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.”

Fidelity execs said AMP will be designed to anticipate the role of an advisor, as online-only robo clients build assets and need more help.

This year, Fidelity also plans to access data feeds from other custodians to support its RIA clients who hold assets elsewhere.

“To do this right, and have a holistic solution on the desktop, you have to have [data from] all the business,” McCarthy said.

The firm is playing catch-up to other data aggregators, “ but sometimes it's good to be late to the market because you can avoid some of the pitfalls and legacy challenges,” McCarthy said.

Fidelity's latest integration efforts follow the completion last year of a separate effort to consolidate its RIA custody, broker-dealer clearing and family-office platforms within its Wealthscape advisor portal.