Financial Data Aggregator Partners with Portfolio Software: ByAllAccounts, a financial data aggregation company, is pooling its resources with wealth management software provider netDecide to design a new product for financial planning professionals.
NetDecide will integrate ByAllAccounts’ WebPortfolio DataConnect to the netDecide Wealth Management System to create a suite of wealth management tools and client information. "The wealth management market has evolved tremendously over the past 24 months. As the industry moves to enterprise-wide solutions that offer integrated financial planning and investment analytics to provide holistic advice, advisors need all of the client’s data in order to complete the picture," said Harold Hughes, senior vice president and director of wealth management, Legg Mason Private Client Group.
"ByAllAccounts’s superior data aggregation technology and access to vast amounts of transactional data made WebPortfolio DataConnect a natural choice for enhancing our wealth management offerings," said netDecide president and chief executive Raghu Chintala.
"DataConnect was designed for wealth management software providers and financial institutions that want to use ByAllAccounts’ aggregated data to power their own suite of data viewing, analytic and reporting applications, and is becoming an industry standard," said L. Patrick Gardner, chief executive of ByAllAccounts. "NetDecide is one of the leading providers of wealth management software and a premier partner for us."
Baby Boomers Not Good Savers: Less than half of the "baby boom" generation is saving anything for retirement, and may have to work well past the typical retirement age.
According to "The U.S. Baby Boomer Market: From the Beatles to Botox," the population of the United States born between 1946 and 1964 has been a gold mine for marketers over the years, but all this spending has earned the generation a reputation as poor savers compared to their parents.
The Packaged Facts report, available through MarketResearch.com, found that fewer than 44 percent of boomers own financial investments of any kind and only 27 percent contribute to a 401(k) plan for retirement.
The report predicts that more than 75 percent of all boomers will be forced to continue working beyond age 65.
"Boomers have been the most marketed-to generation in American history," said Don Montuori, an editor for Packaged Facts. "After years of being told how to spend money, this age group has overwhelmingly turned a blind eye to saving."
CFP Certification to Go Global Under Newly Established FPSB: Financial planning standard setters named a new body to administer the Certified Financial Planner certification program worldwide in a move to establish a single voice for the CFP certification around the globe.
A joint task force of the CFP Board of Standards and the International CFP Council chose Financial Planning Standards Board as the name of the new entity to administer the CFP certification program worldwide.
A nine-member board of directors will act as the policy setting and oversight body for the FPSB. The FPSB council will act as the advisory body to the board, representing the 19 international associate and affiliate members. The FPSB board will hold its first meeting in January.
Mutual Fund Magazine Gets the Ax: In yet another sign that the go-go 1990s are gone, gone, gone, Time Inc. has shuttered Mutual Funds magazine following the publication’s November issue.
The 825,000-circulation magazine’s closing reflects a sharp downturn in advertising, which has hit all magazines, but financial ones in particular.
"The mutual funds industry is undergoing fundamental structural changes, and this has created a difficult outlook for fund advertising over the long-term," said Time Inc. chairman Ann Moore in a statement. "The prospects for the magazine’s growth just weren’t there."
Mutual Funds was acquired in 1998 by Time Inc. from The Institute for Econometric Research, a privately held financial publishing company in Deerfield, Fla.
