After Communify acquired Fincentric in August, the newly combined Communify Fincentric, based in Santa Monica, launched its new and improved wealth management solutions utilizing the expertise of each entity.
With Fincentric being one of the largest distributors of financial data, Chief Executive John Wise set out to combine its deftness with Communify’s extensive database of client intelligence.
“Basically, our vision for the future of Communify Fincentric was to unify both market and client data together so that you have more meaningful dialogue and insights into data,” Wise said.
While Communify Fincentric relies on AI, Wise made the distinction between generative/probabilistic AI – which is what most people think of when they hear “AI” and what powers ChatGPT – and deterministic AI which is much more precise and consistent.
Deterministic AI is what drives CF’s trademarked Market Intelligent News Discovery (MIND) technology, which is a collection of smart applications that transform large data knowledge bases into intelligent insights.
“Wealth managers can’t really use (generative AI) because it’s not giving you precision, whereas MIND has 1,500 different models so that you can look at a lot of data in a very precise manner. So, when you look at something like an earnings report or corporate action or various pricing indicators, you will get the same narrative based on a deterministic algorithm,” Wise said.
To power MIND, Wise said CF takes in around 4,000 unique data feeds and does the “heavy lifting” for wealth management platforms.
“The heavy lifting is taking these data feeds, cross referencing them and actually checking that the numbers are aligned so we don’t portray false data, but then we actually catalog the data as well and put it into effectively a warehouse data, so that we can then extrapolate from that data into what’s happening with your portfolio,” Wise said.
This collection of data takes years to build up and tens of millions of dollars, but wealth managers using CF’s technology can service this data in seconds. CF also generates weekly and daily summaries of what’s happened in the market and how that may inform someone’s portfolio.
Wise pointed out that previously, only extremely high net worth individuals had access to insights like this, whereas now with the speed and scale in which CF can generate these algorithms, they are accessible to a wider client base.
On the client communication side of things, CF has a program called Digital Referral which is informed by behavioral science and helps expand advisers’ client base.
“(Digital Referral) is a massive innovation of how to actually group and catalog people together based on various scenarios about how they are behaving, and then that creates a community,” Wise said.
“So if you talk to one community, you can actually trigger them to share information across that community, which gives the wealth manager more opportunity to get their messages out of how they could help these communities,” he added.
Currently, CF’s client base is largely North American, though it also has a decent presence in Europe and Asia, and Wise looks forward to expanding further internationally in the future.
