Fidelity Introduces Practice-Management Tools
Fidelity Investments Institutional Brokerage Group has launched PracticeAdvantage, an integrated suite of practice-management solutions designed to help registered investment advisors manage and grow their practices. PracticeAdvantage, which is Fidelity‚s first bundled program for RIAs, is available to all advisor clients through AdvisorCHANNEL.com, Fidelity‚s client Web site, and is expected to be available to correspondent broker-dealers this year.
Among other things, the program offers advisors preferred rates on business services, available through alliances with other Fidelity companies and third-party providers. RIAs can get preferred rates on insurance- and compliance-related products and services, printing, worldwide executive sedan services, portfolio-management software and Web site development, hosting and Internet productivity tools. The program also offers RIAs access to Fidelity‚s PracticeMark, which helps advisors develop comprehensive marketing plans and create customized marketing communications. Advisors also can obtain research from Fidelity, Lehman Brothers, Morningstar and Vestigo Associates, the research arm of Fidelity Capital Markets.
The group also recently announced it has enhanced Advisor CHANNEL, the company's desktop analysis, trading and reporting system for RIAs.
The enhanced version, Advisor CHANNEL 6.0, gives advisors the ability to combine multiple-block equity orders for the same security into one "super block," as well as expand their services into the $567 billion 403(b) retirement-plan market.
For more information, visit Fidelity Investments Institutional Brokerage Group's Web site at www.ibg.fidelity.com.
MSC Helping Fee Advisors
Mutual Service Corp., a full-service independent broker-dealer, is working to double its fee-based assets to $4 billion over the next three years. Important to the campaign‚s success is MSC‚s effort to increase the number of its advisors using fee-based services.
To help its advisors transition to fee-based accounts, MSC is offering several online resources, including a questionnaire, "Finding the Right Fee-Based Service For You and Your Clients."
"This questionnaire helps us match each advisor‚s unique needs to the most appropriate fee-based solution. Just as advisors strive to find the most suitable product or service for their clients, this tool helps us find the most appropriate fee-based solution for each advisor. We are not believers in the one-size-fits-all mentality," says Mark Schoenbeck, vice president and director of advisory services.
For more information, call (800) 749-8900, ext. 54, or visit www.MutualService.com.
SEI Offers New Services
SEI Investments of Oaks, Pa., has been expanding its products for advisors over the last year, with offerings that include tax-loss harvesting, trust services and a managed-accounts program.