Schwab Unit Allays Advisor Concerns Over eMoney

A long-awaited integration between Schwab Advisor Services and the eMoney financial planning software is set to begin later this year.

The announcement, made this week at the T3 advisor conference in Garden Grove, Calif., is significant given that eMoney is owned by Schwab's arch rival Fidelity.

Advisors have been concerned about access to eMoney ever since Fidelity bought the software firm in October 2015.

The announcement this week should alleviate some of those concerns, officials from the two firms said during the event.

“We're now proving true to our word,” said Jessica Liberi, vice president of product management at eMoney.

“Clients been asking for this for quite awhile, and we're just excited to [show that] we're committed to doing it,” said Brian Shenson, vice president of advanced technology solutions at Schwab Advisor Services.

The first phase of the integration will begin rolling out later this year, and include delivery of customer statement information, tax documents and trade confirmations and client documents to the eMoney vault.

Shenson and Liberi envision deeper integration down the road, including a single sign-in capability.

Schwab already integrates with competing planning programs MoneyGuidePro and Advicent.

Fidelity, though, has a leg up with its own eMoney integration. The firm is building its advisor and client platforms around the eMoney technology.

“It a unique relationship we have with eMoney,” said Tom McCarthy, senior vice president of platform technology at Fidelity Investments. Although eMoney is integrating with other custodians, “ours is very different and very deep. You don't know when you're in the eMoney platform” or the Fidelity platform, he said.

A case in point is Fidelity's robo offering, the Automated Managed Platform, or AMP, which was co-developed with eMoney. AMP is set for a full roll out around the middle of this year.

“We think it's the first planning-oriented digital platform in the marketplace,” said Gary Gallagher, senior vice president at Fidelity who heads up the robo effort. “It really brings the eMoney experience with tight integration into our transactional capabilities.”