Is Orion building a financial planning tool?

Orion Advisor Services is boosting its presentation and client portal tools with two new partnerships with client-facing technology providers.

The first partnership, announced Monday, adds investment analytics and Monte Carlo simulations from FinMason to demonstrate investment performance, progress toward financial goals and the impact of big spending events, such as buying a house.

(More: Fintech goes international to find top tech talent)

Orion followed up Tuesday with an integration that adds Asset-Map’s data visualization technology to give advisers a cleaner, more engaging way to summarize a client’s entire portfolio. Asset-Map can pull in accounts that are on the Orion platform or held elsewhere to show both the big picture outlook and deep dives into particular data points.

Taken together, the two partnerships suggest that Orion, best known for its portfolio accounting technology, is interested in providing financial planning technology to its considerable user base of RIAs.

Kyle Hiatt, Orion’s executive vice president of business development, acknowledged that he’s received a lot of demand for what he calls “lightweight planning.”

“We’re hearing from advisers that they don’t want a full-on financial planning system. They want to start with something light before moving to a MoneyGuidePro or eMoney,” Mr. Hiatt said.

(More: Orion sets sights on breakaway brokers)

FinMason was unable to comment, but said in a statement that the integration gives advisers access to a “five-minute financial plan.”

“The need in the wealth management community for financial planning tools that are simple to use, readily accessible and seamlessly integrated has never been greater,” said Kendrick Wakeman, CEO of FinMason.

Mr. Hiatt added that the presentation tool kit is popular among advisers so they can walk clients through relevant data points in review meetings. Advisers already use Orion to access the data, and they don’t want to have to switch to a new program.

“We’re seeing advisers utilize it in their office — pull​ it up on their screen or monitor in the meeting room and run through those things in Portfolio Review,” Mr. Hiatt said.

Now that data can be presented in a one-page summary thanks to Asset-Map and can include forward-looking projections thanks to FinMason. Orion will bake the integrations into its client portal as well, so clients can see the same data when they log in.

Asset-Map founder and CEO Adam Holt says advisers today are competing to create a simplified, educational and consumer-friendly approach to financial decisions. This is driven by heightened consumer expectations for how they receive information, as well as decreased attention spans.

(More: Asset-Map’s Holt: The biggest challenge facing advisers)

“There’s a higher expectation of advisers today to deliver more contextual value to their clients at the point of advice,” Mr. Holt said. “[Clients] don’t have patience or time to focus on complexity.”

Orion’s ever-expanding roster of integration partners speaks to the company’s continuing growth. According to a spokesman, Orion has 1,600 firms on the platform and adds roughly one new firm each day. The company has increased the number of accounts on the system by 34% over the last year.

Not only does integrating give fintech startups like Asset-Map and FinMason access to the RIAs on Orion’s platform, but those advisers also tend to be earlier adopters of technology. Mr. Holt said that Asset-Map has found success in the broker-dealer and insurance world even though those industries are more reluctant to try out new technology.

“Truth is, the RIA community tends to be leading the charge for disruption,” he said, adding that Orion has made an easily accessible environment for third-party companies. “Orion gives us access to like-minded advisers who lead with advice and are much more willing to adopt new strategies.”

Orion hosts an annual competition challenging third-party vendors to develop new integrations with its portfolio accounting platform. In 2017, Asset-Map won for “best user interface,” while FinMason was recognized for “burning the midnight oil.”

The 2018 competition will take place next week in Miami as part of Orion’s Ascent conference. Mr. Hiatt teased that the company plans to make some major announcements and reveal more integration partners at the event.

Maybe we’ll see an official Orion financial planning tool.