Fidelity Investments is boosting the compliance functions of its eMoney Advisor financial planning platform to help advisers meet the Labor Department's new fiduciary requirements for retirement advice.
Its “fiduciary framework” will adjust the client on-boarding procedures and enhance monitoring and archiving of the interactions between clients and advisers, all to provide documentation that shows advisers acted in the best interests of clients when giving recommendations, company leaders told reporters Wednesday at the eMoney conference in Dana Point, Calif.
It will track who made changes to a financial plan, the client or the adviser, and will include a one-click feature for advisers to inform the DOL that it plans to use a best-interest contract exemption with a client.
(More: A comprehensive, searchable database of advisers' fiduciary FAQs)
“The DOL rule is top of mind for everyone in all the segments we serve and in every conversation we have,” said Ed O'Brien, chief executive of eMoney Advisor. “Now that the rules are clear, it's about how to enable compliance of the rules within a particular firm's workflow.”
Financial advisers of all types are assessing how they'll abide by the strict DOL requirements that mandate all retirement advice be provided with a fiduciary standard of care beginning in April 2017. While advisers who accept commissions are expected to have a more onerous compliance task, even fee-only advisers are expected to need new disclosures and documentation in place before the rule takes full effect in January 2018.
(More: The most up-to-date information on the DOL fiduciary rule)
Other fintech providers also promoted their own DOL tools for advisers at the conference, including AppCrown, which integrates with the Salesforce client relationship management system and uses Morningstar research to show a client's appetite for risk aligns with their portfolio.
The firm already is finding a strong market among bank-based advisers and expects as the rule implementation date gets closer to see more RIAs seeking out their tool, said Ted Tsung, chief executive of AppCrown.
eMoney's new function and other enhancements, including increased integration with Fidelity's brokerage platform, are due by early 2017.
Ever since Fidelity bought eMoney in early 2015, financial advisers have expressed concern that at some point the financial planning software that 40,000 advisers use today will be restricted to Fidelity clients.
Mr. O'Brien directly addressed those adviser concerns Wednesday, saying eMoney remains committed to working with multiple custodians and adding more technology partners.
“There's no change in the strategy of eMoney to remain an independently operated company,” he said. “We are open-platform and custodian-agnostic.”
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Since the Fidelity ownership change, eMoney has added 10 of its 30 integration partners, he said.
Financial adviser Deborah Fox encouraged eMoney leaders to continue working to integrate with other partners so workflow for advisers can continue to improve and produce business efficiencies.
"The fact that
eMoney Advisor and MoneyGuidePro have integrated shows that anyone can," she said.
In other upcoming changes, cybersecurity issues are driving the company toward requiring second-factor authentication to access eMoney, beyond just passwords, Mr. O'Brien told advisers. Fidelity clients will be required to do it first, he said.
About 400 advisers are attending the eMoney conference, which attracts other technology vendors as sponsors and for the first time this year included a "hack-a-thon," where teams of advisers and eMoney programmers collaborated to dream up new applications. The best idea will be implemented, according to the company.
