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Finect Launches Network for Financial Industry's Social Media Needs

Enables financial advisors, asset managers and other professionals to create an online presence by using Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, while including tools to ensure compliance with the SEC/FINRA's guidelines.

Following a move by the SEC to green light the use of social media for corporate financial news, Finect is launching a network to serve the social media needs of the financial services industry.

The platform, now in beta, will allow members to communicate—publicly or privately— with each other and/or with their clients in a regulatory-compliant community. Its approach has been tested in Europe with financial advisors, asset managers and investors, including Fidelity Spain, BBVA, and the European Financial Planning Association.

“The financial industry can’t afford to wait for piecemeal adoption of social media when it’s driving behavior at lightning speed,” said Jennifer Openshaw, president of Finect, founder of Women’s Financial Network, and a nationally known consumer financial advocate in today’s release. “That’s why we want forward-thinking financial advisors to join Finect now—to help move the industry forward. It’s about turning the SEC’s initial move into a real leap for financial advisors, asset managers and even compliance officers.”

Finect enables advisors, asset managers and other professionals to create an online presence and build a community for free, according to the release. For companies, Finect provides a single platform to manage and track employee usage of social media and engage with customers and prospects while remaining compliant.

Finect also verifies that professionals are, in fact, registered representatives active in the industry, through a partnership with Discovery Data. The integration enables advisors and other registered professionals to join and use Finect through start-up profiles already created for more than 300,000 advisors, the company said. Discovery owns one of the industry’s broadest and most up-to-date database of 630,000 registered professionals.

“Finect is filling the void as advisors are leveraging technology, communication is becoming more social, and compliance becomes more tricky,” said Denmark West, former president of Digital, BET Networks and a Finect advisor.

Other Finect advisors include such industry experts as Discovery Data CEO Bob Herrmann; John Morris, managing partner, Snowden Capital LLC and former head of Private Client Services International for Merrill Lynch; NICSA CEO Theresa Hamacher; and Santiago Satrustegui, CEO of Abante Asesores and former managing director of Morgan Stanley.

There is no cost basic membership, which includes compliance. The company is seeking beta users who will drive input of additional features. The company is offering 6-months of free premium access to the first 5,000 to sign up, an offer worth $2,500.

Current features allow beta users to: • Easily create online profiles – Seamless integration with LinkedIn lets advisors and other professionals quickly present themselves and their business and share opinions and content.

• Communicate broadly with One-Stop Social – Post once, distribute to many (Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook), and track all employee activity.\

• Create groups – Based on themes (e.g. ETFs, college savings, impact investing) or companies, groups let advisors engage with and instantly update clients, prospective clients, employees, peers or the public.

• Validate credentials – To raise the quality and integrity of the community and peer networking, registered professionals carry a badge.

• Ensure compliance— includes content/social media permission controls, tracking, and reporting for FINRA/SEC compliance.

Ivy is Editor-at-Large for Advanced Trading and Wall Street & Technology. Ivy is responsible for writing in-depth feature articles, daily blogs and news articles with a focus on automated trading in the capital markets. As an industry expert, Ivy has reported on a myriad ... View Full Bio

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