LPL Financial is joining the growing number of firms that will be offering a robo-advisor product for advisors in its network.
"We want to deliver a robo solution as a complement to your practice," LPL President Dan Arnold told the crowd of 7,000, including 4,000 advisors, at the firm's Focus 15 conference in Boston.
The firm is starting with a pilot program involving 20 advisors that it will roll out in the next 60 days and will partner with a third party, which it did not identify, to provide its technology interface and product solutions.
Arnold described the robo-advisor offering as "a complement" to advisors' existing practices that will expand their portfolios, allowing them to reach more markets and the next generation of clients.
Arnold said robo-advisors would not replace financial advisors but would "be a disruption to our pricing." To that end, he announced that LPL, the country's largest independent broker-dealer, will eliminate the strategist fee charged for all LPL Research models in MWP — Model Wealth Portfolios — in early 2016, allowing fee advisors to offer LPL Research model portfolios for that platform at a 15- to 20-basis-point discount, said Arnold. In addition, LPL announced that the IRA maintenance fee will be removed from its MWP and OMP platforms in early 2016 as well.
