Income Lab launches advisor tool to test clients' retirement confidence: Wealthtech Weekly

May 18, 2023 6:35 PM

Instead of focusing on the anxiety surrounding the prospect of retirement, Income Lab wants to help financial advisors determine how confident their clients feel about entering that next chapter.

The Denver-based provider of retirement income management software on Wednesday announced the launch of its "Retirement Stress Test" tool as part of Income Lab's software suite.

Designed for advisors, the tool illustrates how retirees can successfully navigate historical periods of high inflation or market volatility, usually by applying relatively small and temporary adjustments in spending.

Features of the tool include real historical scenarios that run client plans through the Great Depression, post-war period, 1970s stagflation, the dot-com bubble and the global financial risis of 2007-08 as a basis of comparison.

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"In the past, retirement stress testing primarily focused on how things get worse when portfolios take a hit, causing significant anxiety in clients. This new approach to realistic stress testing builds confidence by showing how adjustments, usually minor and temporary ones, can get retirees through the rough patches without major changes in their lifestyle," Income Lab CEO Johnny Poulsen said in a statement.

Income Lab leaders say what makes the tool unique is that it focuses on retiree behavior like spending adjustments instead of on portfolio failure.

"It gives clients a lot of confidence to see how their plan would handle some of the worst times in history and to understand that retirement isn't pass/fail," said Justin Fitzpatrick, Income Lab's CIO. "This helps advisors move the conversation away from success and failure and into a can-do conversation about adjustments."

And according to Income Lab, advisors who took part in beta testing for the tool have already seen its benefits. Eric Sajdak, a partner at Safeguard Wealth Management in Green Bay, Wisconsin, said his firm used it directly in client meetings during the market difficulties of late 2022 and 2023.

"(We) immediately saw the relief and confidence from the client when they realized that their retirement savings would have held strong through events much worse that what we are seeing now, like the Great Depression or the Stagflation Era of the 70s," Sajdak said. "We love that this feature allows you to show the guardrails relative to the portfolio moving through time."

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.

Advyzon and TradePMR announce expanded integration

TradePMR, an Oregon-based technology and custodial services provider for RIAs, announced an expanded technology integration with cloud-based wealthtech platform Advyzon.

The new agreement gives TradePMR RIAs single sign-on capabilities, data feed connectivity and a trading connection with the Advyzon platform.

The two providers plan to further expand the integration in summer 2023 to include the ability to transfer statements and tax documents between the platforms.

Scott Victoria, the chief operating officer of TradePMR, said that to make it in today's "hyper-competitive, technology-forward industry," RIAs need options.

Advyzon offers RIAs a slate of services including customizable performance reporting, flexible billing, client relationship management, rebalancing & trading, a customizable client portal, a mobile app and document storage.

"With each new integration, we look to provide RIAs with greater flexibility in how they build their tech stack, so they can ultimately service their clients the way they want," he said.

Client communication tool becomes first release for Mediant under BetaNXT acquisition

BetaNXT, a New York-based provider of wealth management infrastructure software, announced the first product drop following its March acquisition of investor communications company Mediant.

BetaNXT's new client communication tool allows financial services firms to tweak their client engagement experience through the creation, generation, delivery and management of communications like statements, trade confirmations, client letters and tax reports.

The solution suite is designed to drive increased electronic consent and delivery for critical documents, and improve client engagement.

Backed by Clearlake Capital and Motive Partners, BetaNXT supports more than 50 million retail accounts, has more than $6 trillion of assets on the platform and processes more than 35 million securities-related transactions daily.

"Investors are expecting increasingly personalized financial services solutions where they can manage all their finances in one place, on devices that are convenient to them. And as a technology company, BetaNXT is consistently looking to build and update innovative solutions to meet the needs of brokers, advisors, and investors," BetaNXT Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Stephen C. Daffron said in a statement.

Former AssetMark CEO becomes new Orion executive board chair

Charles Goldman, executive chair of the Orion Advisor Solutions board.

Orion Advisor Solutions announced that former AssetMark President and CEO Charles Goldman has been appointed as executive chair of the company's board of directors.

Goldman, who was appointed to Orion's Board in summer 2022, joins Board directors Jonathan Baum, Noreen D. Beaman, M. Roy Burns, Eric Clarke, Todd Crockett, Lori Hardwick, Brian McLaughlin, Sid Ramakrishnan and Tony Salewski.

"We are thrilled to have Charles as our new Executive Chair of the Board," Eric Clarke, founder and CEO of Orion, said in a statement. "His extensive leadership experience in the financial services and wealthtech industries will be instrumental as we continue to grow and expand our business, powering advisors and winning for investors. We are confident that Charles will provide significant insights and guidance in this new role."

Prior to joining AssetMark, Goldman was a senior advisor to Bain & Company, Genstar and several private equity firms focused on the financial services space. He was also president of Fidelity Investments, Custody & Clearing; and EVP and head of Schwab Institutional.

"Orion has a long-standing reputation as a disruptor and innovator in the wealthtech space," Goldman said. "I look forward to working closely with Eric and the entire Orion team to continue building on their momentum and executing on our vision to serve independent advisors with an integrated suite of fully connected, disruptive technology and investment solutions on an open architecture platform."