WealthTech on Deck WealthTech in the Weeds with Jeff Benfield and Martin Cowley
WealthTech in the Weeds is a series covering the broad yet critical path to financial services. The goal is to get together with industry experts and get into the details of building an effective, productive, coordinated, and comprehensive advice system.
In this episode, Jack talks with Jeff Benfield, Head of Advisor Solutions at SEI, and Martin Cowley, Chief Product Officer at LifeYield. Jeff leads the strategic vision, roadmap, and execution of the financial advisor technology suite of solutions for SEI's independent advisor business. With a focus on relationship-centric platform architecture, Jeff has been instrumental in developing SEI's Wealth Platform, leading the charge in building a multi-account, multi-relationship approach to empower advisors.
Martin brings vast experience working with various firms to build comprehensive and coordinated platforms. With a focus on API-first architecture, he helps firms integrate seamlessly and avoid the pitfalls of disparate systems.
Jack talks with Jeff and Martin about building multi-account, multi-factor relationship platforms for advisors. Jeff and Martin highlight the challenges and importance of operationalizing complex systems at scale and their strategies for connecting and empowering advisors with more innovative tools and platforms.
In this episode:
- [02:17] - SEI's approach to building a multi-account UMH platform
- [06:02] - How SEI helps advisors achieve better results
- [08:32] - How LifeYield uses technology to enhance the user experience
- [11:15] - The importance of partnerships in building platforms for advisors
- [14:47] - How LifeYied addresses multicurrency and tax in the US and UK
- [17:26] - How SEI overcomes the challenge of scaling and operationalizing UMH
- [19:40] - LifeYield's approach to operationalizing UMH
- [21:52] - Jeff's key takeaways
- [24:23] - Martin's key takeaways
Quotes
[22:16] - "Tax is the center of what we do. Our ability to lean into that to make sure that we're the platform best suited to solve that problem of the household balance sheet and how we're able to solve the tax problem is where we're going." ~ Jeff Benfield
[22:30] - "Utilizing and leveraging the technology that's built and currently coming out to make those smart tools, make them intelligent, and give that personalized feel is where we're leaning into." ~ Jeff Benfield
[24:23] - "The move towards householding is happening, and it's widespread. SEI is far ahead in that front just with the new system being built, and the fact that it's multicurrency, multi-jurisdiction is just icing on the cake. It's very powerful." ~ Martin Cowley
[25:46] - "It's always good to pick something that's valuable, focus on that, and support people in using it, so they understand the incremental benefit they're getting." ~ Martin Cowley
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