New products and changes introduced over the last week include Farmer Mac Notes, launched by Incapital; a partnership between PwC and Salesforce.com that allows wealth managers to use the cloud for numerous functions; the addition of Morningstar to Schwab's OpenView Gateway; the addition of six global banks to SWIFT's Know Your Customer registry; and a large-cap fund launched by Touchstone.
Also, NASDAQ OMX announced the listing of a Dorsey Wright ETF; Natixis launched a global tactical asset allocation fund; Market Vectors launched a China ETF; and AdvisoryWorld, FTJ Fund Choice and TD Ameritrade announced a partnering on advisor tools.
Here are the latest developments of interest to advisors:
1) Incapital Launches Farmer Mac Notes Program
Incapital has announced that the firm was chosen to be the lead manager of Farmer Mac Notes, a bond program from the Federal Agricultural Mortgage Corp. (Farmer Mac) designed for individual investors. Incapital is now an active underwriter for all issuing GSEs (Government Sponsored Enterprises), including Fannie Mae, Federal Farm Credit Banks, Federal Home Loan Banks, Freddie Mac and Tennessee Valley Authority.
The Farmer Mac Notes make semiannual payments and mature on July 1, 2024.
2) PwC, Salesforce.com Partner for Cloud Wealth Management
PwC has announced a partnership with Salesforce.com to bring its wealth management solution to the cloud. The wealth management solution is a digital application wrapped in consulting services, built on Sales Cloud and running on Salesforce 1.
It allows wealth managers to access and visualize information about prospects, clients, centers of influence (COIs), advisors and other relationships anytime, anywhere, across any device; create, deliver and track client communications in one central place; track opportunities, financial accounts, notes, tasks, and events; generate and view reports on employee, client and organizational performance; track current pipeline of leads; integrate with mobile devices like tablets or smartphones; and create user restrictions to meet risk/compliance protocols.
3) Morningstar Joins Schwab OpenView Gateway
Schwab Intelligent Technologies has announced that Morningstar Inc. will join its Schwab OpenView Gateway open architecture technology platform.
The integration will make real-time custodial data from Charles Schwab available within Morningstar Office, a scalable, end-to-end practice and portfolio management platform that facilitates advanced research, performance reporting and secure client communications.
4) SWIFT Adds Six Global Banks to Know Your Customer Registry Initiative
SWIFT has announced that six more global banks have signed on to its Know Your Customer (KYC) Registry, a centralized repository that maintains a standardized set of information about banks required for due diligence processes.
Barclays, Deutsche Bank, Erste Group Bank AG, HSBC, ING and Raiffeisen Bank International AG are the latest banks to sign up to the SWIFT-led KYC initiative, bringing the total number of participating banks to 12. These institutions join Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citi, Commerzbank, J.P.Morgan, Société Générale and Standard Chartered, whose participation in the KYC initiative was announced in March.
5) Touchstone Launches Large-Cap Fund
