Bob Curtis is back to financial planning • Future Capital and Pontera score $15-billion AUM • Advisor360 is out to conquer Salesforce and Needham • Batnick repurposes Ritholtz charts into standalone venture for RIAs

Future Capital will be shut down just like Pontera was. As I suspected and pointed out a few years back, regulators believe this model is problematic. Below is from an email received from State of WA just last week. "The Securities Division is aware of at least one platform that allows investment advisers to access and manage held-away accounts. For the investment adviser to gain access to the accounts through the third-party platform, the investment adviser instructs their client to give their username and password to the third-party platform. The platform then instructs the client on how to address multi-factor authentication on the custodian’s site. The third-party platform does not have any known agreements with the largest 401(k) custodians. In many cases, it appears that custodians are unaware that the third-party platform is accessing accounts using usernames and passwords assigned to other people. In other instances, the custodian has attempted to restrict access to its site by the platform. Use of Client’s Username and Password An investment adviser engages in dishonest or unethical behavior as defined by WAC 460-24A-220(26) when they use their client’s unique username and password to access their client’s account. While the investment adviser does not necessarily handle the client’s username and password in this circumstance, it is also a dishonest or unethical business practice for an investment adviser to engage in conduct through another person that would be unlawful for the investment adviser to engage in. In this case, investment advisers direct their client to provide their username and password to a third party. Investment advisers are then able to access the client’s held-away accounts because the third-party platform accesses the account using the client’s username and password. In this way, investment advisers directly or indirectly access their client’s held-away account using the client’s unique name and password. " ...it goes on from there. Suffice it to say, the Future Capital purchase by SS&C looks to have been a boneheaded move. Good luck. ...speaking of which, whatever happened to our friends at Pontera - please tell us what Pivot #3 is, we're oh, so waiting!