Looking ahead, what is TD Ameritrade doing to maintain its open platform lead? The answer: plenty. In March 2016, the company rolled out Advanced Alerts (formerly known as the “Message Bus.”) Advanced Alerts represent a communications pipeline that all technology partners can monitor. Currently, TD Ameritrade pushes operational alerts to vendor/partners and allows vendors to access potentially missed messages through the API. When something relevant happens, it triggers an alert, that all firms monitoring the pipeline can “hear.” 

These advanced alerts can then trigger an action or even a work flow. For example, if a CRM system such as Junxure Cloud sees that a client address has been changed within the TD Ameritrade platform, it can either automatically update the client record to the new address, or it can launch a work flow to initiate confirmation of the change. If a client deposits funds with TD Ameritrade, it can trigger a work flow to invest the money in alignment with the client’s investment policy statement. It is important to note that these advanced alerts are not just point to point. They can trigger work flows and share data across multiple applications. TD Ameritrade plans to expand the scope of Advanced Alerts in the coming months to include many aspects of cash management, trading and account management. 

TD Ameritrade is continuing to build out VEO One, its next generation advisor workstation. The June 2016 release added trading, new navigation and an action menu. There are currently over a dozen vendors integrated with VEO One, and TD Ameritrade will slowly be adding other vendors to the platform in the coming months. One of the primary goals of VEO One is to provide advisors with even deeper integration through a single unified dashboard where they can conduct all of their business, should they wish to do so. 

VEO One allows advisors to arrange widgets on the VEO One dashboard. These widgets can offer a view of a web page from within the TD Ameritrade ecosystem, as well as views from a CRM system, a portfolio management system, a financial planning application, etc. The system also has advanced search capabilities powered by the Google Search Appliance. So, for example, an advisor might search for a client or a household. The dashboard could then contain a list of outstanding tasks related to the client from the CRM, as well as a personal balance sheet from the financial planning software. The performance would be displayed from the portfolio management and reporting software. 

Generally speaking, you can drill down for more information by clicking on an item. That will bring you, in context, to the applicable page within the proper software application. One important feature of VEO One is that a firm can establish dashboard templates according to function, so an advisor will have a view of information relevant to the advisor, while an operations person will see data relevant to his or her own tasks. Once individual users tweak the views to their liking, the software remembers views at the individual user level. 

One current limitation to VEO One is that it only allows for a widget in one of two sizes. Some views are displayed in the smaller widget only, some in the larger, and some offer a choice of the two. Eventually, TD Ameritrade plans to offer developers flexibility to create widgets that can be resized. 

Another limitation of VEO One is that it requires trial and error on the part of users to find the optimal layout of widgets on the dashboard to obtain maximum efficiency. TD Ameritrade has plans to address that issue as well. Through the use of big data, the company hopes to analyze the relative usage and efficiencies of all VEO One users. That will help it determine what layouts seem to work best for a use case. For example, if your firm’s operations staff trails the benchmark of other similar firms performing similar tasks, the software will be able to suggest more efficient layouts that can save time. With the recent purchase of FA Insight, TD Ameritrade now has access to a trove of additional data that it can leverage and deliver through VEO One to help its advisors improve their business performance.

TD Ameritrade recently launched an upgraded version of its Integration Analyzer software. This software helps advisors construct a software ecosystem that best suits the needs of their firms. Advisors can enter their current software applications and see, at a glance, if these integrate with TD Ameritrade or their other software products, and if so, how well. They can then propose adding or subtracting applications to see the impact changes will have on their overall ecosystem.

One final big idea that TD Ameritrade is very excited about is the concept of co-creation. To date, much of the building of the VEO infrastructure has been the primary responsibility of TD Ameritrade. For example, the company has designed the infrastructure of VEO and VEO One, published APIs, and allowed third-party developers to write to them. That’s not to say that VEO partners had little say. They did provide a tremendous amount of input. And it’s not to say that third-party developers did not make important contributions. They did. Co-creation, however, is designed to take this third-party input and development to a whole new level. It opens up an opportunity for TD Ameritrade to work together with its 100-plus vendor/partners to create new widgets and integration features for VEO One.

Although TD Ameritrade’s approach to technology remains very popular with advisors, it is not without its risks. At what point does adding vendors result in diminishing returns? Managing such a wide range of technology relationships requires a significant resource commitment. The challenge of maintaining security while managing so many external vendor relationships requires continued diligence. Furthermore, other custodians are taking a more open approach to technology as well, so TD Ameritrade no longer has a monopoly on open platforms. To cite just one example, Pershing recently announced a new open API store and other enhancements to foster integration and collaboration with third-party technology vendors.

For now, though, TD Ameritrade appears to be achieving its goals of choice, flexibility and efficiency. If VEO One is released on schedule, it should help maintain the company’s position in a very competitive RIA custodian marketplace.  

First « 1 2 » Next