It’s hard not to get excited when speaking with Oleg Tishkevich. The hyper-animated president and CEO of Tucson, Ariz.-based Finance Logix clearly delights in discussing technology that’s now available to help advisors grow their businesses, but of which too many are still unaware.
Widgetization, his latest focus, is “delivering software in the cloud,” which he describes as the fourth level of technology integration.
“The first level was a single sign-on,” Tishkevich patiently explains. “The second level was the ability to push data somewhere. The third level was the bidirectional sync, or the push as well as pull of data.”
The fourth level, the aforementioned widgetization, is taking various pieces of software and “mashing it together.”
“It’s a Lego set model. You can put it together the way you want, in order to then look the way you want, so you can build a different client and administrative experience.”
By “you” he means broker-dealers and large RIAs, the majority of which buy different software, attempt to put it together and then haphazardly offer it to their advisors.
“We have a limited number of vendors all playing in the same pool,” he laments. “How do you differentiate? You can hire IT guys to build a platform from scratch using these different vendors, which is very expensive and six months later you’ll have to again make costly changes. A better way is to pick and choose the pieces that you want.”
Those underlying pieces may be the same, he adds, but they can be arraigned differently.
“What then drives the experience and interaction is not the CRM, which is a sales experience. Instead, this model centers on goals and planning and what the advisor should, in fact, be focusing on.”
He points to Orion Advisor Services and United Planners Financial Services, both Finance Logix clients, as firms that understand and embrace the widget model. He echoes recent comments made by Sheila Cuffari-Agasi, the latter firm’s vice president of partner development, who described widgets as “the glue that create seamless opportunities for BDs and RIAs to customize the advisor experience and make it unique.”
And it’s not as hard as one might think.
“With an experienced designer, they can make it ‘brandable’ in a day,” he concludes. “Individual advisors can then customize what they want on their dashboard. The can still use the full applications if they wish, or they can mash it up.”
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Steven Senne/AP BOSTON -- Companies that help Target process payments could face millions of dollars in fines and costs resulting from the unprecedented data breach that struck the retailer during the holiday shopping season. Investigators are still sorting through just how thieves compromised about 40 million payment cards and the information of about 70 million Target (TGT) customers. But people who have reviewed past data breaches believe Target's partners could face consumer lawsuits and fines that payment networks such as Visa (V) and MasterCard (MA) often levy after cybersecurity incidents. Target's partners "have deep pockets and are intimately involved in certain aspects of how Target gets paid," said Jamie Pole, a cybersecurity consultant in Asheboro, N.C., who works for government agencies and the financial industry. Fines and settlement costs could reach into the millions of dollars for individual companies, he said, though much will depend on how the ultimate liability for the breach is determined. Boston attorney Cynthia Larose of Mintz Levin said Target would likely seek to add its partners as defendants to lawsuits already filed over the breach. "These class-action lawsuits start to bring everyone in at some point," she said. After its systems were penetrated by hackers in the mid-2000s, retailer TJX Cos. (TJX) agreed to pay up to $40.9 million to cover fraud costs in a settlement with Visa. Visa also issued penalties of $880,000 against Fifth Third Bancorp (FITB) of Ohio, which processed transactions for TJX. Asked about the business relationships and possible costs, Target spokeswoman Molly Snyder declined to comment, citing the ongoing investigation and pending suits. A Visa spokeswoman declined to comment. A MasterCard spokesman said the company couldn't discuss an ongoing investigation. Handling Target Transactions Several companies are involved in any purchase from a store such as Target. A bank issues the consumer's payment card, while a separate organization known as the "merchant acquirer" handles the payment for the store, when the card is swiped. Companies such as Visa and MasterCard operate the networks over which the payment request and confirmation are sent. Companies performing these roles for Target were identified in a research note by Robert W. Baird & Co. analysts on Dec. 19. According to the note the merchant acquirer used by Target for credit and debit card transactions is Bank of America Merchant Services, a joint venture of Bank of America (BAC) and KKR & Co.'s (KKR) First Data Corp. A spokesman for the joint venture declined to comment, as did a spokesman for Bank of America. Bank of America is due to release earnings Wednesday morning. A spokeswoman for First Data, Nancy Etheredge, said via email that the company "processes some transactions for one of Target's merchant acquirers" but declined to offer more detail. The note also identified Vantiv (V) of Cincinnati as processing transactions for Target customers who type in personal identification numbers for debit transactions. It said Vantiv expected "no impact from the breach." Vantiv representatives didn't return messages. Target-branded payment cards are issued by Toronto's TD Bank Group (TD). A spokeswoman said via email that "It would be inappropriate to comment on any potential fines at this time." One author of the Baird report, analyst Timothy Wojs, said it is too soon to predict what fines or settlement costs might result. In the past, fines by Visa and MasterCard have been insignificant to payment processors but set the stage for larger settlements to cover bank losses, he said. Fining the Middlemen Fines in cyber cases have drawn some push-back from merchants. In a case in U.S. District Court in Nashville, Tenn., specialty retailer Genesco (GCO) is suing Visa over the $13.3 million it says Visa wrongfully collected from its banks, Wells Fargo (WFC) and Fifth Third. Visa collected the money after a cyber-attack obtained payment data, though the data was handled within industry standards, according to the company's complaint.
