Financial services technology provider Fiserv Inc. announced yesterday that they had acquired AdviceAmerica Inc. a technology company that delivers web-based advisory applications.
AdviceAmerica will become a strategic part of the Investment Services unit of Fiserv.
Financial terms were not disclosed.
In a nutshell the acquisition is meant to allow Fiserv to extend its capabilities into front-office applications, such as financial planning, CRM and proposal tools for financial advisers, sponsors, and banks.
That gives Fiserv, a major managed accounts service provider, reach into the front, middle and back office.
AdviceAmerica’s financial planning product, AdviserVision, is web-based and received a major update last June with improvements that targeted independent advisers and institutional firms. It also boasted a new “Advice Engine” for assisting advisers in creating financial plans.
AdviserVision can in turn share data with AdviceAmerica’s customer relationship management tool, ClientVision that is also web-based. This solution was designed with smaller firms in mind whose client base has relatively simple, straightforward wealth management needs and includes a Microsoft Outlook plug-in for synchronizing data, as well as some client financial data management features, a document vault, portfolio updates, and e-mail archive among other features.
The combination of these tools brings financial planning, portfolio construction and CRM tools together on one platform.
“With AdviceAmerica’s lightweight CRM product, [Fiserv] now has an entryway into the independent broker-dealer and RIA space that they didn’t have before,” said Sean Cunniff, research director at The Tower Group Inc., a research and advisory services firm that exclusively covers the financial services industry.
In addition to having studied Fiserv’s operations as part of research work he’s done, Mr. Cunniff pointed out during our conversation that Fiserv is currently a Tower Group client.
Fiserv, he said, is active on the banking side of the industry and that the new acquisition could provide the company a better entre into expanding the way it services the wealth management operations of banks.
Mr. Cunniff pointed out other positive aspects to the deal.
One is that both systems are built on the Microsoft development platforms which will make for a relatively quick integration cycle.
Even so, it remains the potential in the big picture scheme of things that might prove most synergistic.
“Putting a new front end on their suite of tools and offerings could provide them a leg up in tying the front end to the middle and back end,” he said.
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