The Financial Services Institute, the member association for independent financial advisors and independent broker/dealers, represents about 167,000 independent advisors and 100 IBDs nationwide. A new FSI study done in conjunction with Oxford Economics found that these firms contributed $48 billion to the U.S. gross domestic product in 2015. For every $100 of value added output created by members, $159 was created in others sectors due to the supply chain and employee expenditure impacts, the study said. In addition, FSI members supported 482,000 jobs last year; that includes the employment of more than 160,000 FAs and support staff. In addition, the study estimates that for every advisor affiliated with an FSI-member firm, two jobs are supported, either in the supply chains of FSI members or through the wage spending of those employed in the firms themselves or in their supply chains. “Independent financial advisors are more likely to be veterans, live and work in the same community, and be more highly educated than their counterpart financial advisors who work in other segments of the financial services industry,” the report said. “In addition, they are disproportionately located in areas underserved by other segments of the financial services industry.”
Bridgewater Wealth Launches Her Wealth
Because not enough women are leading the conversation about women, their money and wealth, female financial professionals at Bethesda, Md.-based Bridgewater Wealth have launched a new "Her Wealth" initiative. The firm kicked off the initiative with an event attended by about 100 women, featuring keynote speaker Olivia Mellan, author of Money Harmony. As part of the initiative, Bridgewater created the Her Wealth website to educate women about relevant financial topics and connect them to other women who know how to build wealth and are passionate about sharing their experiences. The company has also endowed a Her Wealth annual scholarship to help advance more women in the financial services industry.
Account aggregator and data analytics firm Quovo is rolling out a new advisor dashboard. The new design simplifies the most popular workflows and includes new charting features that visualize an individual client’s assets as well as the advisor’s entire book of business. There are also enhanced analytic capabilities, alerts, and a firm-level view for enterprise users and managers. The new dashboard is rolling out initially to 2,000 Quovo users, and will reach 12,000 by the end of the year.
