Andrew Altfest, president of Altfest Personal Wealth Management, a $1.3bn New York City RIA, has launched a platform to provide comprehensive wealth management services to a broader client base. The new company, FP Alpha, was unveiled at the Technology Tools for Today (T3) Advisor Conference on Tuesday.
According to Altfest, the firm’s technology allows advisors to streamline financial planning processes and scale efficiently. Altfest said he wants to help advisor clients demonstrate their value to clients beyond investments and ‘kick robo-advisors to the curb’.
‘Previously when working comprehensively, there has been no way to scale, while the robo-model has essentially commoditized basic planning,’ Altfest said. ‘Our industry needed a user-friendly wealth management tool that allows us to cover more ground quickly and gives us an edge as premium service providers, which is what FP Alpha provides.’
Alfest said FP Alpha uses insights from roughly 40 financial planning and wealth management experts that advisors can use to create comprehensive plans across planning disciplines. Additionally, financial advisors can access educational videos simplifying tax planning, estate planning, insurance, divorce planning, mortgage suggestions, student debt, cross border, eldercare and other areas.
FP Alpha also helps advisors deploy actionable and personalized recommendations to clients as their life changes, laws change and complexities arise.
Joel Bruckenstein, founder and chief executive of T3, said FP Alpha’s technology will be ‘essential’ as the industry enters into a new generation of wealth.
‘FP Alpha provides advisors with a competitive advantage as fee-compression continues to affect the advisory space,’ Bruckenstein said. ‘The technology provides impactful recommendations with limited insight into a prospect’s financial and personal circumstances – jump-starting relationships and allowing planning to be a living, breathing experience for all parties.’
Orion interface refresh
Orion Advisor Technology’s latest user interface revamp, also announced at the T3 conference, prioritized day-to-day responsibilities and actions for advisors, like client portfolio data, RMD reports and new account workflows.
The firm also touted a custom card library — a collection of widgets displaying different business data — that advisors will have the flexibility to arrange as they see fit.
The updates were drawn from ‘meticulous analysis of user behavior and feedback from a focused group of superusers’ across roles and business models, the tech provider said.
‘No two advisors are the same, which is why we’re building a user interface that positions every advisor for success no matter how they use our platform,’ said Dylan Mahler, UI/UX design manager at Orion, adding that the new interface allows users and their data to ‘move more fluidly’ through the platform.
Orion said dozens of data cards will surface information such as account summaries, a list of frequently used reports and queries, portfolios out-of-tolerance, reconciliation status and other insights. Additionally, each card offers a one-click direct path to relevant information across the platform.
This article originally appeared on CityWireUSA.
