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Fidelity Integrates With Salesforce AppExchange: Tech Roundup  

Jeff Berman By Jeff Berman

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What You Need to Know

  • Fidelity's integration on the Salesforce AppExchange enterprise cloud marketplace was intended to increase advisor efficiency.
  • Choir announces that Dani Fava joined its board of advisors.
  • ACA Group bought Ethos ESG, a provider of ESG ratings data and software for financial advisors.

Fidelity Institutional has integrated its platform on the Salesforce AppExchange enterprise cloud marketplace, an enhancement that Fidelity said Wednesday will increase advisor efficiency.

The integration, built on Financial Services Cloud, was “designed to save time and deliver a more streamlined and connected platform experience,” according to Fidelity.

The integration is now available as part of a pilot program for RIA and family office clients and the Fidelity Investments division is looking to make it available to all Fidelity Institutional clients by early 2023, it said.

The new integration links clients’ financial accounts within Salesforce to their Fidelity Institutional accounts on Wealthscape, providing secure access to account information and the ability to initiate actions directly within Salesforce, including updating key account information, according to Fidelity.

“We expect to continue to enhance this integration with additional features, as well as explore integration with other Fidelity platforms, based on direct client feedback,” Fidelity said.

Dani Fava Joins Choir Board

Dani Favi, Envestnet head of strategic development, has joined the board of advisors of diversity-tech platform developer Choir.

“An industry’s ability to innovate is directly correlated to how effectively it listens to and addresses the needs of all of its consumers,” Fava said in a statement on Tuesday. “This can only happen when diverse leaders are at the table. I’m inspired by the platform Choir has created and am excited to help scale it so that we can all reap the benefits.”

Choir also announced that its new Voices: Search platform connecting reporters, conference planners and other industry content producers with new sources, is now available in beta for financial organizations and media companies.

Search users can search by broad topic areas of interest, including asset management and cryptocurrency, or specific topics, including fixed income, 401(k), equity compensation, behavioral economics or charitable giving, Choir said. Search users can also filter by title, professional designation, location, race, gender and other personal identifiers, it added.

ACA Group Buys Ethos ESG

ACA Group, a governance, risk and compliance advisor for the financial services sector, said Wednesday it acquired Ethos ESG, a provider of environmental, social and governance ratings data and software for financial advisors, asset managers, institutions and investors.

The purchase represents ACA’s first analytics offering, which it said will be paired with ACA’s ESG experts to form an integrated tech and advisory offering under its ESG Advisory practice. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.

ACA’s existing ESG Advisory practice supports a variety of programmatic needs for firms that integrate ESG into their business or investment activities, it said. That now includes advice and implementation support around strategy, policies/procedures, regulations and frameworks, training and external reporting, among other areas.

ACA’s clients will now also be able to easily analyze investments and automate several elements of ESG reporting thanks to the addition of Ethos, ACA said.

The Ethos platform allows for the evaluation of more than 350,000 impact ratings including companies, stocks and funds through a “prism” of 45 ESG causes including climate change, racial justice and mental health, ACA said.

BizEquity Partners With Bonsai to Provide Real-Time Business Valuations

Fintech firm BizEquity has partnered with Bonsai, a firm that provides solutions to advisors and other financial professionals focused on the importance of managing the entirety of an investor’s balance sheet, the companies said in a joint announcement on Wednesday.

The pact will allow BizEquity’s cloud-based valuation software to be accessed by “thousands of financial professionals working with business owners, making it simple and affordable to obtain accurate, real-time valuations via Bonsai’s platform,” the firms said.

The companies both view valuations as “one of the key components in building and completing a client’s balance sheet and providing clients with a holistic suite of services,” they said.

Noting that it has become increasingly important for financial professionals to differentiate their services to engage, retain and acquire clients, the firms said that, by leveraging the BizEquity software, advisors “can truly differentiate themselves by providing on-demand valuations to their business owner clients.”

Pontera Appoints Its First CMO

Retirement-focused fintech Pontera appointed Nicole Zheng to serve as its first chief marketing officer.

“Zheng brings more than 10 years of marketing leadership and strategy execution experience to Pontera,” the company said Wednesday.

She previously served as president and CMO at Minim, an intelligent networking software and device company that she co-founded. At Minim, she helped lead the firm from $0 to $55 million in net annual revenue via a multi-faceted go-to-market strategy, merger, rebrand, Nasdaq uplist and public offering, Pontera said.

At Pontera, she will “further develop and execute the go-to-market strategy for Pontera’s software platform, which enables financial advisors to securely monitor and trade retirement accounts,” the company said.

Her initial key initiatives include recruiting first-rate talent and implementing scalable marketing programs that will deliver resources to advisors enabling them to grow their assets under management and produce better financial outcomes for clients on the Pontera platform, it said.

Zheng joins Pontera after a recent $80 million capital infusion the company received that it said will “power investments in its customer experience, the product roadmap, and partnership expansion.”

Pontera recently announced partnerships with wealth management firms including Carson Group, Dynasty Financial Partners and Sageview Advisory Group, as well as strategic integrations with GeoWealth, Morningstar Office, SS&C Advent Custodial Data Network.

Skience Launches Customized Tech Bundles

Skience introduced three new technology platform bundles that it said Tuesday were designed to enable wealth management firms at every stage of growth to select the tools and features they need to provide the best experience for their advisors and clients.

The bundles are Edge, Elite and Elite Plus, and they can all be implemented faster and at a lower cost than traditional custom configurations, the company said.

All three tiers include client relationship management functionality; multi-point digital new account opening and maintenance; client risk profiling and compliance audit functionality; enterprise-level data management and bidirectional integrations with custodians, clearing firms, financial planning and advisory tech solutions, Skience said.

The Elite bundle offers additional custom forms mapping and data consolidation and reconciliation feeds vs. Edge, while Elite Plus includes new advisor transitions and digital document storage tools.

All three bundles are available now with additional features including Skience Surveillance and the Client Portal.

Elements Launches Simplified One-Page Plan

Elements, the operator of a mobile-first, client-centric, financial monitoring platform announced Tuesday that it introduced a “fresh approach” to the one-page financial plan.

The OPP solution was designed to help modern advisors “remain in closer, deeper communication with clients as their financial needs consistently shift,” Elements said.

The new OPP was developed with “all clients in mind versus only the top one percent, the intention being to enhance and elevate the relationship between advisors and clients beyond the one-off-event as most financial plans have historically been conceived, approached and delivered,” the company explained.

 (Image: Shutterstock)

Jeff Berman

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