A just-launched software purports to compliantly connect asset managers and financial advisors for the delivery and distribution of content, and it already has some heavyweight partners on board.
4U Platform announced on Tuesday its official launch, securing adoption by T. Rowe Price, Morgan Stanley and Morningstar, among others.
The platform is intended to be used by marketing and compliance teams, relationship managers, advisors, product teams, wholesalers and others to streamline the process of delivering content to the end investor by enabling direct communication and information to be shared between investment companies and wealth management firms. It also promises to overcome “legacy issues around lengthy approval time and manual processes” and to offer information and analytics to boost firms’ return on investment.
“The current industry model has no comprehensive nor fully accurate means of calculating the ROI of investment dollars," said Denise Wypiszenski, 4U founder and co-CEO, in released comments. "Listening to our partner feedback, we felt it was necessary to build a new way to address this problem and create a bridge between investment companies and wealth management firms."
She stated the new engagement platform enhances efficiencies and communication, and uncovers opportunity through valuable data.
"We couldn’t have done this without the collaboration of our partners, who continue to drive innovative practices in the financial industry," she said. "Our goal is to have 4U Platform adopted by every financial services firm.”
Content that can be shared across the platform includes seminars, research, fact sheets, client education, webinars, podcasts, videos and product information, all of which can be controlled using permissions.
4U includes platform components like 4U Connect, a collaborative portal that exists as a common app for investment companies and wealth management firms to upload and share content for marketing review and approval through a unified interface; and 4U Engage, a secure, customizable dashboard advisors can use to access content already approved by their firm. Wealth management firms that opt-in to 4U Engage are able to access analytics to help them optimize the platform.
4U was founded in 2015 by several financial industry veterans, including co-founders and co-CEOs Wypiszenski and Arin Epstein. The firm said it collaborated with more than 50 investment companies and many of the top wealth management firms and platform providers to create its software.
In designing the platform, the founders intended to help advisors use more of the product, services and content being provided by the greater financial industry to help the end client. Most of the providers of investment products and services spend billions of dollars on marketing, and generally produce “too much noise and too little engagement,” according to 4U’s announcement.