BNY Mellon's Pershing X unveils wealth management platform with a number of partnerships: Wealthtech Weekly

June 7, 2023 5:56 PM

BNY Mellon Pershing bank picture Bloomberg April 22, 2019

The ongoing BNY Mellon | Pershing INSITE conference in Orlando, Florida, is playing host to a major debut for the firm as it formally enters the wealthtech platform race.

Pershing X, a technology provider within BNY Mellon | Pershing that launched in October 2021, introduced the Wove platform to conference attendees on Tuesday. Billed as a tool that integrates the technology advisors use into a single, data-driven platform, Pershing X President Ainslie Simmonds said the team went beyond just having integrations when it crafted Wove.

She said instead, they wanted to create "interconnected experiences" for advisors so they can seamlessly move from task to task without having to re-enter data.

"The goal is to help them be more productive and efficient with their time so they have the ability to help serve even more clients," Simmonds said.

Wealth management

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Wove will feature the core applications advisors need like advanced data reporting and analytics, financial plan building, flexible billing, cross-custodian trading and rebalancing.

Additionally, advisors will have access to direct indexing investment strategies.

As part of its Wove debut, Pershing X also announced that BNY Mellon Advisors will deliver investment solutions through the new platform by using an in-house team of senior investment professionals from across BNY Mellon.

"The Wove platform is unique because it has the power, scale and security of BNY Mellon behind it," Jim Crowley, CEO of BNY Mellon | Pershing said in a statement. "By leveraging the breadth of innovation from across the firm to create Wove, we are able to provide advisors with seamless technology and best-in-class investment tools to help revolutionize how they serve their clients."

On Wednesday, BNY Mellon | Pershing followed the launch by announcing collaborations with Salesforce, PureFacts and Pontera to provide technology for advisors on Wove.

Pershing X will work with the following technology providers on the following services:

Salesforce Financial Services Cloud: Will allow Wove clients to manage client onboarding and engagement.

PureFacts: Will be installed as Wove's primary billing vendor, including access to daily fee reporting and advanced revenue management and sales performance analytics.

Pontera: Will integrate its solution into Wove's wealth reporting offering, allowing advisors to analyze, rebalance and bill on 401(k), 403(b) and other held-away retirement accounts.

"Collaborations of this level are why Wove stands out in the market," Noam Tasch, head of revenue for Pershing X, said in a statement. "The capabilities that Salesforce, PureFacts and Pontera bring to the platform help support Pershing X's goal of simplifying, scaling and revolutionizing the wealth management experience for advisors."

Scroll down to get caught up on other recent fintech news you might have missed in our Wealthtech Weekly recap. And check out the previous edition here.

Streetbeat launches ChatGPT-powered portfolio management tool

Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto/Photographer: Jakub Porzycki/Nur

If you're an investor into having generative AI manage your portfolio based on the current news cycle, Streetbeat has the tool for you.

On Tuesday, the California-based company announced the launch of SmartPilot, an investment service that relies on ChatGPT4 to actively manage portfolios based on real-time news analysis.

According to the firm that was founded in 2020, SmartPilot utilizes generative AI and proprietary algorithms to analyze real-time news data.

By dynamically adjusting portfolio allocations, SmartPilot identifies opportunities to increase exposure to companies with positive news coverage while reducing exposure during adverse news events.

To get an idea of what kind of impacts the company is talking about, one of their Twitter accounts provides some insight. With SmartPilot doing the work in the background, the feed for @gptnewstracker is a list of companies, news stories and the associated "impact rating."

Damian Scavo, CEO of Streetbeat, said the goal is to redefine the investment landscape and set new standards.

"With innovations like generative AI and quant-trading capabilities, we are transforming retail investing," he said. "Our mission is to lead the AI revolution in finance and democratize access to quality investment advisory services, once limited to a selected few."

SmartPilot is available to all customers using the Streetbeat investing app. Customers can create an account or connect their existing brokerage account, including Robinhood, TD Ameritrade and Interactive Broker.

Smarsh appoints new chief technology officer with wealth management in mind

Smarsh CTO Vinay Mehta

Smarsh

Smarsh, a provider of archiving and compliance software for advisory firms, has a new chief technology officer who will focus on the wealth management industry.

Vinay Mehta will lead the global Smarsh engineering organization, overseeing product development, engineering, architecture and hosting efforts.

The company statement said Mehta "will focus on optimizing investment in communications intelligence and risk management technology for wealth management and financial services customers."

Most recently, he served as chief technology and information officer at cxLoyalty, a B2B provider of technology services for travel, rewards, incentives and merchandise programs. There, Mehta drove globalization of the technology workforce, movement to cloud infrastructure and lowered overall IT operating costs.

Before that, Mehta was chief information officer at Paycor, a human capital management platform designed to modernize people management and organizational leadership services. Earlier in his career, Mehta served at Convergys, a global customer-engagement business.

"I am honored to join Smarsh as its new CTO and am eager to serve as the bridge by which our engineers enable the business to achieve its strategic goal of maximizing value to customers," Mehta said in a statement. "Wealth management and financial services is an exciting space with unique challenges due to the rapid pace of change in technology and regulations. Smarsh is committed to developing leading-edge solutions that meet those challenges."

Smarsh's expertise lies in serving other global financial institutions and U.S.-based wealth management firms across both the broker-dealer and RIA segments. The company has more than 6,500 customers worldwide, including the world's top 10 banks.

"I am thrilled to welcome Vinay to the Smarsh team," said Smarsh CEO Kim Crawford Goodman. "He has a proven track record as a collaborator, leader and coach in the financial and technology fields globally and is a great addition to the C-suite as Smarsh continues to grow and achieve scale. Our customers' communications data is one of their most valuable assets. It needs to be protected and leveraged to solve complex compliance problems, both today and in the future."