CEB TowerGroup’s “Financial Planning Software: Technology Analysis” is tailored to reflect the needs of the end-user, in this case the advisors, to diagnose the technology attributes particular to a firm, and to effectively identify vendor products that align with the firm’s needs. By combining qualitative and quantitative data from interviews with industry experts, financial institutions, vendors, and surveys of wealth managers, CEB TowerGroup identified 23 attributes that define a “best-in-class” financial planning technology. These attributes are grouped into the 4 categories that highlight a firm’s client, advisor, and enterprise needs.

Among the WealthStation Financial Planning key differentiators that contributed to its best-in-class assessment, as cited in the report, include:

• Client Engagement: Extensive reporting options easily exported for the client from any module
• Advisor Experience: Native integration to the full WealthStation suite and other SunGard products
• Advisory Tools: Ability to adjust asset designations for non-traditional assets
• Enterprise Support: Multiple, adjustable pricing and deployment options to meet any size client’s needs

Darrin Courtney, research director, at CEB TowerGroup, said, “A majority of firms anticipate improving their financial planning capability significantly in the next 12 months. In a recent survey nearly 70 percent of wealth managers are investing in improvements in their financial planning capabilities. Furthermore, as clients demand more collaboration with advisors, technology will facilitate this relationship shift with tablet computing options, mobile planning applications, and interactive client portals.”

Sean Cunniff, senior vice president, advisor solutions for SunGard’s wealth management business, said, “SunGard’s focus on improving the advisor and client experience is well demonstrated in the results of CEB TowerGroup’s analysis. Our continued investment in WealthStation’s financial planning capabilities, mobile applications and client access portals are helping advisors of all sizes improve client collaboration, differentiation and effectiveness in attracting, retaining and servicing clients.”

About SunGard’s WealthStation
SunGard’s WealthStation provides wealth managers with tools to help them acquire, service and grow their client relationships. Integrating client management, financial planning, investment management, asset allocation, data aggregation, trading, rebalancing, reporting, client access and compliance tools into a single platform, WealthStation delivers a flexible architecture to help advisors improve their productivity while providing increased service levels to their clients.

About SunGard
SunGard is one of the world’s leading software and technology services companies. SunGard has more than 17,000 employees and serves approximately 25,000 customers in more than 70 countries. SunGard provides software and processing solutions for financial services, education and the public sector. SunGard also provides disaster recovery services, managed IT services, information availability consulting services and business continuity management software. With annual revenue of about $4.5 billion, SunGard is the largest privately held software and services company and was ranked 434 on the Fortune 500 in 2011. Look for us wherever the mission is critical. For more information, please visit http://www.sungard.com.

Source:  PRWeb

Posted by Steven Maimes, The Trust Advisor

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Competition between trust accounting platforms goes nuclear as banks and independent wealth managers look for ways to automate the heavy lifting and get back in front of their clients. Moving off the desktop and onto iPads is the next revolution, technology vendors say.

Trust officers who were once famously cautious when it comes to making big changes are suddenly open to ripping out and replacing the accounting system — the heart of their business — to get a competitive edge.

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As a result, software companies are racing to unveil tablet computer support and other high-tech enhancements while their prospective customers are still in the mood to shop around.

“Institutions across the board are definitely investigating what’s out there,” says Mike Dinges, president of trust accounting software vendor Infovisa, which is working hard on the iPad version of its system.

“We are on the edge of a revolution in terms of how everyone does business,” he adds. “There will be winners and losers.”

To track the vendors leading the way, we polled the industry and came up with a list of the top trust accounting software companies out there. You can see it by clicking here or on the thumbnail above.

Out of the back office…and out of the office entirely

The first battle of the revolution is being fought to get control of a 10-inch territory: iPad screens.

Infovisa, for example, is redesigning its Maui system to work on touchscreen tablets as well as desktop computers.

So is Citi, and other vendors like SunGard are actively building mobile device support into client-facing applications that talk to their core back office systems.

Part of this is a response to demand from advisors in love with their tablets and looking for ways to integrate them into their jobs, says Jennifer Valdez, who runs SunGard’s wealth management product line.

