TIFIN launches new AI-powered tool focused on client personalization

Taiber Kosmala & Associates, a Chicago-based independent investment consulting firm advising on more than $15 billion in client assets, is celebrating the launch of an outsourced chief investment officer service for RIAs, national advisory firms, broker-dealers and trust companies. 

Called Taiko, the platform is designed to serve RIAs and financial institutions ranging from $100 million in AUM to multibillion-dollar national enterprises. Taiko applies an institutional-caliber process to each client by delivering a curated gallery of investment strategies supplemented by custom practice management tools and technologies.

Joe Taiber, managing partner at Taiko, told Financial Planning that while his firm is entering the platform business with this launch, he doesn't consider the new offering a traditional platform. Instead, each new RIA relationship created via Taiko begins with a clean slate. 

From there, Taiber and his team take a consultative approach toward delivering to advisory firms investment programs that are fully customized to the needs of their clients.

"We don't come in and say, 'this is how you should invest.' We consult. I mean, we are consultants by trade for 20 years," Taiber said. "So we really consult with them and say, how do you want to shape your platform of solutions so that you don't have to look like everybody else operating on a platform? Let's build your platform together."

Taiber said Taiko can be the differentiator wealth managers use to stand out in a competitive market. With more than two decades of experience serving pensions, endowments and the wealth management marketplace, Taiko's leadership team has deep relationships with hedge funds, venture capital firms, private equity, private debt and real asset managers that can't be found on traditional TAMPs and alternative investment platforms.

"I think the RIA industry is just riddled with solutions that try to fit each firm into the same box … but all we've done for 25 years is build custom investment programs for each unique institutional client," Taiber said. "This is just an extension of the same philosophy, and the tech that's available today allows us to build that custom house and that gallery of solutions. We would not have been able to do this even five or six years ago."

One of the nation's fastest-growing independent wealth management firms is rolling out a new  investment management platform for financial advisors.

Private Advisor Group has introduced a platform called WealthSuite exclusive to its network. The Morristown, New Jersey-based firm has more than 750 financial advisors with $29 billion in client assets, making it one of the largest branches of LPL Financial, which it uses as its brokerage.

The company says WealthSuite offers bespoke mutual fund, ETF and blended mutual fund/ETF model portfolios alongside custom indexing and tax-optimized solutions delivered via a separately managed account structure. The platform is supported by investment strategists BlackRock, Fidelity Institutional Wealth Adviser, Orion Advisor Solutions and WisdomTree. 

Frank Smith, president of Private Advisor Group, said WealthSuite tries to balance sophistication with ease of use and "demonstrates our continued commitment to deliver solutions that increase capabilities and efficiencies for advisors while staying true to our shared mission of changing the lives of everyday investors." 

Private Advisor Group has partnered with Orion Advisor Solutions to deliver the technology to power the account opening, management and servicing of accounts on the WealthSuite platform. The relationship between Orion and Private Advisor Group was first forged in 2019 to support performance reporting, billing, trading and compliance services.

"Delivering a consistent and repeatable experience to investors is a challenge most advisors face today. On average, investment management accounts for 19% of an advisor's time, and WealthSuite is structured to free up capacity so advisors can focus more of their time with investors," Verne Marble, Private Advisor Group's director of business development, said in a statement. 

Marble added that the firm is particularly excited about the custom indexing and tax optimization capabilities that WealthSuite will bring. 

"These are incredible value-adds to our current advisors who have been asking for a Private Advisor Group-sponsored investment management solution," Marble said. "From a growth perspective, we believe that having an integrated wealth platform is a huge attractant to prospective advisors, and we further anticipate that the price point of the platform will be a catalyst for the growth of our advisors' practices."

Private Advisor Group has plans to continually evaluate and expand its available strategist solutions with a focus on providing a differentiated experience for both advisors and investors.

The Berwyn, Pennsylvania-based tech firm and turnkey program on Wednesday shared details on a series of technology enhancements made to provide a better user experience throughout the Envestnet ecosystem.

Updates include new views in MoneyGuide like an "estate flowchart" that shows the movement of assets between heirs and entities while providing real-time updates through the modeling of estate planning strategies and recommendations. There's also the new "net worth over time" view that breaks down a client's projected net worth on an annual basis by types of assets and liabilities.

Tamarac improvements include new integrations with digital asset platforms, meaning advisors using Envestnet tools are now able to view their digital assets just like any other asset. 

Officials said this enhancement was made possible through two recent partnerships with Flourish Crypto, a cryptocurrency investing platform for financial advisors, and cryptocurrency exchange and custodian Gemini. Both integrations are now live and available to the more than 105,000 advisors on the Envestnet platform.

"Our most recent technology updates give advisors the ability to service clients even more holistically," Molly Weiss, chief product officer of wealthtech and solutions at Envestnet, said in a statement. "The technology solutions across our platform are designed to work together to consolidate as many assets as possible under an advisor's purview, expanding and strengthening the advice they can deliver as heroes who help clients make proper sense of their finances."    

A full list of platform improvements made this week can be found by clicking this link.