Fidelity Institutional Wealth Services last week announced a cloud-based virtual-desktop offering for financial advisers — the first of the four major custodians to do so.
It will officially become available in July to financial advisers using Fidelity's custody services and should allow them to run their offices without the need to maintain their own software. Before the product becomes widely available, the company will be working with a handful of advisers in preproduction testing.
The offering combines the Fidelity WealthCentral platform, already in use by 3,200 firms, with a variety of office productivity applications, including the full suite of Microsoft Office, among other software.
“This is a natural progression on our road map,” said Edward O'Brien, head of registered investment adviser and family office technology at Fidelity Institutional. “We envision it as a place advisers can go to get everything they need to run their businesses.”
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For the offering, Fidelity has partnered with cloud outsourcing company External IT. The entire offering will be available via a single sign-on over the Internet. Part of the deal Fidelity has made ensures that advisers will have access to dedicated External IT support personnel.
Also included in the package will be unlimited replicated-e-mail storage, replicated-file storage (meaning both will be backed up at a second facility), mobile-device support and software updates, antivirus, patching, asset inventory and remote support.
“Advisers tell us they have legacy technology that they have to manage outside WealthCentral, including things like file servers and e-mail servers, etc.,” Mr. O'Brien said. “This offering will let them get rid of all that legacy technology and provide them access to their desktops anywhere.”
The cloud offering also will have a central document repository, and hosted Microsoft Exchange e-mail will be an option. Perhaps more intriguing will be the potential for advisers to enlist External IT to host their other legacy technology. This could include, for example, their Junxure CRM or normally on-premises- hosted financial planning software.
Through Fidelity's arrangement with External IT, advisers will have the opportunity to contract directly with the company for the provision of bundled or customized services at a discounted rate.
Pricing for this a la carte hosting has not been worked out, but the overall cloud offering will be available on a subscription-based pricing model. Mr. O'Brien said that a preliminary target of around $150 per user per month or around $1,800 per year is likely.
With the new offering, it will be simple for advisory firms to add temporary users, as well (for example, summer interns or contract workers), and firms will pay only for the applications they need — and monthly for as long as they need them.
Another point advisers will probably like: no upfront cost for the cloud offering, a common practice often part of migrations or installation of new systems.