But getting advisors out from behind their desks and in front of clients is rapidly becoming a competitive necessity for firms looking to squeeze more face time out of their star relationship managers, Mike Dinges says.

“Community banks and other institutions are really waking up to the fact that their relationships are their key resource,” he explains.

“Putting the account statement on a portable device like the iPad makes it possible to have more meetings outside the traditional office setting. If the market shifts, you can just call your client and update him or her over coffee.”

Dinges admits that it’s harder than you might expect to think in tablet terms like “pinches” and “gestures” instead of mouse moves, but he expects the results to blow people away.

“We don’t do vapor products,” he says. “This will be real.”

Convergent systems for convergent shops

While the revolutionary developments are in the lab, trust software vendors are busy enough just answering the phone.

“In my 30 years in this business, I’ve never seen a time when people were so willing to evaluate new software,” says Ray Unger, head of AccuTech Systems.

“They’re getting squeezed on their margins and in some cases are having to find a way to meet new regulatory requirements,” he explains.

It isn’t just the traditional trust banks that are in play here.

Independent trust companies, advisory firms, wealth managers and family offices are flirting with software that was once designed exclusively for banks.

What intrigues these non-traditional customers is the way these platforms have evolved from bare-bones custody systems to support all the aspects of the wealth management process.

When we surveyed the scene a few months ago, these systems were already moving toward the front office to give trust providers a single-screen solution to just about everything.

Now, a typical “accounting” platform supports a full range of securities and mutual fund transaction support and processing, systemwide balancing, custody and asset safekeeping, client reporting and portfolio management.

“What we’re seeing is true convergence of technology,” says Jeff Bloedorn, who heads up trust and wealth management business development for FIS.

“That’s feeding a convergence in the types of institutions we see becoming interested in this software,” he explains.

“Small investors are growing up and demanding more trust capability while larger institutional guys are realizing they have personal advisory needs.”

Growing too fast?

The sheer volume of interest in this technology may be becoming a problem for vendors that pride themselves on their customer service.

One trust company that recently switched to AccuTrust’s platform tells us they probably wouldn’t have made the move from HWA’s TrustNet if they knew customer service would be so slow.

“We are still having issues,” the principals say. “It takes months to get responses.”

When I asked Ray Unger about it, he was horrified.

“I don’t want our growth to be an excuse, but it is part of the explanation,” he says.

“We have our customers to answer to, and our goal is to make sure that over the long haul everyone we have a relationship with is satisfied.”

Family offices come into their own

Meanwhile, the big vendors keep making incremental changes to keep up with what their rivals are doing.

For example, FIS recently gave TrustDesk users the power to create “shadow” accounts for their clients’ assets held elsewhere — a version of the “unified household account” approach that giants like Citi and Sungard offer.

Multi-currency support is another hot differentiator, with platforms like TrustPortal and Innovest’s InnoTrust winning high marks.

Family offices and foundations are especially interested in buying into “trust” systems because they need the ability to administer the distributions as well as track the investments — and they rarely have legacy systems in place to rip out and replace.

“Attorneys and CPAs are doing more family office business and need the ability to automate their activities as the number of accounts grows,” says Rich McCabe at Delta Data.

Platforms like Delta’s Trust Accountant and HWI’s Trust Processor give these non-traditional customers a low-cost way to manage relatively small books of business and, ideally, scale up.

Scott Martin, senior editor, The Trust Advisor Blog. Steve Maimes contributed to the research.

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Shopping for a trust accounting system? Our experts reveal what you need to know before you buy. HWA, Fi-Tek and others boost their standing, while new players like Citi make a splash with innovation, offering institutions a better way to do business. SunGard AddVantage leads as top choice across the board. Here’s why.

Keeping accurate records — and staying on top of them — remains the foundation of everything that trust companies do. And as family offices and other wealth managers hunt operational efficiency, systems originally developed to track trust accounts are becoming hot strategic commodities.

