Advicent with Anthony Stich (COO)| EP18

05/17/18 • 34 min

This is the 18th episode of the Fintech Impact podcast, and Jason Pereira interviews Anthony Stich, the Chief Operating Officer of Advicent, the largest provider of financial software in the world. Anthony shares information reguarding Advicent’s product line which includes NaviPlan, the power of their advancements and influence, and the ways in which they are able to service their clients.

● 01:06 – Advicent is the financial software developer that created NaviPlan. They are in seven countries and on four continents. They also have client portals, advisor dashboard, and API technology.

● 01:31 – They have about 100 enterprise clients, about 60 of which are blue chip clients, and service about 100,000 users.

● 02:03 – Advicent’s roots trace back to 1969 by Gus Hansch, a CFP referred to as “The Father of Financial Planning.”

● 03:18 – Anthony Stich began with Advicent, which is a name comprised of advice + enterprise, four years ago, and his career began in marketing first.

● 04:25 – NaviPlan, by user counts, and adoption rates, is the biggest financial planning software in the world with a cash flow first priority.

● 06:56 – NaviPlan’s average enterprise contract length is between 10-12 years.

● 10:30 – NaviPlan is highly customizable thanks to building their portal on top of

APIs.

● 14:08 – Figlo is Advicent’s European tool, available in five countries, with an office in Rotterdam outside of Amsterdam. Figlo used the APIs first.

● 15:51 – Adviser Briefcase is their marketing and communication engine that has about 700 documents that have been reviewed by FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority).

● 17:01 – As far as integration, Advicent is enterprise-first with back offices with all the core processors of the top five custodians.

● 23:35 – Advicent has about 300 team members, most are in Milwaukee Wisconsin, the Fintech capital of the world. There are also members in Toronto, Winnipeg, about 50 in Rotterdam, and scattered throughout the United States.

● 30:36 – The mission state at Advicent is to enable everyone to understand and impact their financial future, and it is about the end client.

3 Key Points:

1. Advicent has about 100 enterprise clients, about 60 of which are blue chip

clients, and service about 100,000 users.

2. NaviPlan’s average enterprise contract length is between 10-12 years.

3. Advicent has about 300 team members, most are in Milwaukee Wisconsin,

the Fintech capital of the world, the rest in here are also members in Toronto,

Winnipeg, Rotterdam, and throughout the United States.

Tweetable Quotes:

“We’ve built a portal on top of APIs. What we’ve done is decoupled the user experience from those engines itself. And by doing so, we’re allowing larger enterprises and institutions the ability to use that API within their ecosystem.” – Anthony Stich.

“We’ve given them the keys to the kingdom. We have unlocked the powerful calculations of NaviPlan, and allowed people to access them and put them wherever they so choose” – Anthony Stich.

“Not only are we thought leaders in consulting our partners through these regulatory challenges, we are also developing in advance.” – Anthony Stich.

Resources Mentioned:

● LinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedIn

● Facebook – Jason Pereira’s Facebook

● Woodgate Financial – Website for Woodgate Financial

● LinkedIn – Anthony Stich’s LinkedIn

● Advicent – Website for Advicent

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

● 01:31 – They have about 100 enterprise clients, about 60 of which are blue chip clients, and service about 100,000 users.

● 02:03 – Advicent’s roots trace back to 1969 by Gus Hansch, a CFP referred to as “The Father of Financial Planning.”

● 03:18 – Anthony Stich began with Advicent, which is a name comprised of advice + enterprise, four years ago, and his career began in marketing first.

● 04:25 – NaviPlan, by user counts, and adoption rates, is the biggest financial planning software in the world with a cash flow first priority.

● 06:56 – NaviPlan’s average enterprise contract length is between 10-12 years.

● 10:30 – NaviPlan is highly customizable thanks to building their portal on top of

APIs.

● 14:08 – Figlo is Advicent’s European tool, available in five countries, with an office in Rotterdam outside of Amsterdam. Figlo used the APIs first.

● 15:51 – Adviser Briefcase is their marketing and communication engine that has about 700 documents that have been reviewed by FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority).

● 17:01 – As far as integration, Advicent is enterprise-first with back offices with all the core processors of the top five custodians.

● 30:36 – The mission state at Advicent is to enable everyone to understand and impact their financial future, and it is about the end client.

3 Key Points:

1. Advicent has about 100 enterprise clients, about 60 of which are blue chip

clients, and service about 100,000 users.

2. NaviPlan’s average enterprise contract length is between 10-12 years.

3. Advicent has about 300 team members, most are in Milwaukee Wisconsin,

the Fintech capital of the world, the rest in here are also members in Toronto,

Winnipeg, Rotterdam, and throughout the United States.

Tweetable Quotes:

“We’ve given them the keys to the kingdom. We have unlocked the powerful calculations of NaviPlan, and allowed people to access them and put them wherever they so choose” – Anthony Stich.

“Not only are we thought leaders in consulting our partners through these regulatory challenges, we are also developing in advance.” – Anthony Stich.

Resources Mentioned:

● LinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedIn

● Facebook – Jason Pereira’s Facebook

● Woodgate Financial – Website for Woodgate Financial

● LinkedIn – Anthony Stich’s LinkedIn

● Advicent – Website for Advicent

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Previous Episode

Flinks with Yves Gabriel Leboeuf (CEO)| EP17

This 17th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira interviews Yves-Gabriel Leboeuf, Founder and CEO at Flinks, a Canadian-based data aggregation software company that pulls data from various financial institutions, allowing third parties to use that data. Over the course of the discussion, Yves-Gabriel Leboeuf explains how Flinks began, what products they are offering, and how the data aggregation world is taking shape.

● 01:02: – Flinks began about 16 months ago in Montreal, connecting software with financial institutions as a data mover.

