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Chicago-based Envestnet will pay $660 million in cash and stock for Yodlee, a California firm that sells data-aggregation services to banks and others.
August 10 -
A growing number of startups and banks are trying to design digital experiences that train users to manage their money more responsibly, starting with small amounts in mundane situations.
June 23 -
Qapital, which launched its app in Sweden in 2013, is making its American entrance. It is the latest example of how firms are trying to inspire young consumers to save and mashes personal financial management with money movement.
March 5 -
Capital One acquired Level Money, a startup with a budgeting app for consumers, on Monday. Level Money has approximately 700,000 users and claims to have helped users manage a total of $12 billion during its brief existence.
January 12 -
Moven has modified its personal financial management app to work on a smartwatch. Will millennials be more likely to heed spending advice delivered to their wrists rather than their phones?
January 5 -
A proposal to improve the way online banking information is shared with data aggregators has sparked a debate over a decades-old practice.
November 7
Wealth management products and personal financial management tools are converging, but a gap remains between the industries. To Envestnet, the way to bridge that gap is by buying Yodlee.
The $660 million cash and stock deal, announced late Monday, brings together two tenured players in their respective sectors and is something of a watershed. However, it fits into a larger context of wealth management product firms on the hunt for acquisitions that will keep them competitive against the rise of the robo-adviser.
The deal, expected to close in the fourth quarter or next year's first quarter, "accelerates the transformation of financial technology by delivering better relationships and greater lifetime value than connecting financial advisers, individuals, and service providers," said Jud Bergman, Envesnet's chairman and chief executive.
It helps "advisers to cross what we call the digital divide, a divide that separates many advisers from their best prospects and clients," he said in a conference call late Monday.
Earlier this year, Chicago-based Envestnet looked into working with Yodlee, in Redwood City, Calif., to provide its clients with a better understanding of investors' various holdings and assets, Bergman said. But talk of partnering evolved into deal negotiations.
"As we began to look at the benefits of this integration we became increasingly positive about how transformational a merger could become," Bergman said.
This year has already seen a series of technology provider acquisitions by wealth management firms.
But Envestnet has been particularly busy, spending an estimated $32 million on financial technology companies Finance Logix and Upside.
Already providing a suite of investment products and services, portfolio analytics, account servicing and reporting capabilities, the deals Envestnet completed so far were meant to build itself up as a one-stop solution for advisers considering a robo-adviser platform.
The acquisition of Yodlee, considered PFM's pioneering firm, would cement Envestnet's capability to serve an emerging demand for data aggregation and leveraging data insights and behavioral science in wealth management.
"Making digital advice truly personalized requires harnessing the power of data. Doing so can make it as important and relevant as being 'in person,'" Rob Foregger, a co-founder of NextCapital, Personal Capital and EverBank, wrote in an