To find the best platforms out there, we polled trust operations personnel, consultants and the users themselves on the pros and cons of 11 systems from 9 separate vendors:

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“Trust accounting systems do a better job of reflecting the totality of the relationship between fiduciary and client,” says Bob Ellis, a wealth management consultant who’s written extensively on trust technology for Celent and other firms.

“The trust is not just the portfolio and not just a bank account and needs a more flexible system,” he explains.

“It needs to reflect a combination of investments, analysis, reporting and even cash distributions. And as non-trust companies take a more holistic approach to the client relationship, they need these capabilities too.”

AddVantage wins through scale

Our sources give the prize to Sungard’s massive AddVantage for giving the biggest bang out there, bar none.

“No other system has all the features that AddVantage provides,”  says Les Revzon, who runs a trust company operations outsource group.

“It was ahead of the game years ago and remains so far ahead of any system that I know of that it still earns an ‘A’ rating from me.”

Quite simply, AddVantage does it all, so a look under its hood reveals a lot of what modern trust companies are looking for.

The platform provides a full range of securities and mutual fund transaction support and processing, systemwide balancing, custody and asset safekeeping, client reporting and portfolio management.

AddVantage automates cash sweeps and — especially desirable for trust officers juggling the need to maximize total returns for all beneficiaries — segments account assets into income and principal.

Investment architecture is completely open, even where private equity, hedge funds and other alternative asset classes are concerned.

Processing takes place in real time, all via the Web. And AddVantage even supports email delivery of statements as part of its integrated customer relationship management (CRM) capability.

In just the last few years, CRM has gone from a novelty in the financial services industry to a must-have labor- and cost-saving technology. And trust officers increasingly demand the power to check client history and generate automated client communications without leaving the core accounting screen.

Plenty of choices for the rest of us

While AddVantage is definitely the thoroughbred in the marketplace, its architecture and pricing make it a tough fit for trust companies with under $2 billion under administration.

To run AddVantage, a trust department generally has to budget around $10,000 a month to the system, which instantly prices out start-up firms and non-traditional users alike.

Luckily, other trust companies still have plenty of more reasonably scaled vendors to pick from.

Since 2009, the number of vendors on our list has grown from 7 to 10 — broadening out to include specialized trust-only firms like Delta Data and a few emerging giants in the world of trade processing and back office software.

All do a fine job of tracking accounts and assets. But beyond that, the sheer diversity of add-on features — and the dictates of pricing — makes it hard to pick a definitive “best of breed” winner in this category.

“Turn the key in a 1960 Chevy, and it’ll still run. It just won’t have airbags, automatic seat belts, satellite radio or any of the other things we now take for granted,” Revzon explains.

Instead, we ranked the platforms on a one- to five-star scale, with one star going to that perfectly serviceable 1960 Chevy and four stars to the best platforms out there that a start-up trust company could reasonably afford.

Innovation is rewarded

Scoring very high in the four-star group this year, HWA International’s TrustNet would probably also win the prize for the most improved platform.

Back in 2009, our research revealed that TrustNet supported basic portfolio performance tracking and Web-supported ASP networking — both of which have become must-have items for any competitive accounting system — but offered little in the way of more advanced technology.

But over the last two years, HWA invested heavily in its platform and now provides straight-through processing (STP) and integrated investment proposal generation software, along with full CRM support.

“It’s pretty beefed up now,” says Harry Sullivan, who heads up HWA sales. “There’s not too much more we could add from the trust processor side, although if a client wants something changed we have an excellent procedure in place for handling that.”

As far as Sullivan’s concerned, the only real competitor for TrustNet now is HWA’s other trust accounting system Trust Processor, which has all the same functionality and as a bonus happens to be the only general-ledger-based option out there.

That makes Trust Processor ideal for smaller offices in particular, Bob Ellis tells us.

TrustPortal leading the convergence

And where non-trust institutions like adapting traditionally trust-specific accounting systems to their business models, Fi-Tek’s TrustPortal is winning big gains, Ellis says.

“This is creating a huge opening for people like Fi-Tek, which is probably the low-cost provider in the space,” he tells us.

