Financial advisors are clamoring for ways to lower costs and automate their back-end. Realistically, computers handle complicated investment management tasks, asset allocation and rebalancing more efficiently than humans. These realities underscore the growing demand for backend, white label robo-advisors. Answering the demand for these private-label robo-advisors are hordes of rapidly launching startups and established financial management players.
The white label robo-advisors evolved to lower costs and automate services for the financial advisor. So, if you’re wondering where to get a white label advisor, the answer is almost anywhere, from big brokerage houses such as Fidelity to existing robo-advisors such as Betterment as well as stand-alone white label firms like TradingFront.
Following is a starting point for your white label robo-advisor search. This isn’t meant to be an all-inclusive list of all white label robo-advisors.
White Label Robo-Advisors: The Fintech Solution for Financial Advisors
The white label trend started with Jemstep, a legacy robo-advisor who was bought out by Invesco. Most white label robo-advisors simply create various portfolios of index fund ETFs allocated according to typical risk profiles from conservative to aggressive. Although others offer additional financial advisory management solutions.
TradingFront is customizable to your firm’s needs. The company is built by advisors, for advisors. A huge draw for new financial advisors to the TradingFront portal is that advisors just getting started receive free access to their platform.
TAM investment advisors want to help financial professionals serve all investors, not only those with high AUM. Their white label platform FinchTech is a fully digital non-advised product. Their white label portfolios are managed by investment professionals, not computers. TAM claims that the non-advised solution reduces financial advisor risk and regulations.
AdvisorEngine, formerly NestEgg promises an open architecture white label robo-advisor platform plus more. This firm not only builds, manages and optimizes investment portfolios but also offers account aggregations, financial planning tools and CRM.
Marstone promises to fulfill the DOL fiduciary rule with its private label robo product aimed at financial advisory firms. Their advisor dashboard gives a unified view of all your financial advisory information including AUM, client alerts, activity and broader market news and information. Clients can customize their portfolios in line with their values and invest towards specific goals.
A newer entrant into the white label robo-advising sphere includes Invest Forward, which uses Folio Institutional as its custodian. This player also offers access to the highly regarded Dimensional Fund Advisors offerings. Invest Forward’s advisor solution includes a customized website, account management tools and back-office robo-advisor technology.
Betterment, considered among the first robo-advisors, launched Betterment for Advisors in 2014. This backend robo-advisor for financial professionals calls itself a “paperless back office”. Their software automates and streamlines the operational side of the business with an automated portfolio plus account opening, billing, accounting and client communication.
Fidelity AMP or Automated Management Platform is a back-end solution for advisors who use Fidelity as their custodian. Available for Fidelity’s Wealthscape financial advisory clients, the offering includes eMoney, wealth management technology. The portal is adjustable from all robo to part human and part robo management. Other services include goal setting onboarding and more.
As with any business decision, decide what solution you need and review the available white label robo-advisor solutions. The field is growing rapidly so it’s quite possible that before you complete this article, there’ll be a new offering on the market.
Barbara A. Friedberg, MBA, MS is a veteran portfolio manager, expert investor, and former university finance instructor. She is editor/author of Personal Finance; An Encyclopedia of Modern Money Management and two additional money books. She is CEO of Robo-Advisor Pros.com, a robo-advisor review and information website. Additionally, Friedberg is publisher of the well-regarded investment website Barbara Friedberg Personal Finance.com. Follow her on twitter @barbfriedberg and @roboadvisorpros. As of this writing, she does not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.
