XY Planning Network (XYPN) announced today that six finalists have been selected to compete in its 4^th annual FinTech Competition on Tuesday, September 10, 2019 during XYPN’s annual conference, #XYPNLIVE in St. Louis, Missouri. XYPN’s FinTech Competition provides start-up advisor technology firms focused on improving the delivery of financial planning services to Gen X and/or Gen Y clients with a venue to showcase their innovative solutions to the financial advisory industry. This year’s competition, which drew nearly 30 company submissions, is sponsored by the 2016 FinTech Competition winner, Snappy Kraken.

At this year’s conference, the finalists will introduce and promote their tech offerings in front of a full audience and a panel of expert judges, including technology guru Bill Winterberg of FPPad and Michael Kitces, co-founder of XYPN. The six 2019 finalists include:

• Altruist: Altruist is a digitally native RIA custodial platform that allows RIA firms to run their businesses entirely online, thereby helping advisors do their best work with less effort. The platform enables advisors to open client accounts through the Altruist mobile app, build and trade model portfolios with no commissions or AUM fees, and offer clients ETFs and equities with AI-powered tax sophistication, rebalancing, and fractional shares.
• Anvil: Anvil converts document-based processes into simple online workflows, allowing advisors to gather client information once and use Anvil to pre-fill important paperwork. Designed to limit the time advisors spend copy and pasting information, Anvil allows them to use that time to service their clients.
• College Aid Pro: Created by Capstone College Partners and College Funding Services, College Aid Pro helps advisors work with their clients to plan for and manage their future and current college tuition payments. Advisors can use College Aid Pro to model relevant information in 10-15 minutes that forecasts financial aid packages for all four years of schooling at over 2,000 colleges, allowing the advisors to develop and deliver holistic college planning advice.
• Holistiplan: Holistiplan is a tool that can read a tax return and provide advisors with a two-page client-ready report that includes helpful metrics and potential planning observations. The initial iteration of this platform will focus on evaluating 2018 tax returns to generate planning ideas for clients. Future versions of Holistiplan will focus on reading and analyzing insurance documents, including P&C declaration pages.
• Knudge: Knudge is a shared to-do list platform for advisors and their clients that provides information on what tasks have been completed by each party, and sends automated reminders for outstanding items. Designed to increase accountability, Knudge ensures that clients are tackling their action items so the advice delivered by their financial advisor can be properly implemented.
• NEXA Insights: NEXA Insights is a client survey tool enabling advisors to access insights from their clients in a non-threatening, non-intimidating manner. The platform guides advisors through the survey development process and enables them to distribute the survey to clients and gather feedback in a quick and simple fashion.

“The XYPN FinTech Competition is truly an embodiment of the Network’s core mission to support and encourage the innovation of new solutions to help our advisors better serve next gen clients. It is unbelievably rewarding to support these solutions and we hope to see substantial impact in the industry’s ability to bring real financial planning expertise to the next generation,” says Alan Moore, CEO and co-founder of XY Planning Network.

“This year’s competition at #XYPNLIVE will give these creative advisor FinTech companies the opportunity to showcase their innovations, and get the visibility and early adopters they need to survive and thrive as startups,” adds Michael Kitces, co-founder of XY Planning Network and publisher of the Nerd’s Eye View blog, which covers advisor FinTech developments. “We’re proud to help advance FinTech innovation in the financial advisor industry by providing XY Planning Network as a launchpad to help new FinTech firms get launched.”

This year’s winner, selected by the FinTech Competition judges at #XYPNLIVE, will be profiled and announced in a press release by PR agency FiComm Partners. Additionally, the winning firm will be featured in an exclusive interview on #XYPNRadio, with a dedicated XY Planning Network blog post, as well as an article on Kitces.com and a promotional video and feature on FPPad.com by Bill Winterberg. Past winners of XYPN’s FinTech Competition include digital onboarding tool Mineral Interactive, which has since been acquired by Carson Group, digital 401(k) provider Vestwell, and digital marketing firm Snappy Kraken.

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“Technology is changing the game for advisors and the way they run their practices. The XYPN FinTech Competition embodies this by providing technology vendors the opportunity to showcase how advisors can become more efficient and solve the pain points they are facing,” said Jud Mackrill, Mineral Co-Founder and Carson Group CMO. “#XYPNLIVE is a unique event allowing advisors and technology vendors to come together to discuss the issues plaguing advisors today which vendors are aiming to solve for tomorrow.”

SOURCE XY Planning Network