Tag Archives: Schwab

FPPad Bits and Bytes for December 17

Posted on December 17, 2010 by in Bits & Bytes

FPPad headquarters has temporarily relocated to the mid-Atlantic area for the holidays. Our official consulting work for 2010 is complete, and we look forward to serving new and existing clients in 2011.

We are also happy to provide insight directly on this blog and to our subscribers. Yes, individual posts have been a bit more sporadic, but we continue to aggregate the best in technology-related articles from around the web each week in Bits and Bytes.

With new laws taking effect January 1, 2011, cost basis reporting requirements dominate this week’s update. Here are this week’s stories of interest:

Fidelity® Provides In-Depth Analysis Of Finalized IRS Cost-Basis Reporting Requirements at Fidelity.com

Fidelity Investments®, a leading provider of trading, custody and brokerage services to registered investment advisors and broker-dealers, today announced that it has introduced a new report designed to help its clients understand differences between the proposed cost-basis reporting requirements and those recently finalized by the Internal Revenue Service.

Charles Schwab Advisor Services Cost Basis Legislation Resources at Schwabadvisorcenter.com

The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 included new tax reporting requirements that will dramatically change the way investors and financial advisors think about cost basis. The first phase of the legislation goes into effect on January 1, 2011, and may create significant workflow changes for your firm.

Social media shapes new investment strategy at USATODAY.com

You’ll let a friend walk your dog, drive your car or watch your teenager. Would you let them — or someone you don’t even know — invest your money?

Schwab Intelligent Integration Selection Contest Winner

Posted on October 28, 2010 by in General

True to form, you can’t win if you don’t play.

We received seven entries into our Guess Schwab’s Intelligent Integration Partners, Win Free Coffee! contest. With two correct selections each (Junxure and Salesforce), Tim Welsh and “Joe” received two points and had their names entered into a hat.

I debated about allowing points for selecting Tamarac Advisor CRM; while it’s built on Microsoft Dynamics CRM, I’m willing to bet that  Tamarac’s customization of Dynamics makes it different enough that Schwab may not embrace it under their Intelligent Integration ecosystem. Our prediction: in the long run, Tamarac will succeed without needing Schwab’s Intelligent Integration partnership, and Schwab will serve advisers well with the three other CRM systems, so nobody really loses. Ultimately, no points were awarded for selecting Tamarac Advisor CRM.

On with the contest winner. Our impartial name-selector (my son Daniel) picked:

“Joe”

So Joe, check your e-mail to confirm your mailing address. You’ll be receiving your Starbucks gift card shortly!

And thank you to all of you who took a few seconds to add in your guesses. Look to FPPad in the future for some more fun, interactive speculation on the future of adviser technology.

Junxure, Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics Are The First Schwab Intelligent Integration Partners

Posted on October 27, 2010 by in Technology

Thanks to our sources on the ground (John Stone of Revenue Architects and Tim Welsh of Nexus Strategy) at Schwab IMPACT 2010, we now know the first Intelligent Integration partners announced by the company this morning.

Executive Vice President and Charles Schwab Advisor Services leader Bernie Clark announced the first CRM partners selected. They are:

UPDATE, 10:19AM EDT: Read Schwab’s press release from Marketwatch.com. And an odd observation; if Schwab is integrating with three CRMs, do they really need to partner with LaserApp to facilitate account form-filling? Why not integrate form-filling directly with the new Intelligent Integration partners? I suppose, though, that by supporting LaserApp, more CRM systems (e.g. Redtail, Goldmine, etc.) can be used to complete Schwab account applications, which helps everybody, but still supports a fractured, non-integrated ecosystem.

Last week we predicted Junxure, Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, and Tamarac Advisor CRM would be among the selections. It seems redundant at first to have included Tamarac Advisor CRM, as it is built on top of Microsoft Dynamics, but in my opinion, Tamarac Advisor CRM is substantially different from MS Dynamics as Tamarac has customized Dynamics’ out-of-the-box functionality to include data and fields relevant to wealth managers and financial advisers.

Now for the next important question: Who won our free coffee giveaway for guessing the correct partners? There are several people who responded correctly with two of the three partners, so tonight we’ll have an official hat-drawing from those names and reveal the winner tomorrow (the impartial name-remover from the hat is at day care right now).

Guess Schwab’s Intelligent Integration Partners, Win Free Coffee!

Posted on October 21, 2010 by in General

Schwab IMPACT 2010The countdown to Schwab IMPACT 2010 is underway. In less than five days, Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. will kick off its annual conference for RIAs with a host of education sessions, keynote presentations, and vendor expo events.

One event eagerly anticipated by advisers, vendors, and technology consultants (*wink*) is the announcement of Schwab’s Intelligent Integration partners. The first partners to be announced will be providers of CRM software to the investment adviser industry. Neesha Hathi, Schwab VP for Advisor Technology Solutions, defines Intelligent Integration as an “eco-system where all the applications live together.”

