As consumer financial technology takes off and fees decline, advisors are seeing their margins squeezed. At the same time, clients have higher expectations about the technology their advisors can provide. That means fintech must be able to evolve to meet those demands.
To meet those challenges, the leading independent broker-dealer firms are rolling out new platforms and tools to help advisors compete effectively.
Commonwealth Financial Network
One issue that advisors continue to struggle with is secure communication with their clients. Advisors have a responsibility to protect confidential client information, especially in an age when imposters are learning how to impersonate clients. This is even more challenging for the advisors when clients often seem to favor convenience over security.
Many firms find it challenging to pass documents with confidential information back and forth—when accounts are opened, for instance, or when money movements are authorized. Confidential information must be kept confidential, but the communications channel cannot pose a bother to the client.
E-mail is fast and convenient, but unsecure. That conundrum also applies to texting with standard SMS messages. A fax is secure, but it’s old technology and many clients don’t have fax machines.
To address this issue, Commonwealth Financial launched its own secure messaging infrastructure earlier this year. Advisors and clients can access it through the company’s web portal or a mobile app (Commonwealth currently supports both the Apple and Android operating systems). Secure messaging helps advisors deal with both their operational and regulatory needs. The messages are archived, which helps the advisor stay in compliance with regulations, and the messaging system is integrated with Commonwealth’s proprietary CRM software, so the messages are linked to appropriate households and tracked.
To further help advisors with their operational efficiency, Commonwealth is rolling out its new CRM work flow engine. A work flow is a series of actions or tasks that can be launched together. These usually center around an event such as a client review meeting; a work flow might require, for example, that you complete three tasks before the meeting (perhaps remind the client, prepare reports and contact the client’s accountant) and then follow a number of steps after the meeting, too. Each step can be programmed to launch at a set interval before or after the event. These are known as “static work flows.”
Commonwealth has created a handful of work flow templates, such as one for opening new accounts and one that launches when a client dies. Advisors can modify these or create new ones as they like.
Commonwealth plans to add dynamic work flows as well. Unlike static work flows with set completion dates for each task, dynamic work flows can be adjusted on the fly. For example, if step one is scheduled for four days from now, followed by step two, also scheduled four days from now, a dynamic work flow would be able to adjust if step one required five days, so that step two would be pushed back. The second step could be programmed to maintain the original schedule (only three days for step two), or it could be programmed to allow the original allotment of four days.
Commonwealth is working on integrating texting into the CRM so that advisors can communicate with clients through text as opposed to e-mail. According to Darren Tedesco, the managing principal of innovation and strategy at Commonwealth, the firm is striving for a solution that meets the following criteria:
• It must ensure that clients can use their existing text apps.
• It would not require advisors to get a new phone number or a second phone.
• All communication could be seen in the CRM record.
According to Tedesco, Commonwealth recently upgraded its account aggregation capabilities. “We switched providers from Yodlee to Quovo,” he says. “While Quovo is not perfect, it is better than Yodlee.”
Commonwealth is rolling out a new, innovative account opening and authorization system called Propel that is designed to minimize the need for client signatures. When a client initiates a relationship with a Commonwealth advisor, he or she will sign a master service agreement. With this, the client can open additional accounts, change the options on existing accounts and transact many other types of business without needing to sign more documents.
Tedesco anticipates a full overhaul of the firm’s Client 360 suite of tools in 2018, including a complete refresh of the user interface.
LPL
Perhaps the biggest news at LPL is its long-awaited switch to a new advisor workstation, known as ClientWorks. LPL is now encouraging advisors who are still exclusively using the old system, BranchNet, to start transitioning to ClientWorks. The company has created a special service team to help advisors make the transition and is also offering education and training to ease the switch. LPL’s goal is to fully transition all advisors to ClientWorks by the end of November and at that time finally retire BranchNet.
The new platform is superior in every respect. It is faster, boasts more functions and has a more intuitive interface. It is also better equipped to work with and integrate the programs of outside firms. All of the newer LPL technologies available today, as well as those to be released in the future, will reside on ClientWorks.
For example, LPL requires that an advisor be on ClientWorks to sign up for Guided Wealth Portfolios, the LPL digital solution powered by BlackRock technology. LPL’s investment research team creates model portfolios on the platform that are implemented using BlackRock’s ETFs, giving advisors the ability to compete with direct-to-consumer robo-advisors. All of the GWP assets are custodied at LPL.
Both the advisor-facing GWP technology and the client-facing technology are deeply integrated with the LPL ecosystem, meaning that LPL advisors can view all of their accounts through one platform. Clients can view their GWP accounts through AccountView, the LPL client portal for both traditional and GWP accounts, or they can choose to view their GWP accounts through the GWP mobile app. Each day, GWP technology looks at each account for dynamic rebalancing opportunities. The technology does not rebalance accounts every day, but if there is a significant tax loss harvesting opportunity, asset class drift, cash flows in or out, or other opportunities, the system will initiate trades. The technology is smart enough to rebalance at the household level, and to incorporate asset location factors into the rebalancing algorithm.
LPL has also released the successor to its Portfolio Manager. “Client Reporting” is a modern, customizable, user-friendly portfolio management and reporting package. It allows users to create highly customizable, eye-pleasing portfolio reports without any database or programming knowledge. LPL provides a number of templates, including six that mirror those in the previous system (though they are much more modern and graphically pleasing), as a starting point. The templates consist of a number of reporting widgets. Advisors can drag the widgets around to reposition them on a page. They can also edit the widgets themselves using a simple interface. For example, you can change time periods, swap out columns of information for others, change the sorting order of columns, change the appearance of a graph, or convert a table to a graph.
Advisors can create their own templates as well. And templates can be shared with others. For example, if one person in an office is particularly adept at creating templates, that person can create them and share them with the whole office. The only issue here is that once a template is shared, it becomes community property. Any employee authorized to use the template can alter it. To protect the original, the author should make a copy of the original and share the copy, thereby ensuring that an original can be maintained.
LPL is venturing into the financial planning software space, initially in a small way, with Client Goals, which is scheduled for pilot release soon. This software is designed for advisors who find comprehensive financial planning too complex and time consuming, or advisors who do planning but who deal with some situations where a less complex solution is called for. LPL believes that a goal-based approach to planning is appropriate, and Client Goals is designed to make it easy for advisors to provide such a service. The initial version of Client Goals addresses retirement planning only, but there are plans to expand it in the future to encompass education, insurance, long-term care and other planning goals.
Client Goals sits inside of ClientWorks, and can be integrated with data at the household level—any information that resides in ClientWorks will automatically populate a plan. As data flows into the plan, the advisor has an opportunity to validate it as necessary. The software is interactive: As retirement plan assets and future projected retirement contributions are added, the client can immediately see the impact that any changes will have on the plan’s probability of success.
If a scenario shows a low probability of success for any goal, the advisor can manipulate common levers (to show what happens if a client saves more, devotes more assets to a plan, retires later, spends less in retirement, etc.). As the advisor manipulates these levers, the client can see the impact on the plan.
The advisor can also automate the process using the built-in optimizer, which makes use of all levers to create a plan with a reasonable probability of success.
When the advisor and client arrive at an acceptable plan, the software generates a simple three-page report that is eye pleasing and easy to understand. Page one summarizes the plan, page two lists all of the plan assumptions, and page three contains all the disclaimers. Once an advisor becomes experienced using the software, he or she should be able to generate plans in well under an hour.
LPL is also in the initial stages of developing what looks to be a highly competitive mobile app. But unfortunately, it will take some time until the app is completed and released.
Securities America
According to Doreen Griffith, executive vice president and chief information officer at Securities America, much of her firm’s technology focus in the recent past has been on regulatory and compliance issues, especially on the Department of Labor’s fiduciary rule.
But with most of the heavy lifting on those issues already done, the company is now focusing on the future. Griffith says that there are several design principles that guide the company’s approach to technology.
• It wants to enhance existing technology where possible.
• It wants to deliver technology and functionality more efficiently.
• It wants to use third-party technology firms where appropriate.
The firm has already begun work on a modernized advisor workstation and a client portal.
“We have a functional advisor workstation today,” says Griffith, but it is becoming dated. It is expected that the new workstation will have much in common with the one advisors use today, but it will be different. “We will improve on the functionality we have today,” says Griffith, “and we will offer it more efficiently.” The user interface, cybersecurity and integration will all be areas of focus as the development of the workstation progresses.
Griffith emphasizes that feedback from users plays a key role in the development process. Through a function called the “sales assistant counsel,” the company can reference the insight of assistants who interact with the system daily. They help design, test and provide best practices for the product.
Griffith also emphasizes that technology will be important to the firm and its advisors in the future.
“The demographics of the advisor community are changing. They will have to service more clients per advisor, that much is clear. Modern, efficient technology is the backbone of what our advisors need to successfully do business in the future.”
As Securities America has gone through the modernization process, the company has already uncovered several opportunities to use its existing technologies and make them better, though it was not willing to provide specifics this early in the process.
Since this is the first major revision to the workstation in some time, the changes will be phased in. Securities America expects to launch a pilot program in the second or third quarter of 2018, and then do a more broad-based release shortly thereafter.
The company is also trying to get more advisors to adopt its technology. It tracks advisors’ use of its tools to better understand what is being used. If a technology is not being used broadly, the company tries to analyze what the issue is and fix or improve the tool if necessary. In some cases, the problem is not the technology but a communications or training issue. Securities America is taking steps to validate whether its education and training are effective, and take remedial action where necessary.
For example, some advisors were not taking advantage of digital on-boarding. Securities America investigated and found that advisors required a deeper integration with Redtail CRM for the digital on-boarding process to work for them. The company then collaborated with Redtail to address the problem.
The company is also improving its cybersecurity training for advisors. By combining e-mail phishing tests with customized training, Securities America is improving the preparedness of its advisors to combat phishing attacks.
Constant Evolution
As these companies make clear, advisors and the broker-dealers that serve them must constantly innovate to stay competitive. Most broker-dealers are rising to the occasion, and the three we’ve discussed in this article are rewriting their advisor workstations, besides making other enhancements. It remains to be seen how these new products will be received by advisors, but users certainly have much to look forward to in the months ahead.