At the recently concluded Technology Tools for Today (T3) Advisor Conference, Fidelity unveiled, for the first time, the vision for its next-generation “total advisor” technology platform—designed to help registered investment advisors, broker-dealers, banks and family offices digitize their businesses. This new platform, developed in close collaboration with Fidelity’s clearing and custody clients, centers around a new workstation, called Wealthscape, that will serve as a gateway to connect firms to new Fidelity tools and third-party solutions, including eMoney Advisor’s wealth planning software.
To those of you familiar with Fidelity’s current technology platform offerings, the Wealthscape name may sound familiar. Today, Fidelity offers a platform called “WealthCentral” (primarily designed for independent RIAs) and Streetscape (a platform that primarily supports broker-dealer reps and hybrid advisors). The “Wealthscape” name represents the melding of these two platforms, along with other functions (such as those in Family Office) into a single, comprehensive one. Although it has not been obvious to casual observers, Fidelity has been taking steps behind the scenes for a number of years to integrate all of the functionality that financial intermediaries might need into a single platform. Wealthscape is the culmination of that effort, and a lot more.
“Advisors today are faced with a paradox of choice,” said Ed O’Brien, head of technology for Fidelity Institutional. “Technology options have grown exponentially in recent years, making the mapping of technology time consuming and complicated. For firms that want help designing their technology architecture, our ‘total advisor platform’ removes the guesswork of linking it all together. For firms that want to manage their own technology, Fidelity remains committed to an open-architecture environment.”
The new Wealthscape total advisor platform is designed to drive transparency, efficiency and growth for three types of users.
- Financial advisors will benefit from advanced analytics, automated work flows and an integrated suite of portfolio management solutions, all supported by a consolidated data platform that Fidelity says will be multi-custodial. Those advisors who leverage eMoney’s emX suite of software applications will benefit from deep integration with Wealthscape, which will allow them to move swiftly from collaborative planning with clients to actions such as trading and moving assets.
- End investors, the clients of advisors, will have access to a new, improved client portal. Advisors using eMoney can offer their clients an investor experience deeply integrated with Fidelity’s clearing and custody capabilities so clients can organize their financial lives in one place.
- Home office professionals will be able to focus their teams on higher-value activities through integrated work flows and tools like data visualization to comprehend and act on advanced analytics.
During his keynote talk at the T3 conference, O’Brien framed the development of Wealthscape as “a simplicity play”—taking a complex technology landscape and simplifying it for Fidelity clients. He highlighted five areas of emphasis, or “Big Plays” for Wealthscape.
Big Play No. 1 is a deep integration with eMoney, empowering advisors to move seamlessly from planning to action. For the investor, this means Fidelity communications (such as statements, trade confirmations, etc.) are delivered directly to the eMoney client vault. Investors will be able to enroll for eDelivery and perform account maintenance tasks from within the eMoney portal as well. For the advisor, this means a holistic view of his or her business from within eMoney. This play is piloting in the first quarter of 2016, to be followed by general availability later this year, with further enhancements thereafter.
Big Play No. 2 is the integrated suite of portfolio management tools. The suite will include proposal generation, modeling, performance reporting, advanced rebalancing and fee billing. Modeling, performance reporting and advanced rebalancing are scheduled to pilot in the fourth quarter of 2016, with client profiling, proposal generation and fee billing being piloted in 2017.
Big Play No. 3 is the consolidated data platform. Fidelity’s plan calls for the delivery of the most comprehensive, multi-custodial data platform in the industry. The idea is to provide a holistic view of wealth for the advisor and the end client. The client data will be fully reconciled and performance-ready. Access to Fidelity client data will be available in 2016, with multi-custodial data scheduled for 2017. In addition, the data platform will power advanced analytics empowering deeper conversations with clients and potentially driving better planning outcomes.
Big Play No. 4 is the layering of automated work flows on top of this platform to drive efficiencies, to power growth and to allow advisors to manage risk. Work flows have traditionally been the focus of broker-dealer home offices, but Wealthscape will deliver automated work flows from the home office (if applicable) to the advisor, and from the advisor to the end investor. To cite just a few examples, work flows for the advisors will streamline time-consuming activities such as client on-boarding and their preparation for client meetings by using smart analytics and data visualization. For end investor clients, work flows will simplify things with digital signatures and paperwork submissions.
Big Play No. 5 is a single point of access to all of Fidelity’s capabilities through Wealthscape.