WealthTech Today

The post #ItzOnWealthTech Ep. 89: When the Whole is Greater Than the Sum of its Parts – March News Roundup appeared first on and was written by Elana Iskowitz . “The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.” A phrase attributed to Aristotle and misquoted by those seeking to understand one of the most mysterious properties of a system: Emergence. [read my exploration into that topic] The phrase...

The post #ItzOnWealthTech Ep. 88: A Digital Wealthtech Showdown — US vs Europe with Ralf Heim, Fincite.de appeared first on and was written by Craig Iskowitz . European geography has become almost irrelevant as FinTech markets have flattened out, enabling technology firms to more easily reach customers beyond national borders. Boosted by cloud software efficiency, specifically productivity tools,...

The post #ItzOnWealthTech Ep. 87: The Engine Powering the SS&C Advent Insurance Marketplace with David Lau, DPL Financial Partners appeared first on and was written by Craig Iskowitz . “I know this from my many years at Jefferson National, it was difficult to get the Orions and the BlackDiamonds of the world to build insurance functionality, because they didn’t have demand. Their advisors aren’t r...

The post #ItzOnWealthTech Ep. 86: Behind the Scenes of the Cetera-Voya Deal, with Lori Hardwick appeared first on and was written by Craig Iskowitz . “Firms like Cetera, and certainly Genstar, at the private equity level, we see a lot of value there because we are already a well oiled engine inside Cetera. So we know that when we bring on this number of advisors and this number of assets, that we’...

The post #ItzOnWealthTech Ep. 85: Reddit Targets Robinhood And The GameStop Débâcle with Aaron Klein, Riskalyze appeared first on and was written by Craig Iskowitz . “For markets to work there have to be winners and losers. It’s not a good look for Robinhood to change the rules of the game and effectively turn off one side of the GameStop trade. It’s also not a good look for the DTCC, the prime br...

The post #ItzOnWealthTech Ep. 84: The Road to Success is Paved with Data, with Jeff Marsden, Xtiva appeared first on and was written by Craig Iskowitz . “Data as an asset is a theme that comes up in conversations time in and time out. It’s almost universally across size of customer, market segment, go to market strategy in terms of employee or independent contractor model. Data as an asset is a co...

The post #ItzOnWealthTech Ep. 83: The Bitcoin Enlightenment Comes to Wealth Management with Efi Pylarinou appeared first on and was written by Craig Iskowitz . “Essentially, blockchain has the potential to change the economics of how we manufacture different securities as we know them. Whether it’s a deposit, or some other structured product and DeFi is one experiment, we will see whether it works...

The post #ItzOnWealthTech Ep. 82: Can eMoney’s Mobile App Deliver an Incentive for Clients? appeared first on and was written by Craig Iskowitz . “There’s a large percentage of American households that are not being served by financial advisors. That’s where this concept of financial wellness comes into play, in helping individuals in need of advice who don’t know where to turn. Helping them to la...

The post #ItzOnWealthTech Ep. 80: Best of 2020 – Part 2 appeared first on and was written by Craig Iskowitz . Welcome to our annual best of the year edition of the Wealth Management Today podcast. I’m your host, Craig Iskowitz, and I run a consulting company called Ezra Group. We are experts in everything related to wealthtech, and this is where I usually give our standard marketing pitch, but ins...

The post #ItzOnWealthTech Ep. 79: The Ultimate Tech Stack for Retirement Plans with Aaron Schumm, Vestwell appeared first on and was written by Craig Iskowitz . “Our goal is to make sure that every single person that touches this platform, irrespective of who it is, if it’s an advisor, if it’s an asset manager, if it’s a company, if it’s the employees of those companies, every person has to be bet...

The post #ItzOnWealthTech Ep. 78: 7 Secrets for a Successful Advisor Podcast with Cathy Curtis & Marie Swift appeared first on and was written by Craig Iskowitz . “The old man rubbed his hands: ‘Ah! A meta-subject! Using language to discuss language, there’s nothing better. I adore that’.” ― Laurent Binet, The Seventh Function of Language This episode is one that I’ve been talking with my team abo...

The post #ItzOnWealthTech Ep. 77: Building a Fintech Ecosystem for Modern Retirement, with Rhian Horgan, CEO of Silvur appeared first on and was written by Craig Iskowitz . “What I think is different about our approach, firstly, is that we’re purpose built for decumulation. The second thing is that we’re built for what I call modern retirement. In the old days you had a pension, but you probably w...

