From Schwab IMPACT® 2018, I connected with John Connor, Vice President of Digital Advisor Solutions for Schwab Advisor Services to tour the “Tech Alley” section of The Exchange exhibit hall.
On today’s broadcast, Schwab releases Institutional Intelligent Portfolios™ into the advisor marketplace, Advent rolls out a new advisor experience for Black Diamond, and TD Ameritrade Institutional assembles dozens of vendors in Chicago to help you move your business forward.
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[This week’s top story comes from Schwab Advisor Services, as the company officially rolled out its Institutional Intelligent Portfolios™ solution to advisors that was first mentioned back in episode 158, which I will try to link right over here. One change of note is that Schwab increased the number of available ETFs to more than 450 from the original 200 announced back in March, but the platform fees remain unchanged.
So I looked into the disclosure materials and uncovered a few items that I think you should know. First, anytime a new client signs up, you, the advisor, are required to make a final decision to select a portfolio strategy for that client. Until you make that decision, your clients’ cash will be held in the sweep program.
Second, accounts over $50,000 are eligible for tax-loss harvesting, but hold on, you, the advisor, must use the software built in to Institutional Intelligent Portfolios™ to activate and implement the tax-loss harvesting strategy.
And third, at any time, clients can authorize you, the advisor, to suspend trading due to “market conditions” and then reactivate trading “when the Advisor decides it is appropriate to do so.”
So I don’t know about you, but this sounds like Institutional Intelligent Portfolios™ doesn’t really streamline any of your portfolio management activities, it may actually increase your workload a bit, which is ironic given the automated focus of the program. It’s definitely not a set-and-forget automated solution, and for this added workload in your business you’ll earn how much in new revenue? That’s what I thought.
And before I forget, Schwab says that the system “will not monitor the type and amount of capital gains” so you’ll have to manage that information in a separate solution, say Schwab Advisor Portfolio Connect or perhaps PortfolioCenter, if you want to report on the gains and losses in each client account. Oh, one more thing, as of today, the mobile app isn’t yet ready.
But to be fair, this is version 1.0 of the solution for advisor, so if anyone is listening out there, maybe you can get Schwab to acknowledge these opportunities to make Institutional Intelligent Portfolios™ an attractive technology solution for your business.]
[Next up is news from Advent, as the company held AdventConnect, it’s annual advisor conference in Las Vegas last week. The company used the event to showcase the next generation Black Diamond® wealth platform, which was being called “BD3” during internal development.
Gone from the Black Diamond name are the Performance Reporting label and the old widgets and BlueSky titles, which is now being replaced by the wealth platform description that represents the radical refresh of the advisor experience.
The main advisor dashboard now uses tiles that you can customize based on the information you want at a glance, portfolio performance graphs are much more streamlined, report pages contain relevant portfolio data without being overly crowded and busy, and a presentation mode is now built in to give you a way to walk through reports while redacting confidential client data.
Advent also announced a new initiative called Black Diamond Link, which adds “bi-directional, workflow-oriented integrations” with a variety of third party technology providers, including MoneyGuidePro, AdvisoryWord, XLR8, Junxure Cloud, Advisors Assistant, and Redtail Technology.] On the heels of last year’s unveiling and this year’s rollout of the new Black Diamond® investor experience, Advent today showcased its next generation Black Diamond® wealth platform. The next generation platform which has been dubbed “BD3” by clients and the development team, as it represents the third generation of the Black Diamond® platform, has been a multi-month effort to redesign and reinvent Black Diamond® to go beyond its roots in performance reporting.
[If integrations with best-in-breed solutions sounds familiar, that’s because TD Ameritrade Institutional offers a similar platform under Veo Open Access, Schwab Advisor Services offers OpenView Gateway, and Pershing announced its own API store just a few weeks ago.
And for custodian-agnostic integration providers, Orion Advisor Services has been offering integrations to their advisors for several years. Full disclosure, you should watch my first vlog about Orion. So Advent, welcome to the club!
Now speaking of integrations, I’m going to wrap up with news from TD Ameritrade Institutional, as the company held its 6th annual technology summit in Chicago this week for Veo Open Access integrated solution providers. The number of solution providers now stands at 91 representing over $300 billion in assets advised across all of the technology solutions.
