FinMason Integrates With Orion to Expand Advisors’ Planning Abilities: Portfolio Products

FinMason announced its integration with portfolio management solution provider Orion Advisor Services.

Through Orion’s Insight dashboard, Orion users can now access FinMason’s institutional-grade investment analytics platform, FinRiver, to deliver dynamic financial plans quickly and at scale.

“The need in the wealth management community for financial planning tools that are simple to use, readily accessible, and seamlessly integrated has never been greater,” said Kendrick Wakeman, CEO of FinMason. “By embedding our financial planning analytics capabilities directly within Orion Insight, a platform so widely used and trusted, advisors can expand the scope of their planning efforts efficiently and easily.”

FinRiver allows advisors to deliver financial projections based on current saving and spending patterns, including the probability of achieving future goals, potential outcomes of different savings and spending rates, and the effects of special spending events, such as buying a house or paying for college.

Orion’s integration framework also enables data from FinMason’s platform to be accessed from within Orion’s advisor dashboard, Client Portal, and Salesforce and Redtail integrations. As a result, advisors can create comprehensive and compelling reports showing both the performance of investments and the progress toward a financial plan.

Fiserv Enhances Its Unified Wealth Platform With UMA Capabilities

Fiserv Inc. is enabling financial advisors to operate more efficiently through enhanced unified managed account (UMA) capabilities.

Citing increased popularity in UMAs, Fiserv built a new interface and streamlined workflow within its Unified Wealth Platform that will optimize portfolio management and trading of UMAs.

The UMA has become the destination for all packaged managed account programs, including mutual fund, separate account and ETF wrap products.

Fiserv’s open structure and intuitive user interface will allow advisors to shift between managed account programs, asset allocations, and even strategist selections, without administrative or operational friction.

The new enhancements from Fiserv allow advisors to easily access robust UMA portfolio management and trading capabilities, with more flexibility in overlay programs.

The new user experience and more efficient workflow is combined with enhanced services that support decision-making, order generation and cash management, as well as the management and routing of proposed orders.

In addition, trading, switching between overlay managers and investing money are more efficient, decreasing time to market.

Charles River and Broadridge Partner to Enable Clients to Reduce Risk and Improve Productivity

Charles River Development and Broadridge Financial Solutions announced a formalized business alliance to allow for better integration with the SWIFT network in the Charles River Investment Management Solution (Charles River IMS).

This alliance was formed following the recent mandate from the Securities and Exchange Commission to decrease settlement times from T+3 to T+2 in order to enhance efficiency, reduce risk, and ensure a coordinated and expeditious transition to a shortened settlement cycle.

Broadridge’s SWIFT solution, which is used by more than 100 clients globally, accelerates the adoption of industry standard ISO formats to facilitate timely settlement and accurate start of day positions in the Charles River IMS. Broadridge will also support unlimited routing choices to send and receive messages across the SWIFT network, while Charles River will generate messages in ISO 15022/20222 formats, process SWIFT-formatted replies from custodians, and provide seamless application workflow support.

The alliance ensures Charles River’s buy-side clients can use SWIFT messaging to notify custodians of incoming trades, receive notifications from custodians confirming trade settlement, notify custodians of collateral transfer for margin calls and facilitate the transmission of start-of-day positions and transactions from custodians into the Charles River Investment Book of Record (IBOR).

American Portfolios Launches Client-Facing Portal Within Its Tech Platform

American Portfolios Financial Services Inc. has launched Client Access, a new investor-focused application on the company’s proprietary technology platform, HomePort.

With this launch, American Portfolios’ affiliated colleagues may now offer their clients the ability to engage more directly with their accounts by performing various online functions. HomePort – Client Access increases efficiencies in investment professionals’ practices, as well as American Portfolios’ home office, providing back-end support and services to the firm’s growing advisor community.

Through HomePort – Client Access, investors can view any mailings that the independent broker-dealer has sent them on behalf of their American Portfolios-affiliated investment professional.

Within the self-service application, investors are also able to opt out of receiving mailings and will be notified via email when new documents are on file.

In addition, investors who have access to their accounts through Albridge or NetX Investor will be able to log into those applications from within HomePort – Client Access. American Portfolios expects that future editions of the application will allow investors to opt out of Pershing’s physical mailings; to update New Account Form information tied to their investor record held at American Portfolios; and program the application to automatically grant portal access to any investor whose email address, cell phone number and client signature page are all on file.

Northern Trust Launches New Fund

Northern Trust Asset Management announced the introduction of the Northern Engage360 Fund. The fund, which has a net expense ratio of 0.70%, aims to promote diversity within investment management.

The fund uses a multi-manager approach to allocate to subadvisors based on their investment expertise and a demonstrated commitment to advancing and promoting diversity. The fund will invest at least 80% of its net assets in equity securities of companies listed on a domestic or foreign exchange.

Under normal circumstances, the fund will invest at least 40%, and may invest up to 100%, of its net assets in equity securities of companies economically tied to a non-U.S. country, including emerging and frontier market countries.

—Read last week’s portfolio product roundup here: AssetMark Acquires Global Financial Private Capital: Portfolio Products