of them needed help with their pitch. We got that feedback from those VIP visits. We like what they do, but they put a 10-minute video in their demo. It put people to sleep.” This year’s cohort will now last an additional month, for a total of 16 weeks. Applications are being accepted through March 8 and the program will begin in April.

Rob Burgess Technology Reporter, WealthManagement.com

The Podcast Wealth

Hosted by Shannnon Rosic

The WealthStack podcast is the only podcast that specifically provides financial advisors with targeted discussions that focus on innovations and developments in WealthTech. Each episode of the WealthStack podcast is a deep-dive with a WealthTech or wealth management industry thought leader and is designed to help financial advisors understand how they can accelerate the growth of their businesses, deliver an elite digital client experience and improve productivity and profitability. The WealthStack podcast will focus on how WealthTech is reshaping the financial advice industry – and ultimately the delivery of financial advice.

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