Schwab re-brands, re-engineers Etelligent Consulting product

Schwab Performance Technologies of Raleigh, N.C., which acquired Etelligent Consulting Inc. in February February,, said last week that a revamped version of the Etelligent product is now available on Schwab’s PortfolioServices platform.

PortfolioServices is an entirely outsourced set of performance-reporting and portfolio management applications that provides financial advisers with all the tools and functions available through SPT’s desktop-based PortfolioCenter product.

There’s already $38 billion in assets being managed on the reformulated, re-branded system, most of it carried over from the 100 clients who stayed with the platform following the Etelligent acquisition. There are 115 clients on the system.

Etelligent’s Operations in Overland Park, Kan., are now a part of SPT, which is a subsidiary of The Charles Schwab Corp. of San Francisco.

“We’ve replaced the entire infrastructure, all the hardware is new, and we’ve added a second service center in Raleigh to support [PortfolioServices],” said Dan Skiles, vice president of technology for Schwab Institutional of San Francisco.

“We expect to see a lot of initial interest among [registered investment advisers] leaving the wirehouses, because from an overall servicing perspective and in terms of startup costs, this solution is just a lot lower overall.”

SHIFTERS WELCOME TOO
When asked whether PortfolioCenter users might adopt the new offering instead Mr. Skiles said that he expected most would not, but that some had showed interest.
“We have seen existing firms that want to shift, but it is usually due to an event —- maybe someone is leaving that oversaw the work of carrying out daily reconciliation and the firm would prefer not hiring someone new to handle that,” he said.
Asked if he thought PortfolioServices might mean the end of the desktop PortfolioCenter project, he emphatically responded;
“Absolutely not. We have 3,300 advisers on PortfolioCenter, it’s not going away and there is definitely long-term viability. Besides, there remain certain areas where the desktop software model makes a lot of sense.”
While Mr. Skiles said he could not say how much Schwab Portfolio Technologies had spent in overhauling and relaunching the service anew he said it was “significant” and that the investment adds increased scalability and performance as well as redundancy to what had been provided in the Etelligent offering.
The Portfolio Services offering will cost firms $3,750 per quarter and includes outsourced data management and reconciliation. At that price, firms can manage about 200 accounts and add accounts for a bit more.
In comparison, the desktop PortfolioCenter product starts at around $10,000, but one of the trade-offs there is that firms generally dedicate or hire someone to manage it and do reconciliation and maintenance, Mr. Skiles said. Aspects of reconciliation and maintenance are included as part of the outsourced PortfolioServices offering.
In addition, Mr. Skiles said that later this year, SPT will be rolling out a new premium report for advisers and their clients. It will be much more flexible and customizable than the existing report. PortfolioServices (formerly Etelligent) clients will also start getting a new quarterly newsletter from SPT and new online training tools as well.

E-mail Davis D. Janowski at [email protected].