Fintech Impact

Jason talks to Will Trout from Javelin Strategy and Research. He is the director of Digital Wealth Management. We brought him on the show to talk about some of the bigger trends in the wealth and assessment market and how they are potentially going to transform the industry in the next ten years.Episode Highlights:00.48: Will says that as the name implies, and from a technology standpoint, we focus on strategy for financial services institutions and large fintech providers and look at the intersection of strategy and technology as to how firms can advance their competitive position using tech.09.04: Will says that the friction that inhibited advisor access to private capital investments still largely remains. iCapital and Cais alone will not solve this problem, particularly when it comes to private equity.15.48: To productize direct indexing, you can kind of rule about how it scale and overcomes margins, but the most direct indexing strategies are built around the public equity markets, suggests Will. 16.31: To move towards retirement income focus demographics are pushing, the boomer generation is retiring, yields are low, and that are fueling interest in annuities and marketplace, says Jason.21.16: Industry as a whole needs to figure out ways to pull back and truly look at the complete lifestyle picture of the entire client and consider when it comes time to design whatever portfolio they’re investing in traditional markets, suggests Jason.25.58 Jason asks that the planning industry, with the advent of things like financial therapy and other concepts around financial wellness, is saying we have reached the point where we can be taking care of people’s assets, but now, how do we give them the ultimate version of their lives? 31.16: There is a lot of demand where the firm’s wealth managers fall short on life coaching and addressing the human frailties that define us all, says Will.39.03: More relationship-centric advisors trying to diversify into monetized areas rely on their CRM. But, there is a strong split between CRM at the enterprise level and the sales forces that offer a ton of functionality, says Will3 Key HighlightsThe definition of alternative investment is changing, but the theme is the same: looking for something different and something new. But the question remains, though, how can financial advisors access these new instruments, says Will.The growth of platforms like Simon markets has started offering structured notes and bank issues equities and now offering all sorts of non-securities products for most annuities, says Will.In the Financial therapy association or some specific people in the industry, speak out on the need for personal advice and write about dealing with people in grief, crisis, etc., says Jason.Tweetable Quotes“We can also survey financial advisors on an ongoing basis that serves as the fuel that drives our insights and works in support of our clients.” – Will Trout“We created systems to make it cheaper for the people who can’t afford to pay people who know how to give the advice.” – Jason“The therapist might be more adept at figuring out the real emotional issues, which will only help enhance the advisor’s experience.” – JasonResources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInWoodgate.com – Sponsor Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jason talks to Jud Macrill, Co-Founder of Milemarker. Milemarker is a data solution company that helps financial services companies in an IaaS (Integration as a Service) specifically integrate data across many different platforms to get things talking to each other.Episode Highlights:00.36: Milemarker is born out of many years of frustration in the financial services industry. 5.02 Macril says that they find themselves more helping companies achieve a data warehouse experience whether they want to aspire toward a data lake or not. This is because data lakes are fundamentally unstructured data. 6.04: Jud says they see a huge opportunity to take every piece of information in their license data and help a client start to be actionable, experiential, and ultimately automated and efficient. 8.24: Jud says that they provide software which is our API technology, our data cloud, and our ETL processing in which the rules engine says, here is what your data is doing and when and how quickly it refreshes.11.01: Jason asks, with cloud-enabling COBOL, are you giving a solution for a problem that shouldn’t exist first? Because no one in the 1950s thought that this COBOL stuff would be used in the 2020s.13.25: Jason inquires, what kind of case studies do you have to show that you have saved X number of hours or provided X number of abilities for someone to scale larger?14.34: Jud suggested that they should be limiting the liability inside the firm by automating everything possible so that people can be more onward and upward in terms of their day-to-day.24.16: Jason asks what advice would you give to people who maybe don’t qualify the level to work with you or want to get started at taking control of their data and standardizing their digital processes?26.51: Companies in the future will have to be stock 1, stock 2 ISO certified, and understanding what that means today will dramatically improve your long-term value, says Jud.3 Key HighlightsJud is a creative person and has been a marketing officer at multiple firms, and his entire goal is to help financial services companies that are inherently creative to achieve creativity with data and solutions that they need.The future of a financial advisor is made inside a financial services company, and the maximum of time is going to be spent on cloud collaboration than you even realize.If you are unwilling to invest the time to standardize and create a process or recording or something repeatable out of financial service, you are just not solving your solution, suggest Jason.Tweetable Quotes“If you have a node code system that you can integrate APIs into, let’s do it. We will continue making it a more efficient experience for people to use their data.” – Jud“People often have a tough time expressing what they want, and getting into financial tools and understanding them allows them to say, this is