Fidelity Investments announced two new technology offerings developed specifically for smaller and mid-sized registered investment advisors (RIAs) looking to establish and grow their business.
The all-in-one technology stack and the advisory bundle featuring FMAX Essentials, a new, streamlined managed account platform, each aim to reduce two common technology barriers for smaller firms: resources and cost.
Fidelity’s latest Advisor Technology Stack study found that firms with less than $250M are 1.8x less likely to embrace technology best practices than firms with $1T+ AUM. This lack of technology adoption could affect the rate of growth that small and medium sized firms experience as the study also found that wealth management firms deploying technology best practices are growing significantly faster than peers. To help small and medium size firms establish a scalable technology infrastructure, Fidelity developed an all-in-one offering that brings together key components we believe advisors need to run their business.
“Technology has incredible power as a growth driver and firms that harness it best have dedicated the time to research, evaluate, and implement it at scale,” said Noni Robinson, head of Emerging RIAs at Fidelity Institutional Wealth Management Services, a division of Fidelity Investments that provides platform solutions and clearing and custody services to wealth management firms. “Smaller firms and advisors launching their own business, however, often have fewer resources, which can put them at a disadvantage. Our offering takes the guesswork out of selecting a technology stack with solutions that support front-, middle-, and back-office employees at these firms.”
Fidelity collaborated with eMoney Advisor, LLC (eMoney), an expert in financial planning solutions, and Advyzon, an expert in advisor technology, to secure access to special pricing and support models for its all-in-one technology offering. Available today, this solution aims to reduce the time leaders spend on evaluating a technology stack. It includes a variety of tools that are deeply integrated to help streamline advisors’ critical workflows:
- WealthscapeSM, Fidelity’s robust brokerage platform that allows firms to seamlessly open accounts, manage money, trade, access hundreds of integrations for further customization, and access a variety of reporting and analytics tools to optimize client outcomes.
- eMoney’s comprehensive and collaborative financial planning capabilities to help advisors map strategies to their clients’ goals, with integration points such as single sign on, document sharing, streamlined household views, and more.
- Advyzon’s suite of operational and portfolio management software, including customer relationship management (CRM), performance reporting, and billing for middle- and back-office support, as well as investment management tools such as trading and rebalancing offered by Advyzon Investment Management (AIM), a subsidiary of Advyzon. Its integration with Wealthscape also supports digital account opening, single sign on, and APIs to view account positions and balances.
For firms looking to grow their advisory capabilities, Fidelity is also introducing an advisory bundle that includes Wealthscape, eMoney, and a new product, Fidelity Managed Account Xchange® Essentials (FMAX Essentials).
FMAX Essentials offers end-to-end wealth advisory capabilities with a streamlined investment lineup of both Fidelity and third-party products. This provides a lower cost platform for firms looking to expand access to sophisticated managed account solutions like model portfolios, as well as deepen their investment advice and financial planning capabilities.
The FMAX Essentials investment menu includes roughly a quarter of the options found on the FMAX platform, FIWA’s larger scale customizable advisory offering, including a variety of mutual funds and ETFs, as well as model portfolios, SMAs, and UMA wrappers. FMAX Essentials is currently available to firms that custody with Fidelity and will introduce additional features and investment options over time.
Wealth management firms of all sizes will maintain access to Fidelity’s à la carte menu of platforms, tools, and integrations for fully customized technology solutions that can grow with them. Integration Xchange, Fidelity’s open architecture digital store for wealth management firms, offers integrations with more than 200 fintech companies and API analytics to make it easier for firms to discover, evaluate, and implement new tech stack components.
