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September 03, 2020 at 02:05 PM
Orion Advisor Tech CEO Eric Clarke.
Charles Schwab and Fidelity Institutional have joined the Orion Portfolio Solutions turnkey asset management platform as part of a comprehensive update announced Thursday.
The addition of Schwab as a custodian option deepens the firms’ existing partnership in a move that immediately expands the Orion platform to a much larger pool of assets, Orion said. Schwab integrated its digital account opening tool with Orion Tech last year.
Fidelity, meanwhile, has added its core lineup of investment strategies to both OPS and Communities, Orion Advisor Tech’s model marketplace. Orion Communities is now offering Fidelity’s lineup of 30-plus model portfolios and model-delivered separately managed accounts, while OPS will feature eight Fidelity model portfolios and a themed model SMA strategy.
At the same time, the TAMP has undergone a variety of technology and user improvements that went live for users this week, including support for Orion’s automated marketing software, a new proposal generation system and a new risk scoring rubric.
Industry Insiders’ Views
The additions of Fidelity and Schwab are “a huge deal,” since “Orion gets instant distribution to two of the largest platforms in the industry,” said Tim Welsh, president, CEO and founder of consulting firm Nexus Strategy, in an interview with ThinkAdvisor.
“It definitely puts them on an even playing field with everyone in the industry in the TAMP world,” Welsh explained. “This will be a big competitive threat to Envestnet.”
(Envestnet did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Orion’s announcement.)
Also significant are the enhancements to Orion’s marketing tools, because those “are always a big deal,” Welsh said, noting the “number one request from any advisor is ‘help me grow,’ so those digital tools will be in high demand.”
It was a “brilliant strategic move by Orion to build out that marketing platform,” he added.
More Market*r Details
Noting that proactive client acquisition is the “first step in developing a strong advisor-client relationship,” Orion said it started to extend Market*r, its automated prospecting and campaign building solution, to advisors leveraging the OPS platform.
It says this development should help advisors “bring prospects to their virtual doorstep with customizable, omnichannel campaigns tied to personalized goals, immediately setting the stage for planning engagements,” the platform provider explained in a press release.