I’m running out of time for this broadcast, and I made a vlog about my trip to the Tech Summit in Chicago, so just watch the vlog and you’ll be up to speed on how this custodian is helping advisors like you take their business to the next level.] To help independent registered investment advisors (“RIAs”) keep pace in an era of accelerating technology change, TD Ameritrade Institutional1 has pursued a unique strategy of collaboration, harnessing the innovative and cutting-edge work of an entire community of technology leaders through its Veo Open Access vendor network.
On today’s broadcast, Schwab and Wealthfront duke it out over automated investment supremacy, Fidelity wants to be the first final app for Apple Watch, and learn what screencasting app I use to delegate work so I can be more efficient.
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[This weeks top story features, no surprise, Charles Schwab and Wealthfront, as this week many of us witnessed round one of what could easily be a 12-round match between the industry heavyweight and the up-and-coming contender. Allow me to bring you up to speed in less than 60 seconds:
In June of 2014, Wealthfront crossed a billion dollars in AUM and paid homage to Charles Schwab for building a world-class company (foreshadowing). Then in October, Schwab announced it would release it’s own automated investment service called Schwab Intelligent Portofolios™ in the first quarter of 2015, and offer it with no management fees. So in January of this year, details emerged that Schwab Intelligent Portfolios generally will have higher cash positions than similar allocation strategies, allowing Schwab to earn revenue on cash that is swept to Schwab Bank. This week, Schwab officially rolled out Intelligent Portfolios on Monday, so on Tuesday, Wealthfront’s CEO Adam Nash criticized Schwab, remember, the same company he venerated just 9 months ago (does that count as a another pivot?), citing high cash allocations as quote “almost criminal.” Schwab countered on Wednesday, saying Nash was misleading and quote “presented a very loose interpretation of facts.” Now you’re up to date, and with a little bit of time to spare!
So why is this news for you? According to Schwab’s press release, the company plans to release Institutional Intelligent Portfolios™ in the second quarter, a version of the service that allows financial advisors who custody client assets with Schwab to use the solution with their own firms’ branding.
For a yet-to-be-disclosed fee (here’s a hint: I bet it’s 25 basis points), advisors can modify and customize asset allocations in Institutional Intelligent Portfolios™, or they can choose to use existing portfolios for no program management fee.
And second, while Schwab and Wealthfront battle it out, you have a huge opportunity to get in front of investors caught up in this story to communicate how you’re different from automated investment services. Yes, you do offer portfolio management, but you offer so much more, so it’s time you start controlling the conversation instead of allowing others to control the conversation about you.] Charles Schwab today launched a fully automated investment advisory service, Schwab Intelligent Portfolios™, the only investment advisory service using sophisticated computer algorithms to build, monitor, and rebalance diversified portfolios based on an investor’s stated goals, time horizon and risk tolerance – without charging any advisory fees, commissions or account services fees.
[Next up is news from Fidelity Investments, as this week the company rode the wave of interest in the Apple Watch announcement by revealing a financial app for the new product. If you remember waaaay back in my third episode, I told you about Fidelity’s Market Monitor app for the ill-fated Google Glass, so it’s not surprising that the financial services company is also leading the industry on embracing Apple’s foray into wearable computing.
So again, what’s the takeaway for you? While Google Glass has floundered perhaps for being a little too intrusive, the Apple Watch and other devices on your wrist may actually lead to some incremental productivity increases in your daily routines. So will Apple Watch prove to be popular among advisors? Only time will tell. Thank you, I’ll be here all week! Try the veal!] Fidelity Investments® announced today a first-of-its kind financial app for Apple Watch. Through a unique design and experience, the Fidelity Mobile® app for Apple Watch conveniently gives customers a distinctive overview of global markets and alerts on stocks and investments in real-time right on their wrist.
[And finishing up this week’s broadcast is a recent post from Michael Kitces on his Nerd’s Eye View blog about learning to delegate work to others. I’m sure you’re heard time and time again that you need to delegate work to be more efficient with your own time, but some things are just easier if you do them yourself instead of showing someone else how to get the job done. So what was the breakthrough for Kitces? The answer was screencasting software.
Screencasting software allows you to record your computer screen and also record your narration of what you’re doing. When you’re finished, you can share your screencast video with colleagues or even with clients by uploading it as a private video online.
I make screencasts for my own business, and I even use them for graphics for Bits and Bytes broadcasts. The tool I prefer is Camtasia for Mac, they also have a version for Windows, and if you keep an eye out, you’ll often find a coupon code for 50% off.] For me, the “breakthrough” in how to delegate effectively came from using screencasting software – tools that record what’s happening on your computer screen, paired with the audio of you talking while you’re sitting in front of it.
Here are links to stories that didn’t make this week’s broadcast:
During the previous 12 months, Tamarac has added approximately 150 RIA firms to its roster of clients, bringing the total to more than 800 firms managing client assets in excess of $500 billion. The dramatic increase in RIA clients has had an exponential effect on the number of financial accounts residing on the Advisor Xi platform, which now number more than 1 million.
In this video spotlight interview, Brian Shenson, vice president of Advisor Technology Solutions for Schwab Advisor Services met with me to update Schwab’s progress on a number of technology initiatives.
Brian Shenson, vice president, Advisor Technology Solutions for Schwab Advisor Services
PortfolioCenter Hosted
Clearly, Schwab Advisor Services recognizes the opportunity in offering advisers the ability to locate portions of their technology in the cloud.
The launch of PortfolioCenter Hosted, according to Shenson, is intended to simplify operations for advisers.
“We have over 3,500 advisers today relying on PortfolioCenter desktop, but they’re looking to simplify their operating model with cloud-based solutions,” said Shenson.
“PortfolioCenter Hosted allows [advisers] to have the same control and ownership of their data that they have today, but leverage Schwab’s backbone infrastructure to host their systems,” he added.
Schwab OpenView MarketSquare
I asked Shenson to elaborate on the resources Schwab provides when it comes to the various integrations supported by PortfolioCenter and other Schwab Intelligent Technologies’ resources.
Schwab OpenView MarketSquare is the latest resource Shenson highlighted to educate advisers on their technology purchase options.
“[OpenView MarketSquare is] not meant to replace other resources advisers rely on to learn about technology”, said Shenson, “but we think we have a unique opportunity to create voice to the adviser’s perspective on the technology they use to help inform other advisers before making that purchase decision for a particular technology.”
Schwab OpenView MarketSquare™ provides technology ratings and reviews, exclusively by and for advisors who custody with Schwab Advisor Services™
Finally, there still is confusion over the differences in the two primary back office offerings from Schwab Advisor Services, OpenView Gateway and the Integrated Office.
I asked Shenson to identify the type of advisory firm to which each solution is best suited.
“Many advisers have already made substantial investments in their technology infrastructure, and for them we wanted to work with best-of-breed providers and build integrations to those platforms. That is what we designed with OpenView Gateway,” said Shenson.
The alternate solution, Integrated Office, is a complete “office in a box” offering.
“Many advisers are looking for incredible simplicity in their operating model,” said Shenson.
“They’re looking to us as a provider to offer an integrated solution where all the pieces are designed to fit very well together. For them we offer the Integrated Office.”
Neesha Hathi, Senior Vice President of Schwab Advisor Services
In a move to be more visible and transparent, Schwab Advisor Services launched a periodic series of conference calls called Tech Talk, featuring the latest updates on Schwab’s technology and related services for independent investment advisors.
Here are the most significant updates from the latest conference call held Monday June 24, featuring updates by Schwab Advisor Services Senior Vice President Neesha Hathi and Vice President Brian Shenson.
Schwab Intelligent Integration
Over 700 advisors are using some kind of solution from Schwab Intelligent Integration, which includes Schwab OpenView Gateway and Schwab Integrated Office. The Schwab OpenView Workflow Library (hey, I don’t choose the names for these solutions!!) is not included in the advisor count (see the next item).
The Schwab OpenView Workflow Library resources have been downloaded over 8,000 times with over 1,000 firms benefiting from the information.
New financial planning software integrations were announced, with Zywave’s NaviPro Planning Suite and PIEtech’s MoneyGuidePro to be added soon to Schwab OpenView Gateway. The integrations will allow financial profile and account information to be delivered from the custodial application to the planning software.
OpenView Gateway will also include the Envestnet|Tamarac Advisor Rebalancing® application. Here, too, advisors will be able to access Schwab’s custody data using the rebalancing application to evaluate and generate trade instructions to streamline portfolio rebalancing.
