While many of us — in our consumer lives, anyway — find ourselves pretty logo-saturated, the same cannot be said for the typical adviser's professional life.
But advisers, get ready.
TD Ameritrade Institutional last week announced what I suspect will be a trend among custodians and probably other providers, including a few large independent broker-dealers. The firm is introducing a Veo Integrated logo meant for the registered investment adviser's benefit. The idea is to help advisers identify technology providers that have built integrations with TD's Veo account management platform.
RIAs soon will begin seeing the logos on the marketing materials and websites of participating technology providers.
50 PROVIDERS
TD has been working on its popular Veo open-access initiative since 2010. Today, integrations to varying levels have been built with 50 different technology providers in many different technology areas — far more than any other custodian. One example, TDAI noted in a prepared statement, is its highly customized version of the Salesforce customer relationship management application in use by more than 1,000 users.
“The process right now for providers to get access to the logo is that we have a whole style guide to give them for usage; they just need to sign an agreement that they will use it appropriately,” said Jon Patullo, managing director of technology for TD Ameritrade Institutional.
For those unfamiliar, TDAI's intake process for integrations with third-party technology vendors is fairly formalized and is meant to ensure that a firm's systems, data and coding are secure and that they would conform to and stand up to regulatory scrutiny.
Once a third-party provider has passed a stringent security audit, it is provided access to a TDAI nonproduction development environment, often referred to informally in developer parlance as a sandbox.
After the provider has built the integration, it is tested by both parties and once it is deemed solid, it is turned on. Firms have no restrictions in terms of time frame, and the process remains very much a “work at your own pace” affair.
As for the next general steps on the road map, Mr. Patullo said: “Eventually, we intend to see the integrations enhanced with additional alerts, such as householding. That was a big topic of discussion [at a recent development meeting].”
TD Ameritrade has created a couple of resources that can be useful for advisers using Veo. First, the firm keeps an updated list of third-party providers that have integrated with Veo. Another resource is the Veo Integration Analyzer tool, which is meant to help advisers ascertain the actual levels of integration available among and between the applications they are using or contemplating buying. You can find links to both in the online version of this story.