Until recently, family office providers who wanted an integrated solution had to either cobble one together from in-house spreadsheets or else pay through the nose for an expensive and specialized product like Rockit.

But since Fi-Tek started transforming TrustPortal from a specialized accounting system into a full-fledged wealth management platform six years ago, family offices and trusts alike have flocked to its versatility and pricing.

Clients get all the functionality of other top-line systems — combining wealth planning, portfolio management, modeling, realtime trade execution, proposal generation, compliance and other capabilities in the same platform.

And Ellis says compatibility with Fi-Tek’s popular HedgeTek portfolio tracking platform, which already runs $400 billion in institutional funds, is a real ace in the hole here where integration is concerned.

“Fi-Tek is probably the leader in this segment because they have HedgeTek already on their side,” he explains.

Citi making big waves

Integrated proposal generation and household rebalancing are also key competitive factors for the newest vendor on our list, Citi Investor Services, which rolled out a trust accounting enhancement for its popular OpenWealth asset management platform back in March.

OpenWealth now allows trust officers to handle everything from account creation and proposal generation, rebalancing to reporting and long-term tax planning, right in the trust office desktop.

And its award-winning “unified managed household” approach lets trust officers monitor all of an investor’s assets across trusts and other family accounts, ensuring that each investor’s wealth is managed as effectively as possible.

“What we’ve done is deliver to the trust space the first truly holistic wealth management platform from the family perspective,” says Jonathan Flitt, director at Citi Investor Services.

Although Citi is new to the trust market, this kind of innovation has already earned it high marks – not to mention forcing more established trust accounting vendors to play catch up.

After all, to paraphrase Les Revzon, the 1960 Chevy may get you there, but that doesn’t mean you want to drive it.

Scott Martin, senior editor, The Trust Advisor Blog. Steve Maimes and Les Revzon contributed to the reporting and research.

Exclusive

CEO says new funds can be started in minutes, not months, at a fraction of the cost of a mutual fund.

Earlier this month The Trust Advisor reported Westwood Holdings Group, Inc. (NYSE:  WHG), through its trust company unit Westwood Trust, helped forge gains by landing large new accounts while other firms sat on the sidelines. Westwood managed to bring in $2 billion in new assets during the toughest year in recent financial memory.

As part two of our report on Westwood Trust, I had an opportunity to chat once again with Brian Casey, President and CEO of Westwood, to drill down into the topic of interest to most wealth advisors – common trust funds.

New Money from an Old Idea

Simply stated, common trust funds or “CTFs” permit the commingling or pooling of investors’ money into one account (known as a common fund) for the purpose of creating a single investment. In other words, they are much like a mutual fund. They actually pre-date mutual funds so they are an old concept. Since they are a bank product, CTFs are not required to be registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission and they are not considered to be a security under state and federal securities laws. They are regulated under OCC Regulation 9 (12 CFR 9.18) and are supervised by state or federal bank regulators.

Casey says there are two types of CTFs. The first are common trust funds or CTFs, a product of a bank or trust company established as a convenience to the trust client. The second are collective investment funds or CIFs. These are utilized primarily by large qualified plan sponsors who are seeking institutional pricing for a large pool of retirement assets such as 401ks.  They strike an NAV daily and trade on Fundserve.   Casey adds, “We actually have one of these that we developed for a Fortune 100 company 401k plan and the data is available in Morningstar.”

But Westwood’s power products are the CTFs, common trust funds. They are private and only available to clients of Westwood Trust. Casey says that “they are only available to our clients who have a bona fide personal trust relationship with the trust company.” Their minimum account size is $2 million which can be either a taxable or retirement account. But, in other words, to benefit “you have to be a trust client and have seven figures with us to be part of the club.”

According to the Westwood’s 10K quarterly report for the year ending September 30, 2009, $1.4 billion of its $9.5 billion or 15% of its assets under management are held in common trust fund relationships.

The Strategies

Westwood runs 31 separate common trust funds which are based on 15 asset classes. Casey adds, “With institutional quality and thoughtful asset allocation, the client is given a better shot of achieving what it is that they’re trying to do than picking a mutual fund off a list.”

