SIMON Markets LLC, a Fintech firm transforming the digital wealth management sector via its platform for financial professionals, reveals that it has teamed up with NYDIG—a tech and financial services company “dedicated” to Bitcoin—in order to launch “first-to-market” Bitcoin education “designed for wealth managers, and an innovative approach to product access through passive private investment vehicles that is coming soon.”
As stated in a release:
“The two firms also announced that they would be collaborating on a custody offering integrated directly into the SIMON platform that will enable greater flexibility and more options for advisors and clients—such as next generation services like bitcoin-backed borrowing.”
This “timely” development, “strategically” aligned with market demand and evolving regulatory standards, positions SIMON to introduce a framework and workflow for wealth managers “to access digital assets with curated educational curricula, tracking, and product controls.”
Set to launch in two different phases, the educational and investment marketplace initiatives will be available on SIMON’s digital platform, which delivers product education, selection, analysis, and management experience “for risk-managed and alternative investment solutions to financial professionals and wholesalers across the U.S.”
While retail investors are “crypto-curious,” many professionals don’t yet have “compliance-approved” resources to learn more about Bitcoin, how it works, and the opportunities that exist “to help clients make more informed portfolio allocation decisions,” the announcement explained.
With the rising interest in blockchain or distributed ledger tech (DLT) and crypto-assets, knowledge of both is “increasingly as paramount to a financial professional’s future as other alternative investments,” the release noted.
As mentioned in the announcement:
“With NYDIG’s integrated solutions, advisors on the SIMON platform can provide their clients with access to the same institutional-quality custody and execution services utilized today by the industry’s largest and most demanding capital allocators. Advisors and their clients will benefit from NYDIG’s industry-leading standards for regulation, auditability and compliance.”
As market demand increases for more clarity around Bitcoin, financial advisors will play an “increasingly critical role” in helping clients “invest safely, and delivering the regulatory mechanisms to make that possible is the first step,” according to Robert Gutmann, Co-founder and CEO at NYDIG.
Gutmann added:
“Our partnership with SIMON will give many advisors new access to bitcoin for the first time—making it safe and seamless for them to fold bitcoin into alternative asset allocations with SIMON’s best-in-class, holistic wealth management experience.”
A recent NYDIG survey revealed that 82% of clients “expect their advisors to be knowledgeable about new asset classes like Bitcoin, and 62% would switch advisors to get advice.”
Virtual currencies are “increasingly” in focus across the wealth management sector, according to Jason Broder, CEO of SIMON.
Broder remarked:
“There’s a reason financial institutions are making Bitcoin more readily available to clients, and a reason they choose to partner with NYDIG—a leader at the forefront of research and technology. SIMON is excited to leverage NYDIG’s tremendous experience to build transparency around an emerging asset class that has huge potential in portfolio construction. Our ambition is to expand the reach of digital assets, which starts with education.”
By focusing on the product education and performance analytics requirements of wealth managers, SIMON’s centralized platform is designed “to empower financial professionals to manage portfolio allocations and articulate them with confidence,” the announcement noted.
The partnership with NYDIG aims to offer an innovative, scalable approach for the wealth management industry “to explore Bitcoin and prepare for upcoming marketplace access and product arrivals.”
