TD Ameritrade Institutional Gives “Analog” Advisors New Tools to Compete in a Digital Age
In an era of accelerating technology change, independent registered investment advisors (RIAs) can still compete — and thrive — if they have the right tools, elevate their client-facing technology and work with partners and collaborators committed to their long-term success.
Embracing technology and innovation was one of the key messages from TD Ameritrade Institutional1, as nearly 2,000 advisors gathered in San Diego for its 21st annual advisor conference, National LINC 2017.
Creating new opportunities for “analog” RIAs to build and grow their firms in a digital age, TD Ameritrade Institutional today introduced RIAs to three new technology solutions:
- Veo One®, the next generation of open-architecture advisor technology, brings multiple technology applications onto one platform to offer RIAs a complete view of client portfolios and their business
- Veo One Analytics, a suite of diagnostic and benchmarking tools that will deliver critical business data to advisors through Veo One
- TD Ameritrade Institutional Model Market Center, which will use the power of iRebal® to streamline portfolio management by creating a supermarket of plug and play investment models
And because even the best tools aren’t much good without the right know-how, TD Ameritrade Institutional created a Technology Consulting Team that works one-on-one with RIAs to help them as they select and implement the right solutions and get the most value from their technology spending.
“Client expectations about how they receive advice are totally changing — and it’s not just millennials,” said Tom Nally, president, TD Ameritrade Institutional. “A great digital experience is no longer a ‘nice-to-have’ but a ‘must-have’ for advisors working with all types of clients and across all levels of wealth. We want to help RIAs elevate their technology game and spend more time delivering the kind of services and personal relationships you won’t find in a machine.”
Veo One Is Here
A first step toward the future of wealth management is Veo One, a brokerage and custody platform that brings all of an advisor’s technology tools together in one place with one sign-on.
Five years ago, TD Ameritrade Institutional pioneered an open architecture approach when it created Veo Open Access, to give RIAs more choice and flexibility when choosing technology providers. Today, 115 firms have integrated their advisor technology solutions with Veo, helping advisors realize greater efficiencies and keep pace with industry innovation.
With Veo One, TD Ameritrade Institutional introduces a better advisor experience by bringing together technology RIAs use every day. Out of the gate, deep integrations with 14 widely used technology solutions allow seamless connections between applications and streamlined workflows in a single view.
Advisors input data once and see it updated across all of their applications. Veo One is “responsive,” which means it is accessible through any desktop, laptop or mobile device. Pages are easy to customize and personalize by job role, for traders, operations managers or principals. Advanced alerts and triggers allow different technology solutions to cooperate in the background and automate daily tasks, further increasing efficiencies for advisors.
Deeper integration means less manual data entry, saving time and reducing errors as changes are shared across applications. Veo One can learn user preferences over time, anticipating next steps.
The platform, which went live in the fall of 2016, will add new functionality and integrate more technology providers over the course of this year and beyond.
Big Data is a Big Deal
Access to the right data and knowing how your firm stacks up against peers can help businesses improve performance. At the same time, advisors can feel like they are drowning in data, or daunted by the prospect of wading through lengthy reports to pluck out key metrics that are relevant to their firms.
With that in mind, TD Ameritrade Institutional is rolling out Veo One Analytics — a suite of real-time, online diagnostic and benchmarking tools that will deliver timely, actionable data to advisors through Veo One.
Leading the way is the FA Insight Benchmarking Tool, powered by more than a decade of industry data collected by FA Insight, the research firm acquired by TD Ameritrade last year. This tool gives advisors a better view into their client demographics and behavior, operational effectiveness and business performance – and how they are performing relative to the competition.
Available to Veo One users later this year, the FA Insight Benchmarking tool creates a customized report and shows advisors what levers they can pull to improve performance. The dashboards also will help connect advisors to TD Ameritrade Institutional educational resources and workshops.
Advisors attending National LINC can see a demonstration of the FA Insight Benchmarking Tool in the Business Consulting Loungeand leave with a customized benchmarking data report.
iRebal Power Drives New Enhancements
Since its debut in 2013, more than 2,500 advisor firms and more than 10,000 individual users have adopted iRebal on Veo, a cloud-based, automated portfolio management technology that is putting spreadsheets to pasture. What used to take days, can now be completed in a matter of hours.
Since then, TD Ameritrade Institutional has introduced numerous enhancements to further streamline the rebalancing process. It also took steps to help third-party technology firms pair their roboadvice solutions with iRebal’s trading capabilities on the back end. This integration capability can help traditional RIAs match up against roboadvisors by delivering a better client-facing technology experience.
TD Ameritrade Institutional today unveiled plans for yet another extension of iRebal capabilities: the TD Ameritrade Institutional Model Market Center. Advisors can already program their own investment models for iRebal to execute. Now, TD Ameritrade Institutional is opening the door for advisors to utilize the models of other asset managers and investment strategists.
The Model Market Center will help advisors choose from a supermarket of third-party models to manage portfolios while still retaining trading discretion over their clients’ accounts. Advisors can plug and play at a lower cost than traditional outsourced investment solutions. Moreover, there will be no investment minimums for assets held with TD Ameritrade Institutional.
“The automation of money management can be good news for RIAs if they use technology to deliver a great digital experience, increase efficiency and build stronger client relationships,” Nally continued. “RIAs have been the fastest-growing channel in financial advice.2 Today, the industry has a historic opportunity to sustain its growth by embracing change and innovation.”
Source: AMTD
