Albridge Solutions adds a fee billing component

Albridge Solutions Inc. of Lawrenceville, N.J., has expanded its technology platform to include a fee billing component.

Albridge Solutions Inc. of Lawrenceville, N.J., has expanded its technology platform to include a fee billing component.
Albridge Fee Billing, which is integrated into Albridge Wealth Reporting, automates and applies a fee billing schedule across all accounts within a single household.
The application’s many features include support for standard fee components, billing for partial periods, billing for consolidated accounts, and fee archival and retrieval. In addition, enterprise controls allow financial institutions and registered investment advisers to implement mandatory bill structures and to report on billing activity.

Fidelity redesigns its adviser website
Fidelity Investments of Boston has redesigned its adviser website, advisor.fidelity.com.
The enhanced website can be custom tailored by market- and firm-specific needs.
It also includes integration of account access and trading functionality, a “shopping cart” for easy ordering of literature and sales materials, expanded practice-management sales ideas, and podcasts featured on iTunes.com.
Navigation on the page also has been streamlined.

Hancock launches fund-of-funds portfolios
John Hancock Funds LLC in Boston has made two new fund-of-funds products available to retail investors through their financial advisers.
The John Hancock International Allocation Portfolio invests in international-equity funds. It offers investors exposure to firms such as Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo & Co. LLC of Boston and Dimensional Fund Advisors Inc. of Santa Monica, Calif.
The John Hancock Lifecycle Portfolios comprise a series of eight target date mutual funds, plus a retirement portfolio. Investors choose to invest in a particular life cycle portfolio based on their projected target date of retirement.
The ninth portfolio in the series, the retirement portfolio, aims to maintain a low probability of negative returns in any 12-month period for investors who are in retirement, using active allocation and varying amounts of equity exposure.

Three insurers adopt Beacon sales system
Beacon Research Publications Inc., an independent-research organization based in Evanston, Ill., has announced that its AnnuityNexus Sales Support System has been adopted by American National Insurance Co. of Galveston, Texas, Thrivent Financial for Lutherans of Appleton, Wis., and American United Life Insurance Co. of Indianapolis.
The web-based system provides wholesalers and retention teams with immediate access to information on competing products, providing access to the AnnuityNexus database.
When producers need help selling against the competition, wholesalers can assist instantly by looking up and comparing the competing product with their own fixed annuities to identify advantages.
PDF versions of comparisons and detailed product profiles can be saved and sent to the representative.

Equity Services offers UMA via FundQuest
Equity Services Inc., a broker-dealer affiliate of Montpelier, Vt.-based National Life Group, has changed its Illuminations platform with the offering of a unified managed account through a continuing partnership with FundQuest Inc. of Boston.
The Voyager UMA is the most recent addition to the firm’s Illuminations fee-based asset management program, which currently consists of mutual funds, exchange traded funds, index funds and separate accounts.
FundQuest is launching UMA capabilities for seven clients during the next quarter, including institutions in the bank, insurance, trust, independent-broker-dealer and registered investment adviser segments.

American College offers new book on BOLI
The American College Press of Bryn Mawr, Pa., has published a new text, “Separate Account Bank Owned Life Insurance: The Theory and Practice,” by Tom Wamberg.
Mr. Wamberg, chairman and chief executive of Clark Consulting Inc. in North Barrington, Ill., wrote the book to help financial professionals better understand how BOLI works and the reasons why banks increasingly use this product. It aims to help readers navigate their way through the maze of decisions that must be made when purchasing a BOLI plan.