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Schwab PortfolioCenter may be poised to shed its utilitarian image |
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Written by Heather Underwood and Brooke Southall
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Friday, 17 September 2010 00:00 |
Long a favorite for the small RIA, its spiffier reports and early admission in Schwab's grand technology plan give it a bigger future Brooke’s Note: Arguably the two biggest decisions an RIA makes when setting up a practice are the choice of an asset custodian and the portfolio accounting system. So it’s notable that The Charles Schwab Corp. owns the unquestioned leader in custody in Schwab Advisor Services and — depending on your metrics — the leader or almost-leader in portfolio accounting in Schwab Performance Technologies. Still the San Francisco-based corporation hasn’t seemed to realize big synergies from these dual strengths. Now the company is putting the final touches on a series of efforts that could bring PortfolioCenter to its fuller potential as a stand-alone software company and as a partner of the industry’s biggest custodian.
Heather and I split the writing of this piece. I took on the question of how Schwab’s platform competes; she wrote the review of the technology that begins after the subheadline “Interface.” Read more... |
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How is Cloud Computing Impacting the Independent Advisor Market? |
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Wednesday, 08 July 2009 22:03 |
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Ask a friend what cloud computing is and you’ll likely get a look of bewilderment. Enter a search in Google for “cloud computing” and one of the first hits you find is a Youtube.com video of technologists at a recent conference giving their differing explanations of what cloud computing actually is. In fact, defining cloud computing really depends on the observer. The term itself is certainly apropos: explaining “cloud computing” is like describing real clouds... it depends on the viewer and their perspective as the various shapes morph into animallike creatures, ever evolving. 
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Generally, the “cloud" is described as the combination of available Internet applications, Software as a Service (SaaS) and hosted hardware server options (Hardware as a Service, HaaS) with expanding interconnectivity and integration. As an example in our industry, consider an advisor who might move the entire firm’s technology infrastructure to an off-site, secure, hosted server network with quad-redundancy and managed IT support. By loading all traditionally desktop software, like MS Office, email server, portfolio management, CRM or any other critical software on this server, all staff can access the server from any location, reducing the number of licenses needed and completely outsourcing nearly all IT support. Couple this with using more and more Web-based applications and a firm reduces costs and can scale for much faster growth across multiple physical locations. |
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Schwab Announces Pricing, Service and Technology Initiatives to Boost Independent Advisor Growth and Efficiency |
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Thursday, 25 June 2009 00:00 |
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Source: http://www.pr-inside.com/schwab-announces-pricing-service-and-r1346422.htm At a gathering of some of the nation’s largest independent investment advisors, Charles Schwab today unveiled a series of new initiatives designed to help them fuel their growth and add scale by managing costs and improving their efficiency.
In the challenging environment brought on by disruption in the financial markets beginning last year, many affluent investors are poised to establish new relationships with independent advisors but are hesitant to act during turbulent markets; at the same time, current clients of advisors are requiring more of their time, accelerating the need for greater efficiency in their businesses. On the occasion of its annual EXPLORE event, Charles Schwab, the leading provider of custodial, operational and trading support for more than 6,000 independent fee-based investment advisory firms announced a series of steps it is taking to support advisors in the current environment. |
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