Content provided by Brian Towner, CLS Separate Account Product Manager
I’m the type of person that likes to look back to see where I’ve come from, before looking forward as to what to expect.
Try doing a Google search for “FinTech 2006” to see where Financial Technology stood just ten years ago and you won’t have much luck, trust me I tried to in preparation for this blog. There just wasn’t a lot happening with technological advances in financial services back then. Think about how far we’ve come in the industry since then though. In 2006, Fiserv was declared the top fin tech company by American Banker and Financial Insights. In 2015 you couldn’t even find Fiserv on the list and there are many lists, even one’s for FinTech startups.
The financial services industry is changing and adapting to what has been made available: Technology! Which has resulted in a lot of mergers and acquisitions that was extremely noticeable last year, and you can expect even more this year.
Some of these acquisitions included: BlackRock acquired FutureAdvisor, Envestnet purchased Finance Logix, Upside and Yodlee, SS&C acquired Advent, Northwestern Mutual acquired LearnVest and Fidelity purchased eMoney.
In 2016 I’d keep my eye out for more acquisitions to happen. And, data aggregation technology will be key as clients are looking for a single source to oversee all of their money. Also, digital retirement advice will be a key feature.
Todd Clarke, CLS CEO, spoke on this multiple times, but clients will be looking for an advisor to do more than provide investment models. Advisors need to be open and aware as to what is available in FinTech because a client shouldn’t be more knowledgeable than the advisor.
As a shameless plug, check out Autopilot, provided by CLS. Just one of the ways CLS is trying to stay ahead of the curve and provide advisors with a voice in the digital age.