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asset management

asset management credit unions/small banks digital transformation eCommerce philosophy

·Dec. 30, 2019

7,000 bank branches shut down and 425,000 jobs lost — melting Banking into a glass half full

Let's make a collective decision to see the glass as half-full. While physical banking (7,000 US branches gone during 2012-2017) and employment in the sector (425,000 jobs lost since 2013) has been contracting, digital commerce, banking, and investment management have been growing. Even DFA is finally giving in and lowering fees on their $600 billion institutional mutual fund family. Of course, Fintech has been a slow and gradual transformation, not a rapid disruption. We can make a choice to bemoan the loss of the past, or a choice to express an excitement for the future and participate in its making. Which side are you on?

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asset management decentralized finance digital lending music industry p2p & crowdfunding

·Oct. 9, 2020

Why Peer-to-Peer models fail against oligopoly, with Lending Club shutting down p2p platform, Seedrs/Crowdcube merging, and Morgan Stanley buying Eaton Vance for $7B

This week, we look at:

Lending Club, the peer-to-peer lending innovator, turning off peer-to-peer lending after having a bank in its pocket
Consolidation of the UK's largest crowdfunders, CrowdCube and Seedrs, and their limited economics
The scale of the Morgan Stanley and Eaton Vance deal, creating a $1.2 trillion asset manager
The struggle of peer-to-peer models more generally, and whether the blockchain movement can overcome the Prisoner's Dilemma

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asset management

·Oct. 13, 2023

Swift experiments with blockchain but may need a governance shift

Swift released results of new blockchain experiments, but in order to become industry standard for the technology, a shift may be needed.

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asset management decentralized finance Investing roboadvisor

·Nov. 20, 2020

How roboadvisors, B2C fintechs, and high tech giants are causing deep shifts in wealth management

We are syndicating a deep conversation across roboadvice, high tech and payments, and fintech bundling that we had with Craig Iskowitz of Ezra Group Consulting.

Check out Ezra Group Consulting here to learn more about digital wealth and Craig’s consulting practice. He is one of the sharpest software consultants in the RIA space, and his firm works with wealth management firms and fintech vendors to provide technology strategy and market research.

We had a lot of fun in this conversation and cover TD & Schwab, Wealthsimple, M1 Finance, Ant & Tencent, and Robinhood, among others. The full transcript is provided along with the recording — worth a read for the illustrations alone.

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asset management digital transformation neobank

·Feb. 24, 2020

Financial Empires fall — HSBC to fire 35,000; E*TRADE sells to Morgan Stanley for $13B

I examine the unbelievable transformation and restructuring happening in high finance. Global bank HSBC is planning to lay off over 10% of staff, looking at reductions of 35,000. E*TRADE is being acquired by Morgan Stanley, integrating its 5,000,000 accounts and $360 billion of assets into the Wall Street investment firm. Legg Mason and its $800 billion of assets are being folded into Franklin Templeton for $4.5 billion, less than what Visa had paid for fintech data aggregator Plaid and half of what Robinhood is likely valued privately. How do we make sense of these developments? How do we appeal to the heart?

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asset management Investing IPO / SPAC roboadvisor

·Jun. 1, 2021

The $2.2 billion Acorns SPAC and a $50 billion fintech roll-up strategy for public funds

This week, we cover these ideas:

The Acorns SPAC deal, including its valuation and detailed metrics
The growth levers and obstacles for point-solutions as they scale into the millions of users and hundred of millions of revenues
What a $50 billion fund should do to roll this stuff up

It is looking like a pretty good time to go consolidating individual financial product footprints. Leaving aside whether consolidated companies are good or bad for some particular reason, the simple observation is that there are just far too many point-solution brands out there. Too many to be left alone to operate. And now a number of them are going to be public, which means that a number of them are going to be up for sale.

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asset management decentralized finance NFTs and digital objects visual art

·Dec. 18, 2020

Connecting the $2T in Art owned by UHNW investors, with the rise of crypto art and Beeple’s $3.5MM NFT digital art auction

A few delicious morsels for us today, connecting ideas between the automation of the institutional art world, and the rise of non-fungible token art. We are surprised by how things are clicking.

We caught up recently with Lori Hotz of Lobus. Lori used to work in the wealth and investment management businesses of Wall Street (Lehman, Lazard) and comes to art with a background of asset allocation and investment assets. One core narrative in wealth management has of course been roboadvisors and digital wealth, and the automation of the financial advisor process. Whether you are doing client experience, CRM, financial planning, trading, or performance reporting, there are now lots of platforms for everyone from mass-retail to ultra-high-net-worth and family office advisors.

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asset management Crypto ICO / IEO Investing roboadvisor Social / Community

·Jul. 22, 2021

eToro CEO Yoni Assia on the purpose of investing, crypto assets, and building a $10B fintech

In this conversation, we talk all things capital markets and investing with Yoni Assia, the founder and CEO of eToro, one of the fastest-growing and largest global digital investing companies, brokerages, and applications out there.

More specifically, we discuss the eating habits of Warren Buffet, community-driven investment challenging incumbent investing practices, the purposes of investing and trading, of financial health, of investment education, of gamification of investment strategy, of capital markets and GameStop and the connection between capital, memes and fashion, and finally machine learning’s influence of investment behaviour.

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asset management Crypto digital securities / STO Investing

·Dec. 17, 2021

Pioneering Crypto ETPs to $3B in assets in 3 years, with 21Shares CEO Hany Rashwan

In this conversation, we chat with Hany Rashwan – the founder of Amun and 21Shares. Hany built the company that put out the first physically backed crypto Exchange Traded Product (ETP). In simpler terms, he created a vehicle for people to buy crypto assets, such as Bitcoin or Ethereum, on the stock market. Alongside Cathie Wood of ARK, 21Shares recently submitted a Bitcoin ETF to the SEC. While he waits for the US to get on board, Hany's products are already offered all over Europe, with more than $3 billion under management.

More specifically, we touch on his early entrepreneurial mindset which lead him to building successful businesses, how currency devaluation in Egypt pushed him to create 21Shares, what an Exchange Traded Product (ETP) is and how it related to Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), the regulatory landscape for crypto-backed ETPs, and so so much more!

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asset management Investing neobank roboadvisor

·Feb. 12, 2021

How M1 Finance’s $3B AUM super-app is outcompeting Wealthfront, Robinhood, and Schwab, with CEO Brian Barnes

In this conversation, we talk with Brian Barnes of M1 Finance, about finance “super apps”, the cost-efficiencies of robo-advisors, fractionalized share trading, and tackling the titans of the Wealth Management industry. We also discuss the nuts and bolts of the financial infrastructure making this possible.

M1 Finance bundles together roboadvisory, neobanking and lending into a single “super app”, allowing for combined pricing power (i.e., charging nothing on asset allocation). The firm currently has $3 billion in AUM, a growth of 50% in the past four months and tripling their total in just over a year. Notably, the company has its own broker/dealer and offers fractional shares, and partners with Lincoln Savings bank on the deposit accounts. That makes for a compelling business model from securities lending, interchange, and order flow.

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