Fidelity reveals three new big-data tech tools

Fidelity Institutional announced three new data tools coming to Wealthscape — its consolidated technology platform for broker-dealers, registered investment advisers and family offices — over the next year.

The first is Consolidated Data, which gives advisers a comprehensive view of client assets across financial institutions, fulfilling the promise of multicustodial data Fidelity made when it first announced Wealthscape in 2017.

Using a combination of eMoney technology, direct relationships with other firms, Fidelity’s own access to market data and proprietary information provided by advisers, Consolidated Data will normalize the information and provide a consolidated picture of accounts, positions, balances and transactions. This can then be used in Wealthscape’s other portfolio tools or integrated third-party technologies.

(More: Fidelity’s eMoney Advisor partners with Schwab)

“The reality is we all have to work to co-exist in this environment,” said Tim Morello, Fidelity Institutional’s vice president of product management, when asked about pulling data from competing custodians at the Technology Tools for Today conference Wednesday in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. “If an adviser chooses a particular provider and asks the custodian to send data to that provider, there’s no problem with it.”

Fidelity eventually plans to use Consolidated Data to power digital proposal generation, fee billing, and a new tool for insights and analytics. Mr. Morello said Fidelity also is developing a tool that will use Consolidated Data to rebalance accounts at the household level, by asset class and more tax-efficiently.

“Advisers have always known how important data is, but now through the Consolidated Data offering, they will be able to access and leverage data to help them efficiently make informed decisions about, and for, their clients,” Mr. Morello said in a statement.

Fidelity plans to pilot Consolidated Data in the third quarter this year.

After collecting data, the next step is to make it meaningful and actionable for advisers. This is where the second new tool fits in.

Aptly named Insights + Analytics, the tool explores how quantitative analytics of the data can help advisers save time, grow their business and enhance relationships with clients.

At first, Insights + Analytics will analyze an adviser’s book to answer an adviser’s business questions. For example, Mr. Morello said advisers can identify which client segments need more attention and which are the most valuable. Or advisers can look for outliers in age, revenue or AUM to find new business opportunities.

Insights + Analytics also will pilot in Q3, only using Fidelity’s data. Mr. Morello said the tool will eventually include things like predictive analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning, fueled by multicustodial data and CRM feeds.

Fidelity also is looking to make Wealthscape more open-architecture than it has been in the past with the third new development, Integration Xchange.

In Q3, Integration Xchange will include a digital store of direct links between a firm’s technology and Wealthscape data, including application programming interfaces, data feeds, and framing and linking capabilities. In the future, firms will be able to explore and test various integrations to see which works best for them.

The store also will provide access to more than 100 third-party technologies, bringing Wealthscape into more direct competition with TD Ameritrade Insitutional’s Veo One platform.

(More: TD Ameritrade urges advisers to adopt its next-generation Veo One platform)

Mr. Morello said this is to make Wealthscape available to firms with a proprietary technology offering or who prefer to mix-and-match various tech offerings.

This impressed the T3 conference audience, which consisted of technology vendors and advisers who readily embrace technology.

“Wealthscape Integration Xchange from @Fidelity sounds [like] a great solution to help advisors work with their data and third-party tools. Great to hear open approach with Morello recognizing not all assets will sit with Fidelity,” Ian McKenna, director of the Finance & Technology Research Centre, said on Twitter.

Related Topics: Fidelity Investments