Schwab Advisor Services is seeing increased adoption of digital authorization and other tools and services among advisors as the firm continues to enhance and expand its offerings, company executives said during its recent Technology Tuesday conference call with reporters.
The company also continues to "take advantage of" artificial intelligence and machine learning in "certain areas of our feature set" and is "continuing to explore new opportunities down that path," Andrew Salesky, senior vice president of Schwab Advisor Services, said in response to a ThinkAdvisor question during the Q&A.
More AI initiatives are "happening to some degree on our retail side," and his division is "trying to look at those for opportunities to explore with our advisors as well," he said. So, there's "definitely more to come down that path, but our focus for 2020 is largely elsewhere," he added.
And by elsewhere, he explained, the main focus for Schwab Advisor Services this year is on "digital actions, building on our platforms" and integration activities. Earlier, he pointed out that he preferred using the term digital actions to digital workflows — the more common term — "because it really emphasizes the ease and outcome orientation that we're trying to bring to this area of our activities."
Digital onboarding is among the most important areas of focus for the division this year, he noted earlier on the call.
"2019 was a great year for us launching Digital Account Open," a new tool on Schwab Advisor Center, he said, saying adoption has been strong.
"Smaller advisors actually are our best adopters" and are adopting the tool "at roughly 3 times the average rate, so we're very pleased with that," he said.
But right now, Digital Account Open is just for single accounts and does not integrate funding, he noted. "So, the key thing that we're working on, and hoping to have out this year, is the ability to have multiple accounts in a single digital envelope with integrated funding instructions," he said, adding: "We really believe that's going to unleash a whole new wave of adoption because then it becomes something that is really attractive when you're onboarding not just a single account or a single client but also potentially when you're onboarding a full practice. And we're looking to really scale our Digital Account Open capabilities in 2020."
Another key area that the company is working on this year is "everything around platforms," including the firm's Portfolio Connect management solution that was launched last spring, he said.
"We greatly exceeded our expectation for year-end enrollments on the platform, with over 700 clients now utilizing the platform on a daily basis," he said, adding the average assets under management for those clients is about $40 million.
"What you'll see this year [are] more capabilities for larger firms that are interested in using Portfolio Connect: some data capabilities, export capabilities, bulk account management capabilities," he said. However, he added that Portfolio Connect "will stay a Schwab custody-only solution."
Schwab Advisor Services, meanwhile, "made a number of enhancements last year" to its Institutional Intelligent Portfolios platform, "adding mutual funds [and] having unlimited portfolios," he went on to say, adding: "One of the big ones was also adding the ability to do account conversions through our digital account capabilities — so to convert an existing Schwab account into an Institutional Intelligent Portfolio account. We've seen great adoption of that digital capability…. Roughly 50% of our Institutional Intelligent Portfolio accounts are being opened digitally. So, we're very excited about that adoption and the continued growth of that platform."