BridgePortfolio yesterday announced it expanded its service offerings to financial advisors by adding portfolio management platform capabilities and trading tools from CheckFree.

   Based in Chicago, BridgePortfolio provides various outsourced services ranging from model portfolio trading and private-label web sites to account administration and performance reporting. Registered independent advisors comprise most of its 60 client firms. BridgePortfolio chief marketing officer David Edstrom says the addition of the CheckFree APL portfolio management system and the CheckFree EPL Trading Tools expands trading and rebalancing features in such areas as unified managed accounts and multiple discipline accounts, and among other things helps advisors create their own ETF models across groups of accounts. BridgePortfolio's system works across multiple custodians. 

   "It's an automated system," Edstrom says. "All the advisor has to do is trade." He adds that the arrangement enables BridgePortfolio's collective client group to tap into CheckFree's products, which traditionally are built around larger firms, and allows CheckFree to reach a part of the advisory market it normally doesn't target. 

   CheckFree is a subsidiary of Fiserv, Inc., a Brookfield, Wisc. company that serves the financial and insurance industries.