2020: A year in review through the lens of digital data

2020 was a year unlike any other. And many of us are looking forward to turning the calendar page to 1/1/2021 and to a fresh start of a new year…one with vaccines on the way! In year-ends of past, I’ve often written reflections of the previous 12 months. This year, I’ve decided to take a different approach and let petabytes of data that we store at Advisor360° on our clients’ behalf tell the story of wealth management from a different lens.

With more than 400 direct data feeds being scrubbed daily, Advisor360°’s Unified Data Fabric™ (UDF) and comprehensive software platform allows us (and our clients) to look at data patterns (buzzword: analytics) and software usage across home office users, advisors, and clients in multiple software sleeves. We looked at the data 9 months prior to the major COVID outbreak (pre-March 2020) and the 9 months since. Here are the data trends we saw:

• The number of investment objective changes increased by 17% over the pre-COVID levels.
• 18% more accounts were opened through our digital account opening system in 2020 versus 2019.
• Communications in our tools also ticked up substantially:
  • Text messages (SMS/MMS) sent by clients to advisors increased by 15% over the pre-COVID levels.
  • Client portal-secured messages sent by clients to advisors increased by 14% over the pre-COVID levels.
  • These trends show an uptick in clients looking to find new ways to connect with their wealth advisors away from traditional phone calls and review meetings (Zoom or physical).
• The number of goals created by advisors increased by 19%. This may correlate with fluctuating markets as well as advisors using this as a tool to calm the nerves of clients worried that drops in asset values would not allow them to meet their goals.
• Portfolio/model rebalancing heavily spiked in the second quarter—likely tied to both market swings triggering drift alerts and to the investment objective changes mentioned above—but has since returned to normal trading patterns.

We have almost 200 reports available in our platform, some with billions of combinations. These were the most popular reports run in the Advisor360° platform over the last year:

1. Portfolio Summary
2. Portfolio Holdings
3. Consolidated Statement
4. Performance by Security
5. Performance Summary (TWR)
6. Historical Market Value
7. Beneficiary Review
8. Required Minimum Distribution
9. Transaction Activity
10. Performance Summary with Account Detail
11. Estimated Realized Gain and Loss
12. Performance Change in Market Value
13. Unpaid Revenue (Compensation)
14. Transaction Activity
15. Periodic Investment Plans/Systematic Withdrawal Plans
16. Performance Attribution Summary
17. Insurance Summary
18. Historical Market Value with Hypothetical Benchmark
19. Performance History (TWR)
20. CRM Household Summary
21. Account Suitability
22. Portfolio Allocation
23. Calendar Market Value and Performance
24. Next Quarter Fee Estimator

What enables our understanding of these data insights and software sleeves usage across 3 personas is our UDF. And the combination of that UDF, the seamless user experience, and enterprise-class technology is what allows wealth advisors and broker-dealers on our platform to be some of the most productive in the industry.

On behalf of all of us at Advisor360°, I wish you—and your data—a prosperous and safe journey in 2021!

Darren Tedesco is President of Advisor360° and has been part of our software development since its inception, bringing together the thinkers, creators, and visionaries that help power our clients’ productivity, profitability, and growth.