So the $64,000 question: Who will be the first Intelligent Integration partners?

Speculation is fun, and so are contests. So we at FPPad are holding a contest.

If you can correctly identify the Intelligent Integration partners, you win free coffee. How much free coffee? A $15 Starbucks gift card.

So leave a comment below with your guess of the CRM vendors you think will be selected as Intelligent Integration partners.

In honor of the new plain-English Form ADV Part 2, here are some plain-English contest rules:

  • If you correctly identify a vendor, you get one point for each vendor named. If your guess includes a vendor that is not announced as a partner, you lose one point for each vendor named. Oh! Yes, there’s a penalty for incorrect guesses. Otherwise you could write in all the names of CRM vendors in the market and win that way. So be selective. The submission with the most total points wins!
  • One entry per e-mail address. You must post a comment below. We apologize to those who cannot post to Internet forums due to compliance reasons. If you don’t leave a valid e-mail, we can’t contact you if you win. We won’t use your e-mail for anything other than contacting you if you win. Period. But we’d love it if you subscribed to our newsletter while you’re here!
  • Submissions must be posted by 11:59PM EDT Monday, October 25, 2010.
  • Employees of Charles Schwab & Co. and any vendors included in the Intelligent Integration partner announcement are ineligible.
  • In the of event multiple people with the highest number of points, one name will be drawn at random from a hat by my son Daniel. He’s 18 months old and is impartial to the contest outcome.

To start the submissions, here’s our guess on the first Intelligent Integration CRM partners: Junxure, Tamarac Advisor CRM™, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and Salesforce.com.

See how easy it is! Now submit your guess.

Schwab Rolls Out First Phase of PortfolioCenter 5.0 Updates

Posted on June 27, 2010 by in Portfolio Management Software

Schwab Performance Technologies® is rolling out updates to its PortfolioCenter® portfolio management software. The first enhancement on its way to version 5.0 is Presentation Studio, a customizable reporting utility.

Presentation Studio allows users to design, edit, and publish custom performance reports using built-in elements. In addition, reports can be created in a batch process and saved to PDF or XPS files.

For more information on the Presentation Studio enhancements, follow the link below and expand the PortfolioCenter 5.0 header in the page.

https://schwabpt.com/resources/presentations/

Black Diamond Inks Deal with Shareholders Service Group

Posted on May 10, 2010 by in Technology

Update: Brooke Southall and his team at RIABiz posted an article today discussing the partnership in more detail. Read it by clicking here.

Another custodian has formed a partnership to increase its technology offerings to affiliated advisers.

Shareholders Service Group (SSG) of San Diego, Calif. announced today that it is partnering with Black Diamond Performance Reporting of Jacksonville, Fla. to deliver its industry leading, web-based portfolio management and reporting system through the SSG platform.

Click here to view the press release for the Black Diamond and SSG partnership (Yahoo! News).

Read More…

Download Education Session Materials From Schwab IMPACT® 2009

Posted on September 15, 2009 by in Professional Development

Advisers who were unable to attend the Schwab IMPACT® 2009 Conference this week can still benefit from the myriad of presentations offered during the event.

Schwab has uploaded a majority of the conferences presentation materials to this website. Slide handouts can be downloaded for free and many of the presentation audio recordings can be downloaded for $15 each.

Also, many conference attendees are providing live updates from the event through Twitter. Follow tweets from the following individuals and companies for more information, or search for updates containing the #IMPACT09 hashtag.

Flood of Tech Announcements Anticipated at Schwab IMPACT Conference

Posted on September 10, 2009 by in General

Schwab’s IMPACT® 2009 Conference begins Monday next week, and buzz is already being circulated about technology announcements from wealth management vendors.

Case in point, CRM Software pre-announced its upcoming releases of Junxure 8, an updated version of its CRM software, and a new offering called Junxure Mobile, a product that allows advisors on the road to access data in Junxure 8 via laptop, Blackberry, or iPhone.

Also just announced is ExpertPlan’s launch of a new trading platform to advisors who custody assets with Schwab.

I expect the flood of announcements to last throughout the duration of the conference, and there will be too many for FPPad.com to keep up with.

Be sure to watch Schwab’s IMPACT® 2009 website for all the details.

Schwab IMPACT Award® Nomination Deadline Approaching

Posted on June 3, 2008 by in Practice Management

ImpactIn the event that you have not been contacted by Schwab, 2008 IMPACT Award® nominations can be made through June 13.

Nominations for firms can be submitted by visiting the following link: http://www.impactawards.schwab.com/

IMPACT Awards are available for three categories: Best-in-Business, Best-in-Tech, and Pacesetter Award.

Read More…