Kathy Willens/AP JPMorgan Chase reported a better-than-expected adjusted quarterly profit as the biggest U.S. bank kept a lid on costs and set aside less money to cover bad loans. The bank, which agreed last week to pay $2.6 billion to settle government and private claims over its handling of accounts of fraudster Bernie Madoff, said fourth-quarter net income fell 7.3 percent to $5.28 billion, or $1.30 a share. Adjusted for special items, the company earned $1.40 a share, beating the average analyst estimate of $1.35, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. The results took into account gains from the sale of Visa (V) shares and One Chase Manhattan Plaza and legal expenses related to the Madoff settlements. JPMorgan (JPM), which agreed to pay nearly $20 billion in 2013 to settle assorted legal claims, had estimated that settlement of the Madoff claims would subtract $850 million from fourth-quarter earnings. "It was in the best interests of our company and shareholders for us to accept responsibility, resolve these issues and move forward," Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon said in a statement Tuesday. JPMorgan shares, which have been trading this month at their highest levels since 2000, were up 0.5 percent at $58 before the opening bell on the New York Stock Exchange. The stock rose 33 percent in 2013, in line with the 35 percent rise in the KBW Bank index and slightly ahead of the 29 percent gain in Standard & Poor's 500 stock index. Special items highlighted by the bank subtracted 10 cents a share from fourth-quarter earnings, compared with a two-cent boost in the same quarter of 2012. The special items included a benefit of 21 cents a share from the sale of Visa shares and 8 cents from the sale of One Chase Manhattan Plaza and an expense of 27 cents a share from legal bills, including the Madoff settlements. Three months ago, JPMorgan reported its first quarterly loss under Dimon after recording after-tax expenses of $7.2 billion to settle government and private investigations. The allegations involved, among other things, shoddy dealing in mortgage instruments before the financial crisis, derivatives trading in London and pricing in electric power markets, as well as failing to report suspicions of wrongdoing by Madoff. Investors have been looking for reassurance from the company that the worst of its legal expenses are behind it. Assets Shrink Noninterest expenses fell 3 percent to $15.55 billion during the quarter, while provisions for bad loans fell 84 percent to $104 million. JPMorgan said its assets shrank to $2.42 trillion at the end of December from $2.46 trillion three months before and $2.36 trillion a year earlier, but it remains the biggest U.S. bank by that measure. Equity underwriting revenue soared 65 percent to $436 million. But investment banking fees were pulled down by lower debt underwriting, where revenue declined 19 percent, and advisory fees, which fell 7 percent. Altogether, investment banking fees declined 3 percent. The bank's market share in equity underwriting rose to 8.3 percent in 2013, moving it to second place in the industry from fourth. Goldman Sachs Group (GS) led with 11.4 percent. Higher interest rates on home mortgage loans weighed on JPMorgan, like the rest of the banking industry. JPMorgan lost $274 million, pre-tax, making mortgage loans, compared with a profit of $789 million a year earlier as margins declined and as the company was unable to reduce expenses as quickly as lending volumes declined. The bank said it expected to lose money making mortgages again in the first quarter of this year. Reflecting a slowdown in loan refinancing, total U.S. home mortgage borrowing was down 50 percent at the end of December compared with a year earlier and down by a quarter from the end of September, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. -. 
