Three wealth-tech providers are rolling out tax-smart tools for RIAs, as 55ip, Vise and Syntax each target the manual work between designing a portfolio and running it across client accounts.
Koyfin, meanwhile, is adding performance attribution to its model portfolio analytics.
The updates run the gamut of portfolio management software capabilities, covering unified managed accounts, custom indexing, household-level asset location and performance attribution.
55ip, the Boston-based tax-technology firm owned by J.P. Morgan Asset Management, is extending its unified managed account offering to the RIA channel. The initial lineup pairs model portfolios with separately managed accounts from J.P. Morgan Asset Management and BlackRock, with more asset managers expected to join later this year.
The structure places an asset manager’s or advisor’s own model of ETFs and mutual funds alongside an active equity SMA in one account. 55ip’s ActiveTax Technology recommends tax-aware transitions and ongoing management across both sleeves. A planned tie-up with InvestCloud, announced in December last year, would add private investments to the UMA.
“The rapid growth in the RIA channel highlights the issue of scale for advisors,” said Gautam Sachdev, 55ip’s chief executive. “Advisors want customized portfolios with tax management,” said Stephen Kaplan, managing director and head of customized managed account solutions at J.P. Morgan Asset Management.
According to industry projections from Cerulli, US UMA assets will reach approximately $3.7 trillion by the end of 2026.
Syntax, a New York-based index and economic data firm led by CEO Patrick Shaddow, has connected Syntax Direct, its index development and production engine, to iRebal, the rebalancing platform from Schwab Advisor Services.
With the new integration, iRebal users can reach Syntax Direct through single sign-on, then send custom indexes by API into iRebal, where the indexes act as model portfolios that can be rebalanced, tax-managed and personalized down to the individual account and fractional share. Index changes and custom rules now feed account-level workflows directly, removing a manual reconciliation step.
The tie-up extends Schwab’s push into the space, which includes the 2023 overhaul of its personalized indexing product for RIAs.
“Connecting Syntax Direct to iRebal means an advisor can build a custom index and put it to work across client accounts without the manual handoff in between,” said Alison Dooher, head of Advisor Services AI and partner ecosystem at Schwab Advisor Services.
Vise, a New York-based RIA and technology platform, has launched Asset Location, a tool that strategically places each of a client's holdings in whichever of their taxable, tax-deferred or tax-exempt accounts taxes it least. It runs in the same engine that handles Vise’s tax-loss harvesting, capital gains budgets and transitions.
The engine weighs where a security belongs against the tax cost of moving it this year, factoring in locked positions, restrictions and strategies such as direct indexing and long-short. From their, it may recommend moving now, waiting to trade later, or making a more minor “Location Swap.” Firms write their own location rules and can enable the feature for some accounts in a household but not others.
In a study breaking down advisors' value to investors, Vanguard estimated that asset location can add up to 60 basis points a year on average. Another study by BlackRock found 54% of advisors used asset location for high-net-worth clients, against 81% who used tax-loss harvesting.
"Managing a client's entire household to one allocation, with asset location and tax management solved together, has been the holy grail for a long time," said Runik Mehrotra, Vise’s co-founder and co-head. “Rule-based location and tax management fought each other, so most firms never turned location on.”
Vise currently supports more than $152 billion in platform assets across over 245,000 accounts.
Miami-based Koyfin, an investment research and portfolio analytics platform, has built contribution and attribution analysis into its model portfolios tool, effectively upgrading it to take on work that often requires a separate vendor.
Contribution analysis shows how much each holding added or subtracted, based on its return and weight. Meanwhile, the attribution function splits benchmark-relative performance into allocation and selection effects. Users can drill from sectors down to individual holdings. The calculations reflect historical shifts in model and benchmark holdings, and an AI summary flags the main drivers.
“Our focus was on making this analysis more accessible and easier to work with, without sacrificing the depth investment teams need,” said Rob Koyfman, Koyfin’s CEO.
The tools are now available to Koyfin Advisor Pro subscribers, with a seven-day free trial open for interested advisors who sign up.
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