Orion Integrates Data Aggregator Quovo as T3 Tech Conference Kicks Off

As the advisory industry’s biggest technology conference kicks off its annual meetup for broker-dealers, two tech players have announced a deal that brings aggregated data from thousands of financial institutions to a leading portfolio trading and rebalancing system.

Account-aggregation startup Quovo Inc. announced on Tuesday, the first day of the Technology Tools for Today (T3) conference for enterprises in Atlanta, that it has integrated with the Orion Advisor Services portfolio platform. For advisors, the key to the integration is the Quovo data management dashboard, which gives them the ability to view clients’ held-away account assets.

The integration news comes as competition grows fierce for the few software providers that offer aggregation services. Advisors, meanwhile, are under increasing pressure to provide a full picture of clients’ wealth.

In April, asset management and research giant Morningstar Inc. acquired ByAllAccounts for $28 million, thus gaining access to the firm’s approximately 2,100 clients. In 2011, meanwhile, Fiserv acquired CashEdge for $465 million.

Quovo’s option runs alongside ByAllAcounts, so Orion’s clients have a choice of account aggregators.

“With easier to use, more reliable data management features and flexible, tiered pricing based on numbers of accounts synced per advisor, account aggregation will be accessible to a broader population of Orion advisors than ever before,” said Lowell Putnam, Quovo’s chief executive officer, in a statement.

Thirty-something Putnam, a Harvard grad and Lehman Brothers veteran, is the great-grandson of Putnam Investments founder George Putnam.