The post #ItzOnWealthTech Ep. 76: Standing on the Edge of a TAMP Revolution with Matt Regan, Wealthcare appeared first on and was written by Craig Iskowitz . “TAMPs are often the first thing that advisors outsource.  They know that they aren’t very good at investments and they were very happy to turn to somebody who had some expertise in there. So what’s happened is that they’ve had to adopt and i...

The post #ItzOnWealthTech Ep. 75: When The Wealthtech Rubber Meets the Road appeared first on and was written by Craig Iskowitz . It’s another fantastic day in the wonderful world of wealthtech. Welcome to episode 75 of the Wealth Management Today podcast. This is our monthly roundup of some of the top wealthtech news and we’ve got a terrific mix of stories to keep you on top of the latest industr...

The post #ItzOnWealthTech Ep. 74: Not All Fintech Funding Checks Are Equal with Sean Brown of YCharts appeared first on and was written by Craig Iskowitz . “Not all checks are equal. You can go get funding from somebody who will give you a check and no more than that. Or, you can get funding and a partner in a journey that will inspire you, support you, push you.  There’s so much capital being pou...

The post #ItzOnWealthTech Ep. 73: Confessions of a Fintech Heretic with Lex Sokolin appeared first on and was written by Craig Iskowitz . “Why am I fintech heretic? I must get bored easily and so I always look for what’s the edge. Where’s the place where people are breaking things and re-imagining how they could be? Even in a situation where 99% of the industry is the same, I’m always going to loo...

The post #ItzOnWealthTech Ep. 72: Finding the Right Fintech Deal with LPL Financial appeared first on and was written by Craig Iskowitz . “We want to be the leader wherever advice is delivered. And as you think about how our firm has evolved, this is really about being there for advisors and helping them where they are in their practices. And we’re agnostic of platform, affiliation level. We’re re...

The post #ItzOnWealthTech Ep. 71: Dabbling in Disruption with Babu Sivadasan of Jiffy.ai appeared first on and was written by Craig Iskowitz . “We are taking on AI-based innovation with a deep sense of social responsibility, but also combining a for-profit and a nonprofit at the same time. We recognize that what we do disrupts traditional jobs, or it has the potential to. Every AI company is, in a...

The post #ItzOnWealthTech Ep. 70: Best of 2020 – Part 1 appeared first on and was written by Craig Iskowitz . Considering the crazy events that have swept over the world so far this year, we thought it would be prudent to compile our Best of 2020 episode a little early, just in case.  We had an incredible lineup of guests and it was difficult for the #ItzOnWealthtech team to decide who made the cu...

The post #ItzOnWealthTech Ep. 69: How Engines, Automation & Data Are Changing Wealth Management appeared first on and was written by Craig Iskowitz . It’s another fantastic day in the wonderful world of wealthtech. Welcome to episode 69 of the Wealth Management Today podcast. We’re going to try something a little different with this episode. I’ve been guest writing on Michael Kitces’ monthly FinTe...

The post #ItzOnWealthTech Ep. 68: Delivering Meaningful Engagement with Brandon Spottswood appeared first on and was written by Craig Iskowitz . “What we believe we’ve been able to do is make our industry more fun, because there was a huge missing layer. We have all this data on user profiles and company profiles that cuts out the first ten conversations between any two parties because most of the...

The post #ItzOnWealthTech Ep. 67: The Start of the ESG Data Wars with Will Trout appeared first on and was written by Craig Iskowitz . “We’re at the beginning of the ESG data wars. There’s more data coming onto the market with more information that’s tremendously useful, if only you can process it. This means analytics firms, data generators, like the exchanges, financial information providers, li...

The post #ItzOnWealthTech Ep. 66: AI-Powered Custodians as The Ultimate Digital Assistant appeared first on and was written by Craig Iskowitz . “If you were to ask, what is AI going to do? It’s actually catering to your needs, specifically. It’s like creating Jarvis, it’s the ultimate digital assistant for an advisor so they can be much more efficient when they do their job. But going back to the...

The post #ItzOnWealthTech Ep. 65: Don’t Let Your Fintech Become a One-Trick Pony with David Lyon appeared first on and was written by Craig Iskowitz . “We weren’t the only ones that identified this challenge facing advisors, but it was important when we were designing our marketplace so that it wouldn’t become a one-trick pony. It wasn’t just putting a bunch of strategist models on a shelf to make...

The post #ItzOnWealthTech Ep. 64: Best of Breed Solutions are Going Out of Style with Yaela Shamberg appeared first on and was written by Craig Iskowitz . “The technology trend that we’re seeing is clients want fewer systems and fewer vendors. What we saw in the ’90s and the early 2000s was a shift to “best of breed” and firms were plagued with having to integrate and support many relationships an...