Zabo, a financial data aggregator for connecting cryptocurrency accounts, has unveiled Portfolio, a new product designed for Registered Investment Advisors (RIAs) and Financial Advisors to track and manage their client’s bitcoin and cryptocurrency assets via a completely white-labeled portfolio dashboard.
Portfolio enables advisors to intelligently engage with clients on cryptocurrency and creates additional revenue opportunities by increasing assets under management.
Cryptocurrency is quickly becoming a mainstream asset class for both individuals and institutions alike. According to research from the University of Cambridge there are now close to 200 million cryptocurrency wallets, 300 per cent above their 2016 level. Grayscale, one of the leading providers of cryptocurrency investment products, grew AUM [900 per cent] amid unprecedented demand for investment in Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in 2020 and early 2021.
These trends shouldn’t come as a surprise among advisors: a 2020 Bitwise survey on advisor attitudes towards crypto assets found that 76 per cent of advisors received questions on cryptocurrency and 72 per cent thought clients were investing in cryptocurrency outside their advisory relationship.
By not understanding or measuring cryptocurrency holdings, advisors aren’t just ignoring client interests, but missing an opportunity to include cryptocurrency as assets under management and collecting related fee revenue.
Zabo’s Portfolio solves these problems by providing advisors with an easy and powerful way to track and understand their clients’ cryptocurrency holdings in real-time. Zabo’s Portfolio is able to track both leading exchanges such as Coinbase and Gemini, as well as self-custody wallets like Trezor and Ledger, where significant sums of client cryptocurrency are held.
In total Portfolio supports thousands of cryptocurrencies and integrations with 50-plus leading exchanges and wallets, providing detailed balance and transaction histories for all. Portfolio’s white-labeled nature enables this with no engineering cost necessary – plus, the branding is fully-customisable.
“Cryptocurrencies historically have not been tracked by advisers and as a result, are not included in the complete financial picture of clients or overall advisor AUM. This is despite clear data showing that clients both currently hold and are highly interested in the asset class. Both advisors and clients can benefit tremendously from leveraging Portfolio,” says Alex Treece, Co-Founder, and President at Zabo.
Zabo is also pleased to announce two initial partnerships for Portfolio: the Certified Digital Asset Advisor (CDAA) program and SmartKX.
CThe CDAA program is the leading provider of Digital Asset education for Financial Advisors in the US. Founded by experienced Certified Financial Planners with deep experience in cryptocurrency and blockchain, the CDAA is at the forefront of educating advisors on how to safely and scalably help clients invest in digital assets.
“We’re thrilled to partner with Zabo and their Portfolio product to give financial advisors real-time insights into client cryptocurrency accounts and holdings. It’s a key, missing piece that will help provide a sustainable path for advisors to support this exploding asset class and grow their AUM,” said Adam Blumberg, CFP, and Board Chairman of CDAA.
Smart Kx is a software platform for helping financial advisors accurately manage client contracts and fee billing. RIA attorney and founder Lacey Shrum said the partnership with Zabo solves a common problem for RIA’s:
“Advisors must review a client’s complete financial picture – including their client’s crypto holdings – in order to give their clients holistic advice and planning services. Zabo’s Portfolio picks up where legacy systems fall short and provides a seamless and compliant way for advisors to view client’s real-time crypto holdings and include that information in the advisor’s analysis, advice and client reporting. RIAs can now serve their clients without tripping up on commonly cited issues preventing RIA-crypto-adoption like custody, valuation, and billing. Our partnership with Zabo allows RIAs to mitigate risk in advising on these assets by properly documenting the relationship and how the RIA will be paid for their work.”