● 01:37: – Before Flinks, Yves-Gabriel Leboeuf was a tech consultant for lending companies, working on origination automation.

● 05:30: – One of the products that Flinks is launching is called Behavioral Score, analyzing consumers transactional behavior with their consent, and providing risk assessment scores—think of it as Credit Score 2.0.

● 07:38: – Flinks doesn’t have any plans to use identifiable data for now, focusing more on the behaviors of the data of the end users.

● 12:16: – Flinks doesn’t currently work with that many start-ups or financial institutions. The average clients are Canadian software companies with between 30-150 employees, and they service a total of about 8 different market segments.

● 14:46: – They have experienced a lot of openness from financial institutions, but there is often a lack of communication and plan direction within institutions.

● 18:28: – Two major recent events helped change regulators’ perceptions financial aggregation or financial data access:

1.) Composition Report Borough in December 2017 stating regulators should more openly except financial aggregators.

2.) The mention of open banking in the financial budget.

● 21:30: – As of now, Flinks is self-funded, with about a million dollars raised from friends and family to maintain control.

● 22:14 – Flinks was incorporated in December 2016 and generated its first revenue in May 2017.

● 23:02: –They have grown from three founders to a team of 27 people and have put a lot of effort in developing company culture and core values.

● 24:46 – They aren’t planning a consumer portal but will have online forms and it will be a B2B product.

● 25:25 – Yves-Gabriel Leboeuf is excited about the opportunities that the industry is making available.

3 Key Points:

1. Flinks is launching a Behavioral Score, analyzing consumers transactional behavior with their consent, and providing risk assessment scores—think of it as Credit Score 2.0.

2. The average Flinks clients are Canadian software companies with between 30-150 employees, and they service a total of about 8 different market segments.

3. Flinks is self-funded, with about a million dollars raised from friends and family to maintain control.

Tweetable Quotes:

“I think what we can say about the Canadian market is that, because we have a small amount of financial institutions covering a high percentage of the population, it makes us basically work a lot on the quality side and the speed of the data.” – Yves-Gabriel Leboeuf.

“The average Canadian has like about three different banks accounts from three different institutions.” – Yves-Gabriel Leboeuf.

“Some financial institutions basically use aggregators but at the same time put in their terms and conditions that you should not share your information.” – Yves-Gabriel Leboeuf.

Resources Mentioned:

● Facebook – Jason Pereira’s Facebook

● LinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedIn

● Yves-Gabriel Leboeuf – LinkedIn for Yves-Gabriel Leboeuf

● Flinks – Website for Flinks

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Next Episode

Planswell with Eric Arnold (CEO)| EP19

This is the 19th episode of the Fintech Impact podcast, and Jason Pereira interviews Eric Arnold, the Chief Executive Officer at Planswell, an online financial planning software platform that is really targeted at individual consumers, helping customers implement their financial self-planning. Eric shares how Planswell was started, its capabilities, and ways in which it continues to expand.

● 01:36 – Eric began his career starting many businesses including tea at shopping malls, driveway sealing, independent music distribution, children’s birthday parties, and window cleaning.

● 03:11 – Eric and his wife moved to Toronto from Aurora for her to attend the University of Toronto and he took on a job as an investment advisor at Wood Gundy.

● 06:14 – In 2016, investor dollars went into building up Planswell and have since made over 30,000 financial plans for people—about 20,000 in the last six months.

● 07:12 – The client experience begins with clients hearing about Planswell from ad campaigns or referrals, going through about 40 questions in 3 or 4 minutes, and they are then walked through their strategy plan.

● 10:56 – The 3 Pillars to Implementing a Plan: Acclimation of investments, Insurance, and Mortgages.

● 12:00 – Planswell Portfolios is a stand-online PM, a no-call a robo advisor license.

● 12:45 – On the insurance side, Planswell is a fully licensed insurance brokerage essentially, it’s called an MGA in the industry, which is the highest relationship that you can have with insurance manufacturers

● 17:06 – A lot of the plans Planswell have implemented were before they were even onboarding.

● 20:13 – Currently, Planswell has about 50 team members, doubled from last year, and next year the staff should increase to between 100-150.

● 20:56 – Over 25% of the potential investors Planswell has pitched to have invested.

● 25:20 – The general feedback from the financial advisor community is that many are uneasy about their futures.

● 26:50 – The demographics of Planswell skew a little older and coming from high net-worth brokerage and homeowners. The average client age is 40 years.

● 29:46 – About 5% of advisors are actually making plans for clients.

● 32:12 – Everyone is on a salary and receive performance incentives to get them excited about onboarding clients effectively and efficiently.

3 Key Points:

1. Planswell has since made over 30,000 financial plans for people—about 20,000 in the last six months.

2. The client experience starts with clients hearing about Planswell from ad campaigns or referrals, going through about 40 questions in 3 or 4 minutes, and they are then walked through their strategy plan.

3.The 3 Pillars to Implementing a Plan: Acclimation of investments, Insurance, and Mortgages.

Tweetable Quotes:

“Planswell is a way to figure out what you need to do on a monthly basis to maintain your lifestyle into the future.” – Eric Arnold.

“We are like a fully licensed insurance brokerage essentially, it’s called..an MGA in the industry, which is...the highest relationship that you can have with insurance manufacturers. – Eric Arnold.

“We definitely see a future where there are probably still a lot of advisors. I don’t see a future where top advisors are making $3 or 4 million a year, I don’t think the financial institutions thinks that either.” – Eric Arnold.

Resources Mentioned:

● LinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedIn

● Facebook – Jason Pereira’s Facebook

● Woodgate Financial – Website for Woodgate Financial

● LinkedIn – Eric Arnold’s LinkedIn

● Planswell – Website for Planswell

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.