Thank you to Investment News for featuring an edited version of my April '13 blog.

David Drucker, Co-Founder of Technololgy Tools for Today, reviews RIA Match and describes his experience as he posts his practice for sale. This review appears in the December 2012 Technology Tools for Today Newsletter at www.technologytoolsfortoday.com

Download the pdf T3 review of RIA Match here.

Coverage of RIA Match's launch.

Washington DC, [September 19, 2012] -- RIA Match™, an advisor technology company, today announced the launch of a groundbreaking online website for financial advisors seeking succession planning and growth. The new site, www.riamatch.com, is an open, custodian-agnostic platform designed to match financial advisors and registered investment advisors (RIAs) based on their objectives.  Launching today, RIA Match aims to create an efficient market for advisors and RIAs to partner their practices.

RIA Match was developed to fill the void in the investment industry marketplace for efficient succession matching and partnering. According to the 2011 Fidelity RIA Benchmarking Study, three-quarters (75 percent) of participating investment advisors either don’t have succession plans for their businesses or have plans that are not ready to be implemented.¹ Additionally, Cerulli shows that 50% of principals at RIA firms are 50 and over and almost ½ of them do not have a contingency plan in place.

Independently owned, RIA Match is the brainchild of twenty-five year industry veteran, Mary Ann Buchanan. “RIA Match is the only advisor matching service that is agnostic as to custodial platform or whether a deal gets done. It’s a pure approach”, says Mary Ann Buchanan, CEO and Founder of RIA Match.   The site is objective and offers anonymity in searching. “We create the playing field. We are not calling the plays and do not benefit from them. We put the power in the advisor’s hands.”

How It Works

1.       Advisors and firms build their online profile.

2.       They describe their objectives.

3.       They get matched.

4.       They communicate.

The easy and intuitive self- populated profile takes approximately 25 minutes to complete. RIA Match’s proprietary matching algorithm pairs the culture and values of people and practices and translates this into a proprietary Match Quality Ranking for each matching profile. The advisors communicate on the RIA Match internal mail system and reveal their identity if and when they are ready.

The advisors review their matches for free and then pay to communicate with them.

In addition, RIA Match can potentially help advisors with succession, mergers and acquisitions, as well as overall growth by helping RIAs find new advisors to hire into their practices.

RIA Match will host a virtual launch of the site that will include: M&A specialist, David DeVoe, Managing Partner of DeVoe and Company and Beverly Flaxington, Co-founder of The Collaborative, Practice Management Consultant, Waldemar Kohl of Fidelity Institutional Wealth Services  and Corey Kupfer of MarketCounsel on Thursday, September 27^th at 2 PM Eastern. Register at www.riamatch.com.

For the next several months, RIA Match will host a weekly 30 minute webinar to give a tour of the site and answer any questions; check the website for the webinar schedule. Register at  www.riamatch.com . 

For more information on RIA Match visit: www.riamatch.com.