Mariner Wealth and its outspoken CEO and President Marty Bicknell have one set goal for growth to 5,000 advisors by 2027. The firm has been steadily working toward this through inorganic growth through acquisitions and strategic alliances for some time, but doing so through organic growth at scale proves challenging for all RIA firms.
This week, Catchlight, a technology platform that enriches, analyzes and scores for wealth management firms, announced that it was working with Mariner, which manages $245 billion in assets across all of its subsidiaries to help drive organic growth efforts.
Through the partnership, advisors, marketers and growth teams across Mariner will now have access to lead and customer insights generated by Catchlight's Salesforce application.
Most large RIA firms already have lead generation and referral programs, and Mariner is no exception. Right there Insert the lid. It will be used by its organic growth team, which is responsible for driving prospective client opportunities to advisors at Mariner locations across the country. At the same time, Mariner advisors will have access to data from Catchlight to use as they directly engage prospects.
Catchlight is meant to help the team identify their best prospects, qualify them based on insights such as assets and estimated investable income, and help drive personalized engagement and convert them into customers.
“Customer acquisition costs continue to rise, making marketing efficiency and accuracy more important than ever. Catchlight's AI-powered platform helps firms quickly identify high-potential leads and prioritize meaningful engagement while saving time and effort,” said Catchlight CEO and co-founder Wilbur Swan.
CFA publishes research on AI in pension plans
This week, the CFA Institute Research and Policy Center published a new report that explores how AI and machine learning technology can address critical issues facing the global pensions industry.
Among the problems studied are major demographic changes, underfunding of defined benefit pension plans, inflation, rising inequality and gaps in financial literacy.
The report, entitled “Pensions in the Age of Artificial Intelligence”, discusses how technology can help tackle some key issues in pension management and presents ideas on how the integration of new technology can empower pension administrators and beneficiaries to make better informed decisions.
Interactive Brokers Releases AI Feedback Generator
International brokerage and custodian Interactive Brokers announced several updates to its platform this week. One of them — though only for its US-based financial advisors — is an AI feedback generator.
Available through the IB Advisor Portal, the AI Feedback Generator allows advisors to create custom portfolio performance reports and market feedback. The tool is integrated with PortfolioAnalyst reporting and is designed to assist advisors with client portfolio performance reporting, market updates and specific news. As noted in the company's prepared statement, it can comb through dozens of sources and cite them in seconds, which, if done manually by the adviser, would take hours.
“We've taken a hybrid approach and are leveraging our powerful in-house technology in combination with generative AI models supplied by third parties to deliver our AI commenting tool.”
said Steve Sanders, who heads marketing and product development at Interactive Brokers, via email.
IB made several other enhancements to its web-based Advisor Portal, which provides advisors with access to advanced trading and portfolio management tools. Among the improvements are simpler customer account management features and new trading. The latest enhancements are to the Portfolio View, distribution, rebalancing and tax loss harvesting tools.