Products October 23, 2007

Fidelity Integrates Wealth Management Systems into One Workstation

Fidelity Investments is developing a Web-based wealth management platform that integrates Registered Investment Advisers’ (RIAs) most critical operational systems into one unified workstation.
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According a press release, Fidelity WealthCentral will offer advisers:

  • Access to leading applications, including CRM, financial planning, and portfolio management.
  • Streamlined workflows so advisers can avoid data re-entry. The product will also offer single sign-on and allow advisers to pre-fill Fidelity forms, such as account applications.
  • Comprehensive client views, including an aggregated view of each client relationship. The product will be multi-custodial, so advisers get a more accurate view of the relationship. Additionally, WealthCentral will be client-centric as opposed to account-centric, i.e., advisers access information by name and household relationships instead of by account number.
  • Internet hosting that saves advisers the cost of software and staff time needed to manage and upgrade software.
  • Centralized support and service through Fidelity on all applications associated with the platform.

Fidelity also announced it has selected San Francisco-based Advent Software to provide its Advent Back Office Service (ABOS), which will deliver Advent Portfolio Exchange (APX) software as an outsourced solution in WealthCentral. ABOS will download, post, reconcile, and manage advisers’ client data from multiple custodians on a daily basis.

The availability of APX functionality through WealthCentral will also help advisers integrate trading and portfolio management functions with CRM and financial planning tools, eliminate the need to re-enter or transfer client data across multiple platforms, create customized management reports, and access portfolio data anytime, anywhere through the internet.

CRM from Oracle, financial planning from EISI, and portfolio management and reporting services from Advent will all be compatible with each other, allowing advisers to enter client information once, into one system, and have it automatically pre-populate and update across the platform’s various applications.

WealthCentral will become available in late 2008. Prior to that time, advisers will be able to experience the benefits of the integrated Oracle and EISI applications via Advisor CHANNEL beginning later this year, while ABOS will be available in early 2008, the announcement said.

Fidelity research found that two-thirds of RIAs view a single platform integrating all their functionalities as “valuable’ and half see it as “very valuable.’ In addition, the research revealed RIAs are frustrated with the amount of time spent on manual administrative and repetitive tasks such as re-keying client data.

Information about Fidelity WealthCentral can be found at http://fiws.fidelity.com/wealthcentral.

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