What does the Charles River-Advisor360° partnership mean for top wealth management firms?

We’re thrilled to be teaming up with Charles River® Development, a State Street company, on a unique technology solution that enables enterprise wealth management firms and their advisors to be more efficient while serving their clients better.

This is truly ground-breaking: it’s the first time two technology players are coming together to build an integrated, comprehensive, and flexible technology platform expressly for meeting the needs of top wealth management firms. Our announcement last week shared some details, but we know that many of you have questions on how this new partnership will help you run your business better. We’ve tried to answer some of them below. Please feel free to reach out to us directly if you’d like to learn more.

What does the new Advisor360°-Charles River partnership mean for me?

Charles River and Advisor360° are creating a cloud-based, integrated solution that can scale to support the variety of users of any enterprise firm’s technology.

Advisor360° clients will be getting access to Charles River’s end-to-end managed accounts platform—robust SMA/UMA capabilities, an open architecture network to facilitate manager-sponsor communication, and scalable portfolio personalization capabilities with Charles River Tailored Portfolio Solutions. They get more control than a TAMP without having to bear the expense and complexity of the associated infrastructure. Broker-dealers will also have the flexibility of either owning and managing operations or outsourcing those services to State Street. The result is added control and scale over the costs and risks related to middle and back office functions.

Clients of Charles River will be able to enjoy Advisor360°’s advisor portal with digital onboarding and insurance, client portal, and an enterprise workflow system with our Unified Data Fabric™ (UDF) that deeply integrates complex wealth data into a single household view.

Why did Advisor360° choose to partner with Charles River?

We wanted to partner with a technology leader that was serious about industry-level transformation. And just like Advisor360°, Charles River is passionate about innovation that improves advisor productivity and satisfaction.

As the industry shifts away from commission-based accounts, we’re seeing a rise in interest from broker-dealers and other firms exploring fee-based solutions that their advisors can use with their clients. Advisor360° is a firm believer in the power of integration to transform how we work—that is, 1+1=3—so rather than build a managed account solution ourselves, we opted to integrate with one of the leaders in this space.

Why would Charles River clients want access to the Advisor360° platform?

Charles River wealth management clients are being challenged to improve and transform their digital experiences to meet the evolving needs of financial advisors and investors. These firms can benefit greatly from the comprehensive and flexible experiences available with Advisor360°’s leading advisor and client portals. We are excited to bring to these clients both our Extended and Enterprise offerings to help them digitally transform and make their advisors more efficient so that they can spend more time growing assets and servicing customers.

When and how can I get access to Charles River products on the Advisor360° platform?

The new solution, which includes access to Charles River’s robust managed accounts platform, is available for Advisor360° clients using our Extended and Enterprise offerings and will be rolled out by clients on a case-by-case basis.

With direct access to the Charles River managed account solutions in place, how does Advisor360° stack up against its competitors?

Our partnership with Charles River enables us to create a compelling alternative to other platforms. This is two best-of-breed, pure-play technology providers coming together to create a unique SaaS solution for managed accounts that gives control back to broker-dealers, RIAs, and other top wealth management firms.

And unlike others, our only business is building and delivering an amazing enterprise wealth management platform experience through truly deep data integration, powered by our secure UDF.

Should I care if I’m not an Advisor360° or Charles River client?

Of course you should care! We think top wealth management firms that want a differentiating, world-class digital experience for their end users—be they advisors, support staff, or retail investor clients—will want to take a closer look.

The offering is for firms that want to bring more of their investment management process for managed accounts in-house and not rely on external providers. Firms will be able to have more control over the economics and direction of their managed accounts business while having the option of outsourcing IT service and support functionality to a provider with a track record of being able to grow and scale operations cost effectively (that’s us!).

Should we expect more from the Advisor360°-Charles River relationship in the future?

For now, we’re excited about getting our relationship with Charles River off the ground. But we really do believe this is a true partnership that goes beyond technology integrations to facilitate investment and planning solutions that ultimately benefit the industry, advisors, and investors.

Richard N. Hart III is Senior Vice President, Corporate Development at Advisor360°, responsible for identifying new business opportunities and solving organic and inorganic growth challenges through strategic partnerships, OEM and reseller relationships, and acquisitions.