Move Money Directly from CRM
One of the features hinted by Hathi and Shenson is the ability advisors will soon have to initiate Move Money transactions directly from their CRM of choice.
Move Money requests have historically been restricted to the Schwab Advisor Services online custody platform or by placing a phone call to a service team. According to Shenson, Move Money from CRM will first appear in OpenView Gateway for all Salesforce CRM users, currently estimated to be roughly 200 advisory firms today. Soon after, Move Money will be made available to all Schwab OpenView Gateway CRM partners, which includes Junxure, Salentica, and Envestent|Tamarac.
PortfolioCenter Hosted Update
According to Hathi, roughly 40 advisory firms have contracts in place (which I take to mean not completely rolled out as of today) to use PortfolioCenter Hosted in their business.
Black Diamond Integration
Hathi also updated the Schwab OpenView Gateway integration with Black Diamond software from Advent Software, Inc. Black Diamond is in pilot testing with real time custody data, and is expected to reach general availability by the end of July 2013.
Web Trading
In one of the most eagerly anticipated updates, Hathi updated the status of the new web trading platform in Schwab Advisor Center. The new web trading layout will begin to roll out to select advisors in July 2013, with all of Schwab’s advisors using the new functionality by the end of the year. A preview of the layout is below.
A preview of the anticipated updates to the web trading interface from Schwab Advisor Services
OpenView MarketSquare
OpenView MarketSquare has been available to advisors for several months, and nearly 600 reviews are now available covering roughly 80 products used by advisors.
Mobile Initiatives
In response to a question submitted via Twitter, Hathi addressed coming changes in mobile initiatives from Schwab Advisor Services. Coming soon will be the ability for advisors to use the Schwab Advisor Center mobile app to conduct remote deposit of client checks.
Schwab’s retail customers have enjoyed remote deposit from the retail mobile app for well over a year, so finally this functionality is making its way to advisor devices for those who continue to receive checks from their clients.
Finally, Schwab will add functionality to the retail app to allow clients to authorize a wire transfer request submitted by their advisor.
[If you have a website, you need some solution to capture and archive all your content for compliance purposes. Printing pages to PDFs doesn’t cut it, especially if your site has embedded video or social media feeds.] New automated tool will help registered professionals eliminate tedious manual processes to meet FINRA and SEC requirements.
[I wrote yesterday of Schwab’s selection of Tamarac to its Intelligent Integration initiative. See Schwab adds Envestnet | Tamarac to its Schwab Intelligent Integration™ initiative. Here’s more detail from Brooke Southall at RIABiz with reaction from Schwab’s Neesha Hathi and Tamarac’s Stuart DePina.] Schwab Advisor Services announced today that it has chosen Tamarac to participate in Schwab Intelligent Integration — sticking with the theme of getting CRM integrations in place first.
[Another startup retail financial services provider is MyGDP, founded by Scott Bell. I first connected with Bell via Twitter and have enjoyed getting to know him as the development of MyGDP has matured. Here’s a good feature from Benzinga on the lesson Bell learned pitching MyGDP to investors via a not-so-subtle YouTube video.] The International Man of Mystery might be popular, but he can’t help entrepreneurs promote their startups.
Firms selected for growth, technology innovations, and dedication to the profession.
Bernie Clark, Executive Vice President of Schwab Advisor Services, greeted a crowd of nearly 4,000 in the Moscone Center this morning to announce the 2011 Schwab IMPACT Award winners.
This year’s winner is Green Square Capital of Memphis, TN. They were cited for their 30%+ annual growth rate, successes in linking workflow to their service platform, and commitment to strategic planning
In a highlight video, Co-CEOs Steven Sansom and Darrell Horn discussed their use of employee scorecards, posted on each employee’s desk that can be reviewed anytime for progress and updates on personal and professional development.
In addition, Sansom and Horn talked about their “Client Delights” service, which represent a variety of non-financial “wow factors” the firm strives to deliver to clients to reach beyond traditional investment and financial planning services.
2011 Best-in-Business award
This year, there is no separated award given for technology innovation. Now, the award is wrapped inside the Best-in-Business award, and this year’s winner is Brudros, Ruhlin & Roe, Inc. of Columbus, OH. Peggy Ruhlin, James Budros, and Dan Roe offered one takeaway on what their firm is doing to manage its back office infrastructure and technology.
Brudros, Ruhlin & Roe decided to make technology a client, citing that technology previously didn’t get the attention it deserved. So treating technology as if it were a client of the firm, advisors treated every meeting, every dollar, and every idea as being just as important as the work the firm does for clients.
2011 Leadership award
This year’s Leadership award was presented to Richard Stone, CEO of Private Ocean. Stone was part of the first graduating class of CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER(TM) certificants in the early 70’s and authored the young organization’s first Code of Ethics.
Stone’s commitment to the education of young professionals and service on local education boards, including San Jose State University and UC Berkeley, exemplifies his dedication to the future of the profession and demonstrates his role as a leader in the industry.
Congratulations to all of this year’s award winners, and later on in the conference, I hope to deliver some of the best practices they highlight that helped each of them achieve such distinguished recognition.
I’m attending Schwab IMPACT 2011 this week and will post reports from the event as time permits.
Kyle Hiatt (L) and Jon Reiners (R) of Orion Advisor Services, LLC
My first item of business at Schwab IMPACT 2011 was to tour the vendor expo floor and connect with the many technology vendors here. I ran across the booth of Orion Advisor Services, where Kyle Hiatt, Todd Bertucci, and Jon Reiners were stationed.
Our conversation gravitated toward mobile platforms and mobile apps, so I mentioned one app I discovered just on Monday called FlipZu. FlipZu is an app that allows anyone with a mobile phone to broadcast live audio on the Internet.
I played around with FlipZu for the first time today, attempting to broadcast some of the highlights from Advent Software’s Expo Showcase featuring Black Diamond and Advent OnDemand. My 3G service was spotty from inside the Moscone Center, but you can see my FlipZu channel for the recordings I was able to make.
While talking about FlipZu, Bertucci mentioned how advisors could leverage the app to broadcast their market commentary in realtime directly from their phone. Anyone, including clients and prospects, could listen to the live broadcast right from their own mobile phones with the FlipZu app. Those on computers can use the FlipZu web player to listen as well.
We thought that was such a cool idea that I told Bertucci I’d blog about it later in the day. So, know you know.
Note: reps of broker-dealers will want to avoid live broadcasts, for obvious compliance reasons. Advantage independent RIAs.
We were on the road for the first half of this week attending Laserfiche Empower 2011 in Los Angeles. While we took extensive notes over the 2 1/2 day event, we haven’t had the time to review and summarize them for posting (or post anything else for that matter!).
So check back in a week or two for our thoughts on Laserfiche’s potential to increase its presence in financial services.
Meanwhile, here are this week’s stories of interest:
In the next few months, Fidelity Investments and TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. will launch mobile apps for advisors that deliver functionality from their respective technology platforms, WealthCentral and Veo, according to the companies.
Growing advisory firms need easy tools they can use to collaborate with busy clients in real time when an in-person meeting is not possible or practical. Here are four screen-sharing tools that advisors should consider adding to their technology toolkit to enhance client service.
Merry Christmas from FPPad! Sit down with your favorite browser (might I recommend Google Chrome?) and hot chocolate to take in this week’s Bits and Bytes.
Fidelity Investments is scheduling a series of webinars and regional workshops in 2011 to help its registered investment advisor clients who are worried about complying with the Securities and Exchange Commission’s latest regulatory changes.
In this 5-minute video, Les Satlow of Cabot Money Management says advisors are embracing mobile technology. Tools including “cloud-like applications,” social media and iPads are helping them get closer to clients and build new business.
While she always appears unruffled in public, Neesha Hathi is under pressure to bring Charles Schwab Advisor Services’ multi-million dollar effort, now formally called Schwab Intelligent Integration, to fruition and boost the firm’s chances to remain the top dog among custodians serving the growing registered investment adviser sector.
Tony Mayo thinks the iPad is a “game-changer.” He’s the chief technology officer of Dreyfus Corporation, manager of more than $400 billion in mutual funds and separately managed accounts. And he’s in the process of giving iPads to every one of Dreyfus’ 70 salespeople, across three divisions.
In today’s marketplace, it is critical that you stay connected. NetX360™ for the iPhone enables you to conduct critical business operations while you’re on the move—wherever you are. It will also help you stay on top of the latest market developments and updates, and provide access to essential activities that support your business.
Merry Christmas from FPPad! Sit down with your favorite browser (might I recommend 
