Big data for analyzing adviser businesses, clients part of TD’s fintech strategy for 2017

TD Ameritrade Institutional will add new tools to its platform this year that employ big data to help financial advisers understand their businesses better and a dashboard to pinpoint where client service is lagging.
The firm’s open-access technology platform, Veo One, will begin later this year to provide personalized analytics to advisers. These “big data” insights will offer a look into clients and business operations and suggest specific actions for improvement, TD announced at its annual conference for advisers Thursday.
The first analytics will be based on benchmarking data from FA Insight, a research and consulting firm TD Ameritrade purchased last year.
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The new analytics will focus on providing decision-making information, recommending particular actions such as reacting to market opportunities, the firm said in a release.
“Now RIAs can get personalized, data-driven insights to help take their businesses to the next level,” said John Ruda, managing director of strategic planning and analytics at TD Ameritrade Institutional.
Another tool to be introduced later this year will provide advisers with an operational efficiency dashboard that will highlight advisers’ top service issues.
It will point out areas where client service is most often disrupted and ultimately allow RIAs to focus on improving these areas, he said.
CLIENTS’ DIGITAL EXPERIENCE
Clients are increasingly seeking efficient and easy-to-use investment advice and financial planning, and these service demands are not just coming from millennials, said Tom Nally, president of TD Ameritrade Institutional, as he opened the conference Thursday.
“A great digital experience is no longer a ‘nice-to-have’ but a ‘must-have’ for advisers working with all types of clients and across all levels of wealth,” he told about 2,000 advisers meeting in San Diego.
Even though so-called robo-advisers manage only about $83 billion of the approximately $77 trillion in U.S. assets under management, the success of digital-advice platforms in attracting assets from even wealthy investors lately has increased the pressure on traditional advice firms to improve their own technology sophistication.
TD Ameritrade and other firms that offer custodial and brokerage services to financial advisers are competing to help them use technology to elevate both client service and how they operate their businesses.
Advisers need to maximize technology for these purposes or they’ll face losing some current clients as well as the opportunity to serve entire new customer segments, fintech experts said.
Technology consultant Joel Bruckenstein has said that advisers who don’t begin to embrace technology will soon face a “late-adopter penalty” and miss out on business.
The robo-advice market is expected to grow to about $385 billion by the end of 2022, according to Cerulli Research.

Related Topics: TD Ameritrade Institutional