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From digital marketing platforms to portfolio management software, Wealth Professional’s Top 25 Wealth Tech Providers of 2024 celebrates the firms behind indispensable tools driving and maximizing advisors’ business operations.
Commenting on what makes an industry-leading package, Scott Stennett, senior vice president of Richardson Wealth, says, “It must be open architecture, highly secure, provide fast response times, and deliver continuous improvements.”
Emphasizing the importance of tailored solutions, Shaun Hauser, founder and CEO of wealth management firm Wellington-Altus, adds that tech must also be customizable.
“Having a base plan that has that applicability, but then tweaking small parts of the plan for each client, introduces a scalability feature to advisors that otherwise would not be possible,” he says.
In a landscape where one size rarely fits all, this year’s Top 25 distinguish themselves with their innovative offerings designed to optimize workflow.
Covering more than 80,000 investment options across North America, the portfolio management software offers valuable data comparison.
“We’re one of the few systems out there that can compare a stock versus a commodity versus a mutual fund, and tell you out of those three, which one you should be in at any time,” says president Paul Kornfeld.
One of SIACharts' offerings is its S&P 500 index ranking.
“We’ve been able to simplify things in a way that says, you should be buying Apple over Microsoft,” adds Kornfeld.
Stennett asserts that top-tier platforms should offer an array of features to facilitate a seamless workflow.
“An advisor is best served if they can get important information such as notifications coming from third party or in-house risk assessment engines. That alert should come in a consolidated dashboard, so the advisor doesn’t have to go in and out of multiple systems every day to do their job,” he says.
SIACharts' comprehensive platform’s features include:
24/7 monitoring: objective alerts advising on buying or selling decisions
Portfolio management: creating and managing portfolios, including creating watchlists and models for investment strategies
Asset allocation: ranking of seven major asset classes, helping advisors determine how to best diversify their investments
Actionable insights: daily rankings of stocks in the S&P 500 based on relative strength and technical analysis
Comparing tens of thousands of investments, SIACharts' platform performs over 10 billion calculations each night.
“We’re doing more analysis than anybody else out there,” adds Kornfeld. “We run tens of thousands of reports because each user can create custom ones themselves, but we also run 600 ranked reports here every day for different large-cap groups and product types.”
Another example of how the platform can be tailored to individual preferences is through its asset class rankings, which allows advisors to refine searches by distinguishing between mutual funds and ETFs. It also includes geographic filters, ensuring Canadian advisors can find top-performing investments that match their specific requirements.
“The tool is great for helping Canadian advisors understand if they want to be more overweight US versus Canada. Just that alone has transformed people’s books and client conversations,” he says.
The portfolio management software also stands out for its intuitive interface. It’s S&P 100 index report categorizes companies into green, yellow, or red zones, enabling advisors to focus on promising investment opportunities.
“The green zone, which is the top 25% of the report, quickly allows you to eliminate 75% of the names from your research and consideration,” says Kornfeld.
This year, SIACharts debuted new features:
Real-time news: from ETFs to cryptocurrency, SIACharts' customizable newsfeed allows advisors to stay up to date on relevant investment topics
Know-Your-Product compliance tool: a one-page factsheet summarizing key information on investment products, including historical performance and peer-comparison analysis
Kornfeld explains that the compliance factsheet was developed because of customer feedback, as due diligence remains a pain point for advisors.
“We’re not only giving them good research and good tools to use for their practice, but we’re trying to make things more efficient so they can focus on growing their book of business.”
Industry professional verdict
JS, TD Canada Trust: “Adopting SIACharts' methodology has directly impacted the manner in which I am able to thrive in this industry as a portfolio manager. A true systematic process has been born in my practice since I have adopted the analytics made available through SIA. If anyone is looking for a reliable process that is scalable while providing you with the competitive edge we all seek as money managers, there is no need to look further.”
The platform’s white-labelled content library is a one-stop digital marketing solution.
To help financial advisors effectively communicate with clients, HeyAdvisor has over 120 educational animated videos and infographics.
Advisors can access material on subjects such as:
buying a home
raising a family
starting to invest
owning a business
planning for retirement
Advisors upload their branding details, including photos, logos, brand colours, and contact information onto the platform. HeyAdvisor then creates personalized content that advisors can share across client portals, websites, and email communications.