To the client, “expenses matter.” With a CTF the only charge is a management fee.  There is no legal, accounting,  transfer agent or fund supermarket fees that are normally part of a mutual fund fee structure.

Westwood offers five different “flavors” of value. This includes small-cap, all-cap, large-cap , mid‑cap and smid-cap value. As for income, they offer five types of income products including investment grade bonds, REITs, High Yield and two unique income funds.

They have an esoteric type of fund called the Income Opportunity Fund. This allows them to participate in a company through different parts of its capital structure. This might include, for example, a high dividend paying common stock, a preferred stock, or part of a company’s debt in the form of a bond. Or, they might own royalty trusts or MLPs.

They just started a popular Global Diversification Fund CTF. The strategy on this vehicle is to focus on investor purchasing power protection. Casey remarks, “As U.S. citizens, we have a lot of obstacles that could diminish the purchasing power of our savings, like inflation or the potential decline of the U.S. dollar.” This fund might hold global TIPs or treasury inflation protected securities, global bonds, gold, and other types of commodities.

While Westwood manages all of the domestic value and income funds, Westwood employs outside subadvisors chosen by Westwood’s investment committee with assistance from an outside consulting firm. To manage the domestic growth funds, Westwood uses William Blair in Chicago as their subadvisor.

For International Value, Westwood uses Lazard based in London and for International Growth, Westwood employs Martin Currie based in Scotland. The fees paid to subadvisors come out of Westwood’s pocket as opposed to any additional fee to the client.  Casey says, “Asset allocation is critical to long-term investment success.”

Westwood is a world-class investor in the value and income space, but we recognize that investors need access to both domestic and international strategies to complete their asset allocation plan.  We have a talented consultant on retainer and an experienced investment committee to help us identify best in class subadvisors.”

Technical Items

A major part of hosting a selection of common trust funds servicing close to $1.5 billion is the technology platform. The two major factors that must be considered for any common trust fund trust accounting systems are (1) to keep track of each investors holding and (2) to be able to strike a daily NAV calculation for each fund.

Westwood uses a trust accounting system called Infovisa. Casey said they have been working with Infovisa for over 10 years and they deliver a “great system.” He remarked that the folks that started Infovisa came out of SunGard.

SunGard offers two trust accounting systems to support CTF processing. The two systems are: Charlotte, which is utilized primarily by firms with zero to US$2 billion in trust assets. Customers include smaller community banks and private trust companies as well as startup firms. The other is AddVantage, which is typically used by large regional and national banks, with no theoretical size maximum in terms of assets, transactions, or users.

Each of the systems has been designed to work in conjunction with SunGard’s wealth management platform solution, Wealth Station. The trust platforms are also able to utilize the trade execution and compliance tools of the SunGard Transaction Network (STN).

Advent also offers a common trust fund system. It is actually a mutual fund system, but may be used to keep track of CTFs.

Taking  Action

Common trust fund arrangements offer clients lower fees than mutual funds. That together with the enormous flexibility to create a pooled investment vehicle in minutes means that CTFs are likely to become an important part of the investment landscape.

The ease with which a trust company can be established in South Dakota, Nevada or Delaware by investment managers, has made inroads to this field, establishing a kind of “turnkey” service, which allows investment managers and plan administrators to easily establish new common trust funds arrangements.

Jerry Cooper, senior editor, The Trust Advisor Blog. Steven Maimes contributed to the research.

Five years ago I joined a technology web demo, presented to one of my clients, the newly chartered Summit Trust Company of Nevada.  The demo was presented by Ray Unger, President of AccuTech Systems based in Muncie, Indiana.

This was not the first time the president of the technology company hosted a web demo.  But it did leave a lasting impression on Summit execs.  They were sold on the slick features of the AccuTrust Gold system within the first five minutes.

Unger’s 2004 demo moved quickly and seamlessly from one screen to another — from trading to reconciliation to reporting to exporting.  The impressive tech speech left my clients wide eyed.

Here we are, five years later, and my client Summit Trust and Ray Unger have built a strong relationship together.  Since then AccuTrust Gold has gone through many revisions and updates but their relationship with Summit remains strong.