what I wanted.” – Jud“You have to have people that have the tenacity to grow and build and prove themselves and are constantly looking for an edge.” - JudResources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInWoodgate.com – SponsorJud Macrill – Website  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jason talks to Sebastian Skwarek, co-founder of PreciseFP. PreciseFP was a guest way back on episode 26 in the summer of 2018 with Co-Founder Don Whalen. Don talked about their digital onboarding platform or digital data gathering platform for financial advisors.Episode Highlights:1.25: Sebastian explains PreciseFP is the virtual data gathering and client onboarding platform, provides the ability to customize a client journey fully, bring data in-house, and then share that data with the tools that advisors use.2.22: There are many features with PreciseFP, but the key feature is that the advisors who come to PreciseFP are ready to use block finders and personalized and customizable fact-finders ready to use as the box. 10.12: Either CRM or financial planning software if we do not integrate with a given financial software, so either way, you will be able to move the data from a client-facing application, which is PreciseFP, into your CRM and then into financial planning software.12.08: Sebastian says that they wanted to make sure what they were implementing, the features they were released, should be used by advisers. It is not something they came up with because they thought these would be helpful. 14.00: Jason says that the big news with you guys is that you got acquired earlier this year by Docupace. Can you speak to that? 20.53: Sebastian says that they are proud of their customer support because this is where we meet our clients. We will always give you a walk-through the minute you sign up. We are going to reach out to you within 48 hours. We are going to schedule a meeting with you to make sure you understand what you are getting into and how easy it is to navigate through PreciseFP. 24.03: Sebastian says that we can implement everything, but we want to make the system easy to use and manageable at the end of the day. We wanted to bring a difference in a benefit to invite.3 Key HighlightsThe main features of PreciseFP is to build a journey from start to finish and automated components that are the fact-finders, PDF markers; it is a CRM or financial planning software.Sebastian says that they want to make and enable the right tech that they can use within your practice. Data gathering is one thing, and then managing that information once it comes to you elegantly and adequately on a bucket.Sebastian says that they are building a fantastic ecosystem that will become a norm within the wealth industry. There is more to come in the next six months.Tweetable Quotes“Lead generation pieces are built interactive client engagements that you can take out of the box as we give them from a template library or build your own.” – Sebastian“You cannot ever compare Google forms or fillable PDFs because the difference is first impression counts with your clients.” – Sebastian“Everybody requests different things, and balancing what’s right and what will not work is a real challenge.” – SebastianResources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInWoodgate.com – SponsorSebastian Skwarek – Linkedin Podcast Editing Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today is the 2021 year in review show and Jason brought back his colleague and occasional guest host, Guy Anderson, to interview him on the course of events and what happened in the past year. Episode Highlights:00.42: This is our second year in review, and Jason has done over 200 podcasts now in the fintech space. No one in the country understands the Fintech landscape better than you, says Guy04.08 Jason says that data tells other institutions about who it is you are. That data allows the current bank or financial institution to make decisions regarding services and products and other things that you can offer you. 06.10: We need to think about the ability to create technology that truly is client-centric in its focus, and to do that, we need to be able to access the data securely and effectively. 10.52: Swift data is a platform for securely storing your data. With this, if you have open banking, you can store everything. You could technically leave it in the institution connecting institutions or can extract it and keep it yourself, says Jason.20.38: Jason says Holistiplan came on the scene couple of years ago. It takes up pdfs with a tax return, spits out a user-friendly report, let people know what’s going on with the tax return, and is also a helpful tool for demonstrating value and helping clients.24.51: Microsoft working on HoloLens doesn’t even have monitors anymore. This is where they headsets and have monitors rendered in front of them.28.31: The difference between fractional ownership and blockchain is that blockchain being divisible means that they have to take zero-risk by its nature. 30.08: When you think about your choices as an owner of a real estate property or your own home for accessing the capital within that property, it is minimal borrowing, says Jason.31.22: Diversification can own fractional real estate worldwide, and it’s finally coming to markets and finally coming true, says the guy.3 Key HighlightsGuy asks Jason, you had a podcast with a company called Flinks, who are they, and who are some of the other prominent players in the open banking space? People talk about as mass proliferated Bitcoin is. However, there is still friction and anything that reduces friction access for the common person or investment accounts or whatever it is, gets the rewards, says Jason.NFT, Non-fungible tokens are proof of ownership of something on a blockchain. So, in theory, your house could be NFT, says Jason.Tweetable Quotes“In Swift data technically, the network verifies the data amongst itself and its validity. Theoretically, it is possible for something that we call disclosure list disclosure.” – Jason“Holistiplan technology is now far more accessible and far more accurate than standard things, especially the tax forms.” – Jason“The governments worldwide need to empower consumers, protect them, and encourage competition. The rates to our data should be enshrined into law.” – JasonResources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInWoodgate.com – SponsorPodcast Editing Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jason talks to James Rockwood, founder, and CEO of Capintel. Capintel is an investment analytics company that tells you how your performance looks and does all kinds of proposal building, automation, and team collaboration tools that reduce the heavy lifting and let us go back to focusing more time on what matters that’s the one on one time with our clients. Episode Highlights:00.42: Capintel is an investment comparison proposal platform for financial advisors that help them organize how they present and pitch investment products to their customers. 06.15: Jason says that industry people focus on demonstrating how smart they are to the client instead of speaking their language.09.00: Most advisors deal with tons of different metrics and data. They have complex reasons for recommending fund A versus fund B or portfolio A versus portfolio B, says James. 11.40: One of the bigger things going on around the world is they move towards even greater transparency and regulatory reform around any number of things, says Jason.16.08: Client focus forms will be good for the industry. It will be excellent once we get through the specificity of understanding, like how much information is enough, says James.21.41: It is interesting how in the 80s, the advisors had all the access, and now you could argue that retail clients have slightly more access because they can now access these random securities like NFTs in crypto, says James.26.00: In 2022, Canadian fintech startups will be able to submit a three to five-minute video to pitch their idea. We will provide them with access or select companies with slightly used MacBook Pros and then introductions to some of our Angel investors, says James.3 Key Highlights:Capintel has a product management component where you can build your models. Then, you will organize it the way you want and make that into capital by entering the codes, the fund tickers, and allocations.Financial goals are not met with a single financial product. Instead, it is a combination of financial products like a mixture of investments, insurance, willingness, date planning all over the place, says James.The amount of change required in regulation for financial advisors from a reporting perspective or a record-keeping perspective is massive and shouldn’t be underestimated. In addition, people had to make huge changes to their day-to-day workflow to be able to do it.Tweetable Quotes:“Being able to strike the right balance between informative and easily digestible is hard. Simplicity itself is a beautiful art but difficult.” – Jason“We are excited to be trying to build up more advisors’ abilities to address that holistic wealth problem because it will be a combination of the advisor’s judgment and knowledge of the client.” – James“People will be looking more and more for broader-based advice instead of Hollistic traditional investment management role.” - JamesResources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInWoodgate.com – SponsorJames Rockwood – Linkedin Podcast Editing Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jason talks to Deven Hurt about the company Prediction strike of which Deven is the CEO and Co-Founder. Prediction Strike is a sports betting platform that treats athletes like stocks.Episode Highlights:00.45: Deven says, prediction strike is a sports stock market that allows users to buy and sell shares of athletes as if they were stocks. He said that they want people to start feeling like they are investing in players and using their sports knowledge as an investment.08.06: Jason says, based on the market dynamics, you probably always will play the role of the market maker for players with liquidity below a certain level and bench players whom no one knows their first name outside of their city.11.31: Jason affirms, as you guys are creating a market price, there will be some transparency in how you do it and specifically in the earnings. 19.26: Deven says we have started to work on partnering with athletes, and a big thing that we have told all the athletes is we want you to do whatever you want to do. 21.20: Deven explains that they are doing NFL, NBA, UFC right now, which has been exciting, and the next phase is going to be expanding esports. They have baseball and global soccer or global football as the priority.23.05: Academics will be very curious to see how market dynamics play out and the number of papers just being written off to see your behavior in terms of valuation and market clearing, says Jason.25.23: Jason asks, if you had one wish you could change in your company or industry as a whole, what would it be?28.44: Jason says, in Prediction strike, if you are willing to put the money in, you can have whatever draft team you ever want regardless of who else is playing the game, and that’s a key differentiator. 3 Key HighlightsDeven explains how prediction strike works and how it is different from other sports betting options out there.The interesting thing about traditional fantasy is you can’t necessarily get access to players you want. Whereas in prediction strike, you could construct whatever team you want. You just have to be willing to pay the price to get them on your team, says Jason.Athletic lives are short. In most cases, very few convert them into marketable brands that can be carried on after they retire, says Jason.Tweetable Quotes“The fan perception of athletes is so funny in how that matches up with how the players play, and sometimes it doesn’t.” – Deven“The amount of random jets and giants players who get traded is spectacular, and it’s just because they are so dialed into that hometown and hometown effect is real.” - Deven “I learned that it takes almost $200 million to go through the licensing if you want to operate as an online sports bet.” - DevenResources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInWoodgate.com – SponsorDeven Hurt – Linkedin | Website Podcast Editing Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jason talks to Steve Boms, executive director of the Financial Data and Technology Association, a.k.a. FDATA. FDATA is a global trade association started in 2013 - 2014 in the UK. Episode Highlights:05.38: Steve says, you don’t need to understand the mechanism of how electricity is traveling from the power plant through the transformer into your house. Similarly, we have to think about open banking. But you need to know what happens if something goes wrong.07.52: Open banking is all about competition, and it is all about a more inclusive, more accessible financial services system that meets you as the consumer where you are rather than it being dictated to you by a large financial institution. 17.45: Steve says you can let the industry figure out the standard and the technology to make it work. And this is how the third-party bank gets approved to play in the sandbox. 18.31: Home automation is nowhere near what it could be because you have to worry about these things, says Jason.19.25: If you talk to the Financial Conduct Authority in the UK, some of the regulators that were part of the implementation of this will be the first to tell you that we didn’t get this all correct, and we knew we weren’t going to get it all correct, says Steve.25.18: The future of any large bank, if they are smart enough, is to adopt the revolution to becoming banking as a service platform as fast as humanly possible to seize that opportunity. But executives aren’t rewarded for that kind of innovative thinking and banking unfortunate traditionally, says Jason.3 Key Points:Open banking is the digitization of financial services. It is a free and competitive marketplace for a consumer to decide which service provider you want to choose and provide you with the product or financial service. That service provider can be a bank, or it can be a nonbank.Steve says that the President of the United States earlier this year put out an executive order on competition, and this was one of the things he called out that even in the US, where you have 10,000 financial institutions and thousands of fintech, there is still not enough competition and we are not meeting the promise of just how innovative, and competitive this marketplace could be. We need to have open banking, and the government will have to mandate it. In Canada, a lot of our group’s conversations with the Department of Finance have been around keeping the Canadian financial services regime competitive against Europe and the UK, as they are catapulting ahead on open banking, and Canada hasn’t.Tweetable Quotes:“In theory, the government only has one concern: what is the best case for our constituents and our economy more broadly, and our view is that data is the best outcome.” – Steve“Never underestimate an institution’s ability to be spiteful if it’s not in their best interest to be cooperative, and this is where legislation matters.” – Jason“When you bring in a set of companies or use cases that are not regulated or supervised to the extent that a large national financial institution’s initial reaction is this is unsafe.” - SteveResources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInWoodgate.com – SponsorSteve Boms – Website  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today’s episode is a recording of a brief intro that Jason gave to the recent Canadian advisor Tech Expo. It was the first financial advisor technology expo of its type in Canada, and that was put on by the Financial planning association Canada, for which Jason is the President.Episode Highlights:00.56: Digital transformation is about taking your practice and digitizing it, and reaping the benefits of digitization, efficiency, scalability, and hands-on experiences for both you and your consumer.01.12: Which of us doesn’t want to do the less heavy lifting, make more money, and provide clients?02.06 There are always opportunities around the outskirts of core technologies, and you need to treat your business like a business and think about how you can enhance it. 02.35: The dealers are too busy worrying about the mass audience in core technologies. So they are not going to get things like your booking scheduling systems. 03.01: If you don’t know what is out there in the marketplace or what others have done, it is tough to figure out what you are going to do for yourself. 4.00 Technology is meant to support your business strategy. Don’t go looking for the solution to your problem if you haven’t figured out your problem correctly. 5.57: Once you have identified what you do, look for repetitive things that take a lot of time and keep you away from facing clients. Because those are the ones that are the most useful to automate basically, and those are the ones that are most likely to have solutions. 07.07 Most important is to invest the time to learn and onboard the technology. Set aside time to understand the technology and then realize it so much and so well that you can turn around and train your staff on it.11.08: The day tomorrow and the next day are all about you. It’s all about technologies that you can choose and deliver.3 Key Points:The first tip is that you need to adopt an entrepreneurial mindset to start the visual transformation, says Jason.There are tools for the problems that are better handled through technology than by human beings. Human beings are good at figuring out complex relationships between things.Advisors digitized can transfer over all their systems with a couple of usernames, and everything is done at a premium.Tweetable Quotes:“There are so many little solutions out there that cost a couple of dollars per month to solve problems that are taking hours per week away from you.”“Some advisors don’t listen to you, steal you using E signature, don’t have a CRM, and don’t care about innovating any other stuff.”Resources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInWoodgate.com – SponsorPodcast Editing Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jason talks to Gavin Spitzner, President of Wealth Consulting Partners. Gavin is one of the more recognized fintech experts in the US that consults with significant players on the state of their advisor technology and its future development. Episode Highlights:5.58: Gavin says it is not an institutionalized legacy in terms of how we ensure that we are delivering a client-centric and advice-oriented relationship where it always puts client interests first, and we are here to help and guide them. 8.57 Gavin suggests if you look at the research when clients leave, it's not about performance. It's all about the technology and communication you are doing.10.29: Jason inquires, what are the table stakes you think exist now and what are the better implementations over top of that? 11.42: Gavin recommends, "You have to make some of the decisions around what is high up on the value chain that I can uniquely bring value to and what else could I automate to digital engagement." 15.01: Jason suggests that you have to take a client-centric approach when you think of a plan-centric approach. 25.09: Automated intelligence overlays on top of CRM's because it's hard for companies to do many things well, and we can find some of the more specialized firms that are deep diving into it.27.22: Just because the software says do this doesn't mean that it matches the human being, says Jason.30.21: The entire industry is better off by niche development because you can cater to a small group of people incredibly well at a deeper level.33.00: The growth rates for direct indexing come from a smaller base, depending on how it is measured, it will be off the charts.34.52: Gavin says that if you educate your client, you will not focus on your custodial statement. You are going to focus on your performance report, which is about you and your goals.36.23: With the real aspects of COVID and changes in employment, whether voluntary or involuntary, everyone's life is turned upside down to some degree. 38.21: Advisors can guide clients to look at different work arrangements to take advantage of the wealth they have accumulated and permit them to spend more and do things differently when they can still take advantage of it. 3 Key Points Gavin shares how people came to advisors in the old days because it was the only way to access the markets or the information.Gavin points out that we need to have a better digital engagement process, but the traditional portals out there do not shape or make a match.Jason explains how the advisors who tend to focus in concentrated niches are growing at far faster rates than the advisors we need.Tweetable Quotes"The role of technology or data to engage with clients and make a meaningful impact on their lives motivates me." – Gavin"You can't go back to the old premise if you discover what it means going forward." – Jason"You are going to be more knowledgeable if you believe in technology and handle financial issues leading with planning and definition." - GavinResources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira's FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira's LinkedInWoodgate.com – SponsorGavin Spitzner – LinkedIn  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jason talks to Kevin Levitt; he is the Director of Industry and Business Development for Financial Services for Nvidia. The company is one of the driving forces behind the technology powering artificial intelligence today.Episode Highlights:00.38: Nvidia is a company that was started about 30 years ago almost, and they have really pioneered the use of graphics processing units. 08.12: What Jason has seen in academic studies is more accurate FICO scores in terms of calculating the probability of default.09.58 Jason asks, “What is the natural type of function for artificial intelligence disturbing the market today like what is the commonality around the things is replacing?10.20: Kevin says in the example of Siri virtual assistant or chatbot. In the context of financial services that are helping us to transfer a balance or to understand what our balance is, or pay a bill, it goes from there to assist the call center agent where we have a more complex problem. With the call center and the agent, the AI is actually complimenting human assistants with information.18.30: Large banks are trying to figure out how to build an enterprise AI capability, AI infrastructure to support the migration from a handful of AI-enabled applications up to 100s.22.10: Jason inquires, “What is the kind of cool use cases you see being drummed up and coming forward going in the future?” 26.30: Kevin talks about the four primary players in terms of big retail, big tech, fintech and big banks, are going to be the primary competitors and if one of them is using AI to deliver a virtual assistant or chatbot and the other one is still using some form of rules-based kind of chat experience, AI one is going to win.28.40 Jason: The technology companies choosing to come out and this is going to make everybody sharper, and everybody really focused on their value proposition and really try to eliminate friction.35.32: NVIDIA is all about innovation and stretching, kind of the boundaries of where people thought. Computing power could go and certainly where artificial intelligence could be of benefit. 3 Key Points:For the past 15 plus years, Kevin has been at the intersection of data technology and financial services.The technology can enable a better customer experience across many dimensions when artificial intelligence and deep learning models that leverage natural language processing are utilized.There are lots of opportunities to continually improve how AI is leveraged within any industry, including within the context of financial services.Tweetable Quotes:“You can think of artificial intelligence, or AI is kind of the Super umbrella if you will, and underneath that falls a category of artificial intelligence which is machine learning.” – Kevin“It is not about job loss it is about job improvement, which is freeing us to do the higher-order capabilities.” – Kevin“There are some of the smartest people in the world that are working on financial services, and they see the power and the opportunity associated with AI.” - KevinResources Mentioned:Facebook – Jason Pereira’s FacebookLinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedInWoodgate.com – Sponsor Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.