Ward served previously as head of the Prudential Retirement
investment-only stable value business. He now reports to Jamie Kalamarides,
senior vice president and head of Prudential Retirement’s institutional
investment solutions group.
Ward oversaw more than $75 billion in institutional account
values in his previous role in the investment-only stable value business and
was responsible for driving growth of the firm’s defined contribution
investment-only channel. He also contributed to the development of a stable
value wrap solution for 529 plans. Prior to joining Prudential Retirement’s
stable value team, Ward led the strategy, planning and project management
organization at Prudential Retirement, as well as the full-service existing
business pricing team.
Kalamarides says the promotion reflects Prudential’s
commitment to growth opportunities in stable value. He says the firm plans to
continue efforts to develop new products, channels, markets and methods in the
area of stable value investing.
Ward holds a bachelor’s of business administration degree in
marketing from Boston College and an executive M.B.A. in management from New
York University’s Stern School of Business.
More
information on Prudential’s stable value offerings is available here. Prudential
Retirement is a business unit of Prudential Financial, Inc.
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Schwab RIA Custody Data Added to Morningstar Office
Schwab
Intelligent Technologies reached an agreement with Morningstar, Inc. through
which the investment research provider will participate in the Schwab OpenView
Gateway technology platform.
By joining the Schwab OpenView Gateway platform, Morningstar
now has direct access to Schwab systems and those of other participating
technology providers. The integration will make real-time custodial data from
Charles Schwab available within Morningstar Office—a scalable practice and
portfolio management platform that facilitates advanced research, performance
reporting and secure client communications.
Schwab says the new technology enhancements are part of its
ongoing effort to integrate with new platforms and technology systems tailored
for independent registered investment advisers (RIAs). This particular
integration should help RIAs make more informed investing decisions and provide
better client service through improved efficiency in their practices, Schwab
says.
“Morningstar Office is a popular solution among the advisers
we serve, and we currently have more than 1,000 shared clients who could
benefit from our new working relationship,” explains Neesha Hathi, senior vice
president for adviser technology solutions, Schwab Advisor Services. “Working
with Morningstar underscores our continued commitment to a flexible, open
architecture technology platform for better business outcomes.”
Currently, more than 2,000 independent advisers on Schwab’s
platform use some facet of Morningstar’s data and research offerings, Hathi
explains, highlighting the opportunity for wide scale integration between the
companies.
“This agreement allows Morningstar to deliver more value to
independent RIAs,” adds Tricia Rothschild, head of global adviser solutions for
Morningstar.
In a related announcement, Schwab
provided additional updates on its Client Experience Transformed initiative. After
a successful pilot, Schwab will proceed with the phased launch of new
electronic approval tools allowing clients of RIAs to easily and securely
approve forms and wires on the go. Schwab says the new tools help advisers
drive efficiency and deliver a better client experience by streamlining
paperwork and speeding up transaction processing.
Schwab
also announced that Project PM2 (pronounced “PM squared”) will be in beta
testing later this year and will be launched in 2015. Project PM2 will allow
advisers to use Schwab data to create customized dashboards, reports and
presentations.
In addition to these announcements, Schwab also provided
details on a number of other integration updates impacting the Schwab OpenView
Gateway platform. These include the following:
MoneyGuidePro
– The full integration with Gateway has now launched, enabling advisers to
link client profiles and account information back to MoneyGuidePro’s
financial planning software system. This can help advisers save time on
data entry and create more precise snapshots of assets and future
investment scenarios.
Naviplan
by Advicent – Integration with the Naviplan financial planning tool is
now available for independent advisers. This integration will allow advisers
to directly transfer client profiles, accounts, holdings, balances and
fees to increase the speed and accuracy of financial plans. The
integration can also help advisers reduce manual data entry.
Salentica
Inc. – Schwab has initiated the second phase of integration with
Salentica CRM Advisor Edition. This increases data accessibility and
enables unified client service processing from within the Salentica client
relationship management (CRM) system, Schwab says. The offering will be
made generally available late July.
Advisor
Rebalancingby Envestnet / Tamarac
– Now in a pilot program stage with trade integration capabilities,
Advisor Rebalancing allows advisers to submit trade files they produce
directly to Schwab via Schwab OpenView Gateway.
Junxure
– Following Junxure’s comprehensive desktop integration with Gateway,
Junxure and Schwab are moving into pilot with integration of Junxure’s
cloud-based CRM solution, Junxure Cloud.
“The continued evolution of added capabilities and
integration with participants further enhances the technology solutions
available to advisers, helping to not only improve client service, but to save
time and drive efficiency,” Hathi says. “Combined with hands-on consultative
guidance from Schwab on how to optimize this technology, advisers can put
themselves in a position to serve clients better, now and in the future.”
More
information about Schwab technology programs is available here.