Tag Archives: WealthCentral

FPPad Bits and Bytes for July 15

Posted on July 15, 2011 by in Bits & Bytes

I’m flying with the family to Portland, Oregon tomorrow for business and pleasure. I’ll be speaking to the FPA of Oregon & SW Washington on Wednesday and visiting with a technology provider on Thursday. Outside of those commitments we’ll be touring the natural wonders of Oregon and relishing in the temperate summer weather (in contrast to 14 days of 100+ degree temperatures we’ve experienced here in Dallas!).

[Photo used under Creative Commons from camknows]

Now on to this week’s stories of interest:

Interactive Advisory Software joins the horse race with VC funding, a new look, and new CEO from RIABiz.com

[You’ve probably never heard of IAS unless you’re a user. They ranked far below competing platforms in the 2010 Financial Planning Technology Survey, so will their refresh and new marketing initiatives result in larger adoption by RIAs?] Based out of Atlanta, Ga., Interactive Advisory Software is stepping out of its “hidden gem” history with new investment, a new CEO, and a brand new look.

Fidelity adds trading to WealthCentral Mobile from InvestmentNews.com

[I suspect advisers are not too inclined to submit trades in client accounts from mobile devices. But from a marketing perspective, saying your app supports mobile trading is a nice checkbox in the functionality matrix] Financial advisers on the WealthCentral platform can now add trading to the list of things they can do from their iPhones and later model Android smart phones.

Social Media Archiving Meets the Back Office – a Cloud Computing Solution for Registered Investment Advisors from Arkovi.com

[Anyone heard of WinWeb? It’s new to me, and I have no clue how well they serve the adviser marketplace.] Arkovi and WinWeb Announce Integrated Partnership Bringing CRM, Social Media Archiving and Operations into One Solution for Registered Investments Advisors.

Orion Welcomes Advance Capital from PRNewswire.com

[Orion, the popular web-based portfolio accounting and service bureau, keeps gaining users and assets reconciled through their platform] Orion Advisor Services, LLC, a comprehensive portfolio accounting service bureau, is pleased to welcome new client Advance Capital Management, Inc., a Broker-Dealer and Registered Investment Advisor with almost $2 billion in assets under management including its own proprietary funds. Advance Capital Management joins a rapidly expanding roster of premier investment firms to utilize Orion’s innovative back-office solutions.

Read this month’s column for Morningstar Advisor, Save Time, Reduce Errors with Text Expanders. You might benefit tremendously from using tools like TextExpander and PhraseExpress.

And if you’re convinced your clients aren’t texting, you need to read my post this week for Blueleaf, Your Clients Are Leaving You In The Dust.

FPPad Bits and Bytes for February 18

Posted on February 18, 2011 by in Bits & Bytes

We’re attending the T3 Conference as you read this (follow the Twitter backchannel under #T32011), but through the magic of the Internet we’re able to post our week in review of all things tech in financial planning.

This week’s stories of interest start out with the recent request by the SEC to review advisers’ use of social media:

SEC Wants To Follow You On Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube… at Forbes.com

(Bill’s comment: Reporter Halah Touryalai raises the fair point that the SEC might have better issues to tackle than to babysit advisers’ social media profiles. But such is the consequence of the regulatory enviroment to which advisers are subject. All it takes are a few tweets from fraudulent advisers to ruin it for everyone. Can you imagine “RT @bernardmadoff: Just one week left to enroll in our 8% monthly guarantee fund. Accredited investors only please!“)

File this one under: “There Are Better Things The SEC Can Be Doing.” Financial advisors’ online activity on social media websites is being scrutinized by the SEC, according to a compliance consulting firm and a report in Investment News.

FINRA to Look at Social Media–Again at Financial Advisor Magazine

The issue of how to deal with social media isn’t going away for regulators of the securities industry.

CRM systems for the big guys from InvestmentNews.com

For larger advisory firms, choosing the right CRM system is like selecting the right marriage partner.

TradeWarrior and AssetBook Announce Integration Partnership at Marketwire.com

TradeWarrior and AssetBook are pleased to announce an integration between their software programs. The integration partnership between the two companies will provide AssetBook users access to TradeWarrior’s powerful rebalancing and trading capabilities. This integration marks the first 3rd party rebalancing integration available to AssetBook users.

Fidelity Releases WealthCentral Mobile for iPhone, iPod touch

Posted on February 14, 2011 by in Technology

The race between custodians to support mobile platforms is quickly reaching a blazing pace (see Fidelity, Schwab and TD Ameritrade prep for arms race in mobile technology for advisors at RIABiz.com). Just two weeks ago, TD AMERITRADE Institutional announced it is currently developing a mobile app scheduled to be released this April (according to this Financial Planning article).

And just this morning, Fidelity Investments and National Financial Services released their WealthCentral Mobile app in the Apple App Store. While the app is compatible with iPhone and iPod touch, it does not take advantage of the iPad’s larger display, and instead runs on the iPad as a scaled-up iPhone app.

Click here to view WealthCentral Mobile on the iTunes website.


From the provided screen shots, WealthCentral Mobile appears to be for adviser use only and does not provide access by clients of advisers who custody with Fidelity. Adviser options include a list of client account, client contact information, alerts within the WealthCentral platform, and delayed stock quotes for individual equity positions.

We don’t yet have a demo account for WealthCentral Mobile, so if you’re an adviser with an active WealthCentral account and have downloaded the app, we’d love to hear your feedback. Feel free to leave a comment below or e-mail Bill at bill [at] fppad [dot] com.

FPPad Bits and Bytes for January 14

Posted on January 14, 2011 by in Bits & Bytes

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:

Fidelity, Schwab and TD Ameritrade prep for arms race in mobile technology for advisors from RIABiz

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.

Advisor Tested: iPad proves ideal for advisors on-the-go; the surprise is the effect on clients from RIABiz

Tech Enables Convenient Client Connections, my January column at Morningstar Advisor

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.

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?

FPPad Bits and Bytes for October 29

Posted on October 29, 2010 by in Bits & Bytes

Happy Halloween! This week’s edition of Bits and Bytes is full of all treats and no tricks.

Here are this week’s feature stories:

At Schwab IMPACT 2010, Charles Schwab Advisor Services selected the first Intelligent Integration partners. Here’s coverage from the web:

Junxure, Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics Are The First Schwab Intelligent Integration Partners from FPPad.com,
Schwab Looks To Integrate Registered Independent Advisers’ Tech Systems from WSJ.com, and
Schwab chooses some giant software partners, apparently with big RIAs in mind from RIABiz.com

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.

Fidelity arms its RIAs for battle with white-glove brands from RIABiz.com

Fidelity WealthCentral for Family Offices integrates portfolio reporting and trading and allows a view of holdings including alternative assets. Services such as trust, partnership accounting, private foundation services and general ledger export services are included. Most important: it can provide an ultra-affluent client with a dedicated relationship management team and investment analyst/trader.

ByAllAccounts’ Survey Reveals the Top Reasons Financial Advisors Would Consider New Portfolio Management System from Marketwire.com

ByAllAccounts, Inc., the financial advisors’ choice for account aggregation, today announced survey results that show financial advisors are generally loyal to their portfolio management systems of record. Nearly 70 percent of survey respondents are somewhat or extremely unlikely to switch from their current system to a new one in 2011.

And finally, my blog post for October, Convert Business Card Info in a Snap, at MorningstarAdvisor.com

While attending a huge conference such as FPA Denver 2010 has many advantages, one minor drawback of connecting with so many new people is processing the large stack of business cards collected after returning home from the event.