TAMPS are somehow simultaneously old news (they were created over 30 years ago) and the current rage, as advisors increasingly look to outsource (or offload) investment functions to spend more time with clients and prospects.
Kyle Wiggs, co-founder and CEO of UX Wealth Partners, wants to push the TAMP even further into the future by harnessing an even hotter trend: artificial intelligence and machine learning.
UX is a single-interface, multi-custodial TAMP with roughly 13,000 accounts and $2 billion in AUM. It’s been built from the ground up to be a true all-in-one, cloud-native platform and includes trading and billing capabilities. The system is fundamentally sleeve-based with a proprietary order management system that has a UMA and SMA built in, so advisors can do all their trading, reporting and rebalancing in one place.
Whereas many fintechs concentrate heavily on the UI—how the product looks—Wiggs, who previously worked at Curian Capital, believes the focus should fall squarely on the UX—how the product feels to use (hence the name).
“I think as a [fintech] industry we’ve done a poor job collaborating,” Wiggs said. “Advisors use various technologies without ever really understanding how they are developed or how they integrate. There are disparate great ideas all over the place, but not the right connective tissue.”
He intends for the Xperience Platform to act as the “plumbing” of an RIA, offering everything an advisor needs in one place while also being capable of filling in gaps and connecting the dots between a firm’s existing tech.
Unsurprisingly, flexibility is paramount for a product that somewhat aspires to be everything for everyone. As such, UX’s APIs are user-centered and open architecture, which allows interfaces to be built specifically for client’s needs.
“Not every client has to use us for everything,” said Wiggs. “We’re a component.”
That same rationale applies to the AI and machine learning aspects of the platform. Though Wiggs himself is an AI evangelist and believes strongly in the value the nascent technologies can add to investing, particularly in active strategies—the demise of which he claims has been badly overstated—he concedes that not everyone is ready to embrace the machine.
“Many still don’t view AI as a helpful tool, but as a clear and present threat to their own jobs.” Wiggs explains. “We don’t want to force it on anyone, but just demonstrate to them that using AI and ML in specific capacities can be a boon. It’s not for every client, but it’s a useful tool to have access to even if you don’t fully embrace it.”
Make no mistake, though, Wiggs thinks that AI is, inexorably, the way forward.
“Eventually human beings buying and selling investments will go the same way as smoking sections in restaurants,” he said.
