Upgrades

Pershing LLC has rolled out its NetX360 technology platform to 1,000 beta users on both the broker/dealer and RIA channels, following two years of development work by some 500 people. The platform integrates a host of applications on one “financial browser” platform with a customizable home page, including portfolio management, CRM, document management, financial planning, and research. Users can create their own dashboards, and the trading platform is powered by a rules engine that can use up to 400 rules. The platform includes a “My Workbook” application that allows an advisor or rep to view the metrics of their practice (or book of business) at the same level of detail as with a client’s individual account, along with built-in monitoring and compliance tools. The platform allows a user to crate a financial plan within NetX360, using whatever software the user wants, and also has interfaces to Pershing PMA managed account platform, and even to held-away assets, and with a single report center featuring reports in plain English. With the flexibility of using specific applications for even short periods of time, Suresh Kumar, CIO of Pershing, likened NetX360 to an “apps store on an iPhone.”

… Fidelity Investments and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts announced an agreement that gives Fidelity’s retail and institutional brokerage customers access to initial public offerings and follow-on offerings of KKR companies, while providing KKR’s capital markets business with a new retail distribution channel. The agreement will give Fidelity exclusive access to retail securities allocated to KKR in all U.S. public offerings in which KKR participates as an underwriter to Fidelity’s retail brokerage customers as well as to accounts managed by Fidelity’s RIA, correspondent broker/dealer, and other institutional clients

…In a bid to ensure its yields remain competitive, Vanguard plans by early August to merge the $6.7 billion Vanguard Treasury Money Market Fund (VMPXX) into the lower-cost $21.8 billion Vanguard Admiral Treasury Money Market Fund (VUSXX). In addition, Vanguard says it has closed the Vanguard Federal Money Market Fund to all new accounts and to additional purchases from current institutional accounts

…Document management company Laserfiche has introduced Avante, software designed to make its business process management technology–which includes document management, Workflow, Snapshot, and e-mail functions for $500 per license, which the company calls an “attractive price point” to both RIAs and independent broker/dealers