Cetera taps Broadridge for adviser-focused mobile app

Cetera Financial Institutions will white-label Broadridge Financial Solutions' recently launched mobile app geared toward enabling easy access to client data from anywhere in the world. On the platform, advisers will be able to view their clients' portfolios and account information and work within the app from their smartphone or tablet. Broadridge Mobile also provides real-time market information. The app for the self-clearing broker-dealer division of Cetera Financial Group, which is RCS Capital Corp.'s retail investment advice platform, will include trading functionality for funds, equities and options as well, according to Broadridge. Other features include document sharing between advisers and clients, client searches and reporting, account inquiry, and book-of-business analysis. The global platform supports various languages and multiple currencies, Broadridge said. Terms of how much advisers are charged for the service were not disclosed by the firm. “There's the ability to be able to be at home, in transit, at a remote office or even on the golf course,” said Traci Mabrey, the head of wealth solutions at Broadridge. “It is very much for them the foundation of a mobile office experience.” That's the direction the industry will have to go. As smartphones and tablets become an increasingly popular way of consuming data and information, advisers will need to have that mobile experience of their own. The app is very new itself, having only come onto the market a few weeks ago, Ms. Mabrey said. The next step for the company's mobile app is creating an investor-centric mobile experience, where clients and advisers can communicate in a collaborative environment, as well as integrating more components of the platform with other software, based on brokerages' suggestions. Ms. Mabry said the adviser-client relationship is at the center of firms' mobility plans. With a mobile platform, advisers have a huge opportunity to provide a better customer experience, increase productivity and even adopt new models of doing business, she said. “We very much view the digital experience as becoming a mandatory requirement for all professional users and their non-professional clients,” Ms. Mabrey said. “I view digital experience as the next chapter.”