Products September 10, 2007

Schwab Institutional Adds Rebalancing Solution to Platform

Advisor Software, Inc., a provider of wealth management solutions for the advice market, has announced Schwab Institutional will offer ASI Portfolio Rebalancing Solution to all advisers using the Schwab Institutional platform.
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With the new solution on www.schwabinstitutional.com, advisers can, according to the announcement:

  • rebalance securities, including equities, mutual funds, ETFs, fixed income and cash, using real-time prices on positions;
  • select batches of accounts, single accounts and even households, with the ability to define households for rebalancing;
  • construct, import and maintain models for securities-based and target- asset allocation portfolios; and
  • import proposed trades into the Web Trading Applet for validation and execution.

ASI Portfolio Rebalancing Solution can be licensed by financial services organizations and allows advisers to rebalance more than 100 accounts simultaneously to an asset allocation or model portfolio target. Key features of the application include:

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  • Locking Capabilities – allows advisers to exclude securities from rebalancing.
  • Multiple Account Rebalancing – enables the concurrent rebalancing of multiple client accounts to the same model portfolio and the ability to generate the corresponding master trade list.
  • Household Rebalancing allows advisers to rebalance one or more accounts from the same household to an asset allocation or model portfolio target.
  • Style and Sector Analysis – provides advisers with a single portfolio view of all products within a household or single account.
  • Wide Investment Product Coverage – allows advisers to rebalance accounts with multiple product types including mutual funds, stocks, bonds and exchange traded funds in a single application.
  • Adviser Customization – allows advisers to configure the application to reflect an adviser’s existing practice by creating and saving asset allocation targets and model portfolios. Advisers also have the option to set custom constraints and generate proposals.
  • Integration Capabilities – allow integration with existing portfolio management systems.

For more information about Advisor Software’s solutions, visit http://www.advisorsoftware.com or call (925) 299-7782.

Products September 10, 2007

Fidelity, Sungard Introduce New Trading and Custody Platform Services

Fidelity Investments and SunGard have announced the addition of new services to their integrated trading and custody platform for trust institutions and third party administrators (TPAs).
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The new services include a directed trustee services program, a payment and reporting program for brokers who support retirement plans, and an online revenue management tool.

The Directed Trustee Services program helps TPAs that custody assets with Fidelity to streamline management of qualified retirement plans by providing access to the professional trustee services offered by Fidelity Personal Trust Company, the announcement said. Through Directed Trustee Services, plan sponsors can access fiduciary services to help reduce risk, audit expenses, and administrative costs.

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Paying Agent Services provide administrative support of contribution, distribution and loan processing, status reports on distributions, and IRS Form 1099-R tax reporting. Paying Agent Services can be bundled with Directed Trustee Services or are available on an unbundled basis, according to the announcement.

The Fidelity Institutional Broker Network is a program for broker/dealers and their representatives who service retirement plans through a TPA relationship. For broker/dealer firms, the service can act as a compliance resource and also provides automated payments of asset-based fees to broker/dealers through the NSCC Commission Settlement Service. The service also provides reporting to fund companies of broker/dealer representative relationships to the retirement plans and a Web application designed exclusively for broker/dealers.

The online revenue management tool helps TPAs monitor commission payments from multiple fund companies across the multiple retirement plans they service. Data is refreshed daily and the system confirms payments by account, position, and payment instructions and supports information searches by a number of criteria, including plan name/account number, security, broker/dealer, and payment type.

Clients can print a consolidated report directly from the revenue management system or export the information to a spreadsheet.

The Fidelity/SunGard integrated trading and custody platform utilizes the capabilities of the SunGard Transaction Network (STN).

More information can be found at www.sungard.com.

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