Today’s economic climate has led many financial services firms to shift technology investments to areas that help reduce costs and improve overall workforce productivity. Increasingly, these investments include mobile solutions – and updating the enterprise infrastructure that is necessary to deploy and support them.
Posts Tagged: senior vice president
Keeping an open architecture DC investment platform ‘open’
Investment trends in the $4.5 Trillion Defined Contribution (DC) market are stretching the definition of an ‘open architecture’ investment platform. Historically, open architecture meant you or your partner offered a significant number of mutual funds from a variety of managers. While mutual funds still hold a significant amount of DC assets, alternative investments are taking hold and growing. Recent research from Celent predicts growth in non-mutual fund options, including Collective investment trusts, Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), separate accounts and retirement income products. If an investment platform wants to remain truly ‘open,’ it will need to consider extending its mutual fund platforms to include these alternatives and the technology and operational challenges that go with them.
Embracing the power and opportunity of social media
Social media creates a unique opportunity for financial advisors to break out of traditional communication models and interact with their clients and prospects on a whole new level. While the effort to becoming social media savvy may seem daunting, it can bring endless benefits. Whether you want to be active with outbound social media contributions or use more of an observer approach, there are several positives to consider.
The department of labor, individual retirement accounts and mass confusion
On October 25, 2011, the Department of Labor (DOL) released its final rules related to the provision of Investment Advice under the Pension Protection Act (PPA) of …wait, here it comes… 2006, that pre-financial-crisis, almost-forgotten law. So, why should financial advisors care about a DOL ruling when the DOL regulates advice in retirement plans that fall under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA)? Well, the reason is because the DOL also happens to regulate “prohibited transactions” on Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs).
Serving the mass affluent market with technology
Historically, the financial planning and advice industry focuses on advisor-centric offerings targeted at higher net-worth clients. The delivery has varied across many types of firms, but the essential program has remained the same — a very skilled (and highly compensated) advisor, serving a small number of relatively wealthy clients. The most prevalent model consists of the advisor having a series of face-to-face meetings with the client to gather information about goals and objectives, assets and liabilities. The advisor then formulates a financial and/or investment plan and again meets face-to-face with the client to deliver the plan.
