Hello. It’s me. As we kick off 2016, look for consolidation as private companies are forced into the arms of larger players, along lines of last week’s purchase of Jemstep by Investco, or the acquisition of Yodlee by Envestnet, BillGuard’s purchase by Prosper or BlackRock’s acquisition of FutureAdvisor.

It’s incredible how much is written – still – on Robo’s being “on fire” when the facts are so different. Look for capitulation in 2016, among startups in the robo advisor category and continued dominance by a handful in the lending space.

Robo advisors are private, so it’s hard to know how much case they are going through but the themes of recent news (e.g. lowering investment limits) suggest we may see one of the bigger players disappear in 2016, if not 2017.

This development is not specific to digital wealth management, so consolidation and capitulation is my prediction for all areas of FinTech.

In 2016, look for consolidation within the most crowded areas (e.g. alternative lending, robo advisors) with too many ‘me too’ companies. Look also for some acceleration of Product innovation at bigger firms, as they try to respond to the to FinTech startups who’s captures headlines over the last few years.

 

Advisors: Where the Action Is

The real story is slow demise of the big name firms like Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley, as they lose top advisors and clients to RIA’s (not robo advisors).

Less covered by tech media, look for RIA’s to continue to take share from brokerage firms, even as firms like Morgan Stanley explore automated investment services.

What’s behind Morgan Stanley reportedly planning to introduce its own ‘robo advisor’ service is not competing with Betterment, but trying to stay relevant and nimble as it loses share to RIA’s that offer better services, products and technology.

FinTech industry followers are better served to listen to Michael Kitces and Bill Winterberg rather than read press releases from robo advisors.

Financial Data Comes to the Cloud

Is Market Data as exciting as marketplace lending or mobile payments? Maybe not, but it deserves attention, especially as one innovator, Xignite, behind Wealthfront, Betterment, Personal Capital, Motif and StockTwits –is looking to shake up an industry.

I recently sat down with the Founder & CEO of Xignite, Stephane Dubois, in San Mateo. He noted how robo advisors were among early clients of xIgnite, but that his target market now includes larger financial institutions.

I asked him whether xIgnite was like Stripe for the market data world? My rationale was Stripe has been successful in payments in part due to its focus on developer community.

Dubois saw the parallel, noting that xIgnite is focused on API’s, innovation and targets developers, while financial data incumbents (e.g. Thomson Reuters, Bloomberg, S&P) often seek to sell products, not delivering the actual data clients want.

 

But he emphasized Xignite targets both developers and businesses (both startup and larger companies at this point in the growth trajectory). As Dubois expressed it, xIgnite’s goal includes growing its business through enabling more responsive front-end tools for financial institutions, and helping it slash back-end costs.

Is Xignite the Stripe of the market data world?

From my experience at Morgan Stanley, I think there’s opportunity. Although there is a lot of focus on controlling market data expense, in light of reduced profits in many trading areas, executives such as Morgan Stanley’s Ken Brady are smart and strategic, looking to control expenditure but also enable the business.

Focus on the Apps, Not the Integration

This illustration from xIgnite captures the essence of its value proposition and also highlights one issue for large financial institutions.

Banks do a good job managing their third-party expenditures and risk; teams focused on partners on Wall St. (ranging from Operations, Market Data, Tech Risk, Vendor Risk, Corporate Services, COO Teams). What big banks can learn from startups is to focus on the apps, not the integration (and using xIgnite can help with that approach).

Morgan Stanley legend Merritt Lutz jokes that in a post Dodd-Frank world, you can find a risk officer hiding under every desk on Wall Street. But the red tape on risk and expense  management, has slowed down execution. Clients using Morgan Stanley Online can’t see basic portfolio performance reporting online, in contrast to most of its competitors.

As a result, wealth management units of banks suffer from too long development cycles. Instead of navigating bureaucracies, expense approval and risk teams, developers should be able to focus on apps and the data they need to serve clients.

Bigger banks should be more API-centric approach and embrace Agile in order to enable faster time-to-market on Wall St. and compete with FinTech firms.

2016 

Final thoughts on 2016? I’m looking forward to incumbents moving faster, adopting API solutions like Xignite, during consolidation since as one executive from J.P. Morgan Chase said, ‘Do we really need 1,000 mobile wallet startups?’

I also don’t foresee any big IPO’s in the FinTech space, given the state of the markets, although SoFi and Stripe have all the right pieces in place. For now, I can see Financial Technology Partners being busy with lots of deals focused on the middle market.

2016 should offer a few surprises. I look forward to telling you about them.