Addressing the challenge of sourcing reliable Canadian material, HeyAdvisor stands out by exclusively focusing on creating communications for Canadian advisors using relevant terminology.
“It’s one thing to have content out there, but what are your clients or prospects taking away from it? I think that’s an important element that we really focus on,” says Emily Reed, co-founder and CEO.
She notes that her most popular pieces are videos that distill complex topics.
“Insurance as an asset class was one piece that advisors wanted to be talking to their clients about because it is very complicated in how it can be executed and set up,” she says.
To ensure HeyAdvisor stays up to date, new content is added monthly. Additionally, advisors can use the website’s ‘request content’ button to suggest topics they would like to see covered.
Reflecting on the impact of customizable content, Reed says that one of her clients used to spend 10 hours a week creating marketing materials. However, after adopting HeyAdvisor, they streamlined client communications, reducing the time spent to just one hour per month.
In addition to saving time, the platform aims to help advisors overcome the hurdles of building a social media presence, a vital aspect in competitive markets.
Reed explains, “For each infographic, we’ve simplified them even further to include an Instagram image that you can customize on Canva.”
In just a few clicks, HeyAdvisor provides ready-to-post content that can be translated across LinkedIn, X, and other social media channels.
Industry professional verdict
Craig Jensen, Next Level Insurance: “Integrating the HeyAdvisor videos into my online presence has truly made a difference. I’ve seen a significant increase in engagement on platforms like LinkedIn, where the videos consistently outperform other content. The improved analytics and traffic speak for themselves.”
The company’s premier product, Harmony, unleashes a powerhouse toolkit that empowers wealth management firms to take control of their data.
“The application itself is not just used by advisors or portfolio managers, it’s actually run mostly by operators and administrators, people that are reconciling data and trading information regularly,” says Mike Zegers, vice president of strategy and business development.
From front- to back-office operations, the portfolio management software assists with:
Portfolio accounting and valuation: independent portfolio accounting with transaction-level details
Trading and order management: creating model portfolios and rebalancing investments based on specific criteria
Fees and billing: keeping track of invoicing and third-party fees
Compliance: managing trading and tracking client portfolios for drift
Distinguishing itself from market research platforms, Harmony concentrates on collecting insightful data from investments currently held within a client’s investment portfolio, with the ability to run reports based on dynamic filters.
Using Harmony, advisors can access over 1,000 different reports and generate portfolio appraisals with options to select specific security types, asset classes, and currencies.
“The great part about our portfolio management software is the autonomy it provides from an operational perspective. We’re never asking clients to fit a square peg into a round hole,” adds Zegers.
In a nod to its name, Harmony also stands out for its ability to orchestrate a seamless integration of client relationship management and portfolio management.
“Among the things we’ve built out over the last couple of years are better client relationship management tools,” says Zegers. “There's a fully integrated CRM in our platform, and that sets us apart from anyone else. We can directly manage clients, as well as accounts and portfolios on the same platform.”
With over 20 years in business, Infinite stays at the top by actively listening to client feedback.
The company plans to introduce new features to enhance the client experience, including significant updates to its client reporting portal and UI/UX tools for improved navigation.
“One thing that sets us apart is that we’re entirely homegrown. Nothing in our system has ever been outsourced. The same core development team that built our platform still manages it today. This gives us a lot of agility,” explains Zegers.
Industry professional verdict
Tim Frantz, Bush Associates: “‘Game-changing’ and ‘partnership’ – these are the two words that best describe what the Harmony software system and the amazing team at Infinite have done for our business. Not only has the system made our firm’s tasks so much simpler and more efficient, but the wonderful group at Infinite, with their insight and understanding of our needs, have truly become vital partners in our business.”
Wealth Professional invited technology service providers from around Canada to submit nominations, detailing the problems or pain points their offering is designed to solve or relieve for wealth management professionals and how their solution differs from those offered by competitors.
The WP team objectively assessed each entry for detailed information, true innovation, and proven success – along with benchmarking against the other entries – to determine the Top 25 Wealth Tech Providers.