With fears rising that robo-advisors can disrupt $2-trillion target date fund universe, NextCapital raises fresh $30 million and wins five big customers, but can its software spur widespread TDF adoption?
TDFs are cash cows and asset magnets but also dumb robots in an era of smarter ones and the Chicago-based outsourcer is promising answers -- most recently to Franklin Templeton
Author Oisin Breen September 22, 2020 at 8:59 PM
Brian Murphy
September 23, 2020 — 5:50 AM
I have only one question - how is the NextCapital offering different than Financial Engines? Selling to plan sponsors - check. Installation fee - check, software licensing fee - check, fiduciary liability - (probably) check, revenue share - hmm...I guess that's a new one. Seems like the ability to do either passive, or active, allocation on the fly has been around for years - what's really new here?
I guess the case can be made that they can map annuities into their framework...perhaps that's something new.
I do think the days of offering valuable advisory services (as opposed to products) is upon us, but is there something "extra" that their offering relative to the Financial Engines offering of 15 years ago?