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Fidelity Charitable makes tech connection(s)

Fidelity Charitable announced Thursday the launch of GivingCentral, a new online adviser platform, and a dedicated Advisor Service…

Fidelity Charitable announced Thursday the launch of GivingCentral, a new online adviser platform, and a dedicated Advisor Service Team meant to assist financial advisers.
With the new platform advisers can set up and manage Giving Accounts, and make contributions to Fidelity Charitable on behalf of their clients and do all of it online.
Perhaps the single most important bit of news where registered investment advisers are concerned is the coming integration with the WealthCentral RIA platform from Fidelity Institutional Wealth Services.
Rollout of that piece is expected in mid-December.
With it WealthCentral advisers will have single sign-on to GivingCentral, allowing them to manage their clients’ brokerage accounts and Giving Accounts in one place.
“The GivingCentral platform is designed to look much like WealthCentral so advisers will already feel familiar with it,” said Edward O’Brien, senior vice president and head of technology with Fidelity IWS.
“We also have advisers that don’t necessarily work with IWS but that use Fidelity Charitable, so it does cover a greater landscape of advisers than just those on the WealthCentral platform,” he added.
Within GivingCentral itself advisers are able to include both individual and aggregate Giving Account views, and can export reports of client Giving Account balances, grant history, investments and charitable contributions.
In a prepared statement, Sarah Libbey president of Fidelity Charitable said the offering is focused on making it easy for advisers to help donors achieve their charitable goals.
“By providing advisers with the best technology and a dedicated service team that specializes in meeting their needs, we can help them add greater value to the charitable conversation with donors,” she said.
“Charitable giving is best maximized when integrated with a donor’s overall financial plans,” said Mike Durbin, president of Fidelity Institutional Wealth Services.
“The connection between WealthCentral and GivingCentral provides a powerful tool for our adviser clients, making it easier for them to manage investor accounts and to offer strategic recommendations around charitable giving,” he added.