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Broadridge Financial Solutions is looking to develop its new Wealth Platform into a third major core business and expects to expand its current client base for it beyond just UBS, according to Jim Young, its chief financial officer.
The company's overall strategy is to "strengthen our governance franchise," grow its capital markets franchise and also "build our wealth franchise," he said Wednesday at the D.A. Davidson Fast Connections Technology Conference in New York.
Although it's offered some individual wealth solutions over the past few years, it recently launched a "bigger initiative to have a full end-to-end platform" that it runs with UBS, he said, adding: "We're in the process of onboarding that activity."
He was referring to the strategic partnership announced late last year under which UBS Wealth Management USA is serving as the anchor client on the new Broadridge Wealth Platform. It's a "next-generation open platform that will solve a key financial services challenge by creating a modern, industry-level wealth management best-in-class technology solution," the companies said in their joint announcement at the time, adding the platform allows wealth managers to "drive their business to the next level while mutualizing investments in technology, innovation and security."
The platform provides an "integrated and modern front-to-back office solution that optimizes Financial Advisor productivity, creates a richer client experience, and digitizes enterprise-wide operations," the companies said.
One challenge Broadridge faced with its platform was that it lacked "name recognition," Young conceded Wednesday. But he said: "The day we announced UBS was like Christmas for our sales team because the inbound calls were flooding in and large clients — very sophisticated clients — wanted meetings on this."
