LPL Financial selected SmartAsset's SmartAdvisor platform for inclusion in its Vendor Affinity Program, SmartAsset said on Thursday.
Starting this month, the more than 18,000 independent financial advisors who are affiliated with LPL will be able to leverage the SmartAdvisor platform, which connects validated consumer prospects with fiduciary financial advisors across the U.S.
LPL-affiliated advisors will also have the opportunity to use SmartAsset's Live Connections service, which SmartAsset said is a "new way of delivering high-intent, validated consumer prospects." Live Connections reduces advisors' marketing burden by eliminating the time they spend prospecting, contacting and following up with potential clients.
LPL's Vendor Affinity Program was launched in 2015 to help advisors reduce the complexity and costs of running their businesses, curating a network of third-party vendors that have agreed to provide their products and services to LPL advisors at discounted prices. Vendors are selected for inclusion based on advisor demand, the ease of using their products or services, and their ability to meet LPL's security and compliance requirements.
Morgan Stanley Partners With Microsoft
Morgan Stanley and Microsoft on Wednesday announced a strategic cloud partnership they said was designed to accelerate Morgan Stanley's digital transformation and shape the future of innovation in the financial services sector.
Morgan Stanley clients, employees and businesses will benefit from the pact with a "deeper breadth of available services based on cloud-native offerings; tooling and resources for developers that enable faster delivery of applications and enhancements, most notably for its clients and 15,000+ financial advisors in wealth management," the firms said.
Morgan Stanley will also be able to offer easier data sharing with institutional clients via offerings including its application programming interface portal providing direct connectivity in the cloud, the companies noted.
The scope of the Morgan Stanley-Microsoft deal extends beyond the cloud. "The partnership will also shape the broader Microsoft product offering and create additional collaboration opportunities in the financial services industry focused on the modern workplace and the broader developer experience," the firms said.
RIA in a Box Introduces New Solution
RIA in a Box introduced a new Communications Archiving and Review solution on Thursday.
The new product offers RIA firms the ability to "efficiently execute firm archiving duties all within the MyRIACompliance platform," it said. The solution includes features that will simplify the necessary tasks to collect, organize, retrieve and review communications data.
The new RIA in a Box solution, available now for Securities and Exchange Commission- and state-registered RIA firms of all sizes to enhance their compliance programs, helps to automate the archiving process for website content, social media and email communication. Users can add this new solution to their existing RIA in a Box subscription or it can be bought as a standalone product.
Orion and HiddenLevers Announce First Post-Acquisition Deal
Cardea Capital, a $3 billion, Atlanta-based RIA and turnkey asset management program (TAMP), will use the portfolio stress-testing and risk analytics of HiddenLevers as part of the first deal announced since Orion Advisor Solutions said in March it was acquiring HiddenLevers.
Orion completed its acquisition of the portfolio stress-testing platform last month.
