Morgan Stanley to let financial advisers text clients

Morgan Stanley Wealth Management is partnering with tech firm Twilio to enable advisers to communicate with via text messaging as part of its latest push to better serve digitally-wired clients. "Digital can't be viewed as something separate from the financial advice business," said Naureen Hassan, Morgan Stanley's chief digital officer. As Ms. Hassan detailed Tuesday, the firm's enhanced digital approach goes well beyond just texting, and will be rolled out in stages over the next several months. "The goal is to enable financial advisers to better service clients by arming them with all the tools they need, and that's why we have partnered with several companies to help advisers with the mountain of information they receive every day," she said. One example of the beefed up digital presence is providing advisers with pre-written communications related to various news and economic events that can be customized by the adviser for use in client communications. Ms. Hassan cited, as an example, the way her own financial adviser sent out an email message the day after the United Kingdom's Brexit vote, which included lots of detail and perspectives on what it might mean for investors and the financial markets. Going forward, this is the kind of thing that could be prepared at the corporate level and quickly distributed to Morgan Stanley's reps to present to their own clients. "Our digital strategy represents what we believe to be the most comprehensive effort in the industry to bring the adviser-client relation into the present and secure it for the future," she said. Ms. Hassan said Morgan Stanley has identified three main areas of focus, including driving client engagement, targeting new client segments and digitizing the process. Digital communication will become a larger part of helping Morgan Stanley reps become more efficient in terms of working with clients and even opening new accounts. "We have never even had online account opening here, because you have always had to go through a financial adviser to open an account," she said. "Interactions between financial advisers and clients should be easy and reflect how people communicate in other aspects of their lives. In response to one of the top requests from our financial advisers, we are enabling them to make more convenient and effective connections with clients where they communicate most."