Given that what I was doing five years ago is remarkably similar to what I’m doing today, I worked with my staff to evaluate every one of the trust accounting systems in the industry.  I wanted to challenge Ray Unger’s Gold product to ensure my clients would be getting technology produced by the best and brightest minds in the country.

To this day, I am convinced that the decision my clients made five years ago is the decision that all trust companies should make today when it comes to selecting the best trust accounting software.

No, this is not a paid commercial for AccuTech systems.  In my opinion, based on what the software does and how it does it, simply gives the user and the trust company it supports the best internet-based accounting system available today.  But many of you may prefer to evaluate and decide for yourself.

So The Trust Advisor this week has focused on the top seven trust accounting system providers, and provided you with a brief outline of the major capabilities of each.  That way, you can judge for yourself which system is best for you.

Les Revzon, an officer of Summit Trust, says that Summit Trust considered many other options during the five years that it has hosted the Gold system.  While so many institutions go off software because of poor service or lack of performance, Revzon says “we never had any reason to change”.

The chart below entitled trust accounting systems, describes the major features of the systems available.  Of major importance these days are two features which we cover in our discussion.

First whether or not the trust accounting system hosts STP Trading which is an acronym for straight through processing.  This is a feature that permits the trust accounting system to enter a trade order and show the trade in the trust accounting system the next morning.  If one trades through the system module, the trades show up in real time, since most systems are based on where the software data center is located.

In the event that straight through processing is not available, then a method called “shadow processing” allows the trade to be booked from the custodian, which then posts the trade directly into the trust accounting system that evening. The trades thus show up the next morning on line.

Either way the category known at STP trading is an important feature to consider when selecting trust software.

A report released this week by Gartner titled US Trust Accounting Applications by David Schehr, suggests that what technology systems trust companies needed five or ten years ago has changed.

The report goes on to say that trust accounting systems have been built to meet client needs and organizational requirements.  Given that there’s little synergy between the systems, Schehr refers to this as “siloed” .  Which may be an accurate description of many different systems being created, but none of them seem to work together.

In addition, the report states that outsourcing is in high demand in the trust industry these days due to cost-saving measures and cutbacks caused by the economic slump.  Outsourcing occurs when providers host the trust accounting system on their system while third party servicing agents do the inputting and outputting on behalf of the client.

In addition, clients now prefer vendors who provide application service providers or ASP based systems as referred to in the chart. This permits the carrying of custody of data to be done offsite to SAS 70 compliant locations, rather than the firm’s back offices.

Here are the seven firms which host software solutions:

ACCUTRUST

AccuTrust Gold is available for community based, independent trust companies, law firms and non‑profit and government agencies.  AccuTech has over 300 clients on its systems and 90 percent of them are banks.

AccuTech claims that their Gold systems is the fastest growing trust accounting system in the industry.  It is available either on a hosted basis where it operates ASP, or on an in‑house base where it works in your own office.  There are also providers that host AccuTech on a full outsourced arrangement basis, which permits everything to take place including the hosting of the software, the printing of the statements and the coordination with the custodian.

AccuTrust Gold’s advantages include its intuitive ease of operation.  In addition to this, AccuTech’s ASP version hosts common trust funds and permits those trust funds to be reconciled on a daily basis which most of its peers cannot handle.

AccuTrust Gold has interfaces with Schwab, Fidelity, TD and Pershing.

TRUSTNET

TrustNet is HWA International’s product that runs on stand-alone PCs or on PC-based networks. It is not available as an ASP solution. A menu-based system, TrustNet utilizes relational databases. TrustNet has handled up to 210 users, 40,000 accounts, and US$14 billion in assets on a single system.

TrustNet is entirely code-based so that operations people can either enter the transaction code or click on the code itself on the appropriate screen. There are also pull-down menus showing both the code and the activity, plus an online manual with codes and activity descriptions.

Furthermore, the current activity code screens are always displayed so operators will always know where they are in the system. Variations of TrustNet have existed for over 20 years, and clients are very attached to this method of processing.

TrustNet is built to be highly customized. In fact, most clients request some level of customization based on their particular lines of business. The system is based on the fact that everything is tied to either an account or an asset, and transactions are simply the interaction between the two.

INNOVEST

Innovest’s InnoTrust system is built exclusively on newer technologies. Innovest, which began selling InnoTrust in 2001, is a privately owned firm with approximately 25 clients on its trust system. Seventy percent of InnoTrust’s clients have under $1 billion in assets, though some substantial relationships do exist.

The largest of these may soon be Schwab Institutional Services, where InnoTrust has been added as the point systems trust accounting solution to the SIS RIA platform. Other substantial client groups consist of not-for-profits and startups.

InnoTrust currently hosts over $110 billion in assets and 100,000 accounts on the system. InnoTrust reports its largest customer is running 120,000 transactions per day on the system. The system is both multi-currency and multi-custodian based.  Interfaces are easy to build utilizing the .NET technology.  All data is real time.  Existing interfaces come with a variety of custodians, FINCEN and OFAC, SWIFT, FIX, Investment Scorecard, Green Hill, and DTC.  Pricing data comes from Interactive Data (IDC). Multiple tax interfaces, including the IRS and FastTax, are available.

METAVANTE

Metavante’s trust system offering is TrustDesk, a highly capable system which has recently undergone extensive updating. Metavante Technologies Inc. was spun off from Marshall & Ilsley Corp. (M&I) into a separate corporation in November 2007. Metavante has 5,500 employees and 8,250 clients located in all 50 states and 32 countries. In addition to trust systems, Metavante also offers a variety of payment and core banking solutions.

Metavante has invested almost US$2 billion in upgrading its products in the last five years. A share of that reinvestment has been spent on the updated TrustDesk product. TrustDesk, available as either an ASP or fully outsourced solution, runs $1.2 trillion in assets in 900,000 accounts for 200 clients, with approximately one-fifth of the clients running in the full operations outsource mode. When clients run in outsource mode, they are utilizing TrustDesk, with the assets being custodied and securities operations being performed by M&I Trust.

TrustDesk provides operations, account administration, and investment management support. Tools include InvestDesk for portfolio management, ReturnTrack for performance reporting, and RDMS for retirement systems planning and distribution. Trust Exchange provides extended capability through over 100 third party providers such as Petrodata (PDS) for oil, gas, and real estate management.

TrustDesk is aimed at trust organizations from US$1 billion to $50 billion in client assets with 1,000 to 3,000 client accounts. The largest TrustDesk installation outside M&I Trust has handled 40,000 accounts. A large number of new accounts are coming from de novo organizations and non-traditional firms (such as family offices) where the account management capabilities are valued. Conversions to TrustDesk take six to eight months for the typical trust organization, with up to 18 months for the very biggest clients.

TrustDesk offers real time access for trust operations via a mainframe system combined with a Windows and browser-based programs. “Metavante Portfolio Online (MPO),” released in late 2007, represents the latest iteration of TrustWeb and Admin Web, the web access tools of TrustDesk, and features enhanced web-enabled client reporting, presentation, and data access tools. MPO can also serve as a traveling administrators’ client access system.

NORTHERN TRUST

Northern Trust is one of the pre-eminent wealth managers in the US. It handles asset management and custody for individuals and organizations. Northern Trust has over US$4 trillion in assets under custody and $765 billion in assets under management.

Northern Trust partners with a financial technology firm, Fi-Tek (maker of the Hedge-Tek accounting system for partnerships and family office used by many large financial organizations) to continuously enhance and develop the Trust/Rite and  Trust/Portal systems. Technically, the systems are owned by Fi-Tek and leased back to Northern Trust on an exclusive basis. Northern Trust is responsible for sales, clients, assets, and custody. Because Fi-Tek is behind the scenes as far as most users are concerned, it is still more common in the industry to refer to this as Northern Trust’s trust systems solution.

Trust/Portal is aimed at organizations with US$2 billion to $15 billion in client assets with 4,000 to 6,000 accounts. The largest Trust/Rite installation currently has approximately 13,000 accounts. These are larger organizations than Trust/Rite was originally targeting, and the difference reflects the inclusion of electronic trading features. Organizations smaller than $250 million in assets are advised to consider alternative trust system offerings more appropriate for their size. Fees for the Trust/Rite and Trust/Portal systems are based on annual license fees, not per-account fees.

Northern Trust is in the process of transitioning its Trust/Rite system to a fuller offering known as Trust/Portal. Trust/Portal is an integrated solution that combines trust accounting, investment management, reporting, and account review into a single system.

Trust/Portal is available as both an in-house solution and a hosted solution. Trust/Rite was previously only available as an in-house solution. The first hosted client went live in October 2007. The hosted solution, which is SAS 70 compliant, is backed up by extensive redundancies and is actually hosted by three separate firms.

Conversions to Trust/Portal from Trust/Rite can be accomplished in a short time (one to two weeks) as long as the IT support is available and there is sufficient bandwidth for the new system. Conversions from other trust systems are planned over a six-month cycle.

When a user first signs on to Trust/Portal, he comes to a customizable and configurable home page designed for the individual user, whether he is an administrator, investment officer, or operations person. This dashboard contains alerts, news, and securities prices. Access is based on predefined entitlements dependent on roles, work groups, or specific individuals. Account types are also customized, and drop-down menus are set by the user.

SEI

SEI is one of the pioneers of the trust automation business. SEI provides investment processing solutions including investment management, securities trading, global investment processing, investment accounting, and mutual and pooled fund accounting. SEI is proud of the tenure of its clients, with over 60% of customers having remained clients for more than 10 years. SEI currently serves 127 bank and trust institutions, including eight of the 15 largest North American banks.

SEI also is a global leader in asset management. SEI currently has $420 billion of assets under administration, over $200 billion of which are under active management.

Investment products provided to the wealth management industry include hedge funds, mutual funds, separately managed accounts, and wrap products.

SEI supports two distinct ASP trust business models.  SEI’s “application services” solution (39 clients, primarily large institutions) is for clients that wish to outsource software and processing services but maintain their own back office. The “business services” solution (88 relationships) includes software, processing, and a completely outsourced back office. SEI sees the services provided as the core of the relationship with their customer, with technology being the enabler of those services.

Currently, SEI’s Trust 3000 is both the trust accounting system and the gateway device for trust organizations to utilize SEI’s investments. Like the other large providers, SEI is developing its next-generation product, Global Wealth Services (GWS), to be facilitated on a new Global Wealth Platform (GWP).

SUNGARD CHARLOTTE

Charlotte is offered only as a North American ASP solution hosted at SunGard’s data centers. Charlotte provides a lot of sophisticated tools for the smaller organization. Over 500 clients are running Charlotte, with another 400 using it solely for custody services.

Seventy percent of Charlotte customers are banks, with the others being private trust companies and not-for-profit organizations. Capabilities of the Charlotte system include bundled custody, electronic process routing, and electronic STP trading. Access to over 650 product providers is through STN, and mutual funds are processed through a joint STN-Fidelity platform. Positions and cash balances on Charlotte are real time, though the transaction processing is updated during the nightly processing run.

In addition to trading, Charlotte processes settlements, corporate actions, fee calculations, and real property management. Charlotte can support over 200 concurrent users and has been tested up to 21,000 accounts and 50,000 daily transactions. All asset classes, including common trust funds, commodities, hedge funds, private equity, and real estate are supported on the Charlotte system. Also supported are open architecture product solutions such as SMAs, wrap products, and overlay management.

Charlotte maintains over 40 interfaces with AML and KYC firms, investment advisory firms, custody providers, investment management systems, proxy services, performance measurement tools, and tax processing. Ad hoc and standardized reporting is supported throughout the system by a proprietary report writing tool, Automated File Search (AFS). All reports can be exported to Excel or saved as a PDF.

As a hosted solution, SunGard is responsible for SAS 70 data centers that provide redundancy, disaster recovery, and business continuity. Charlotte’s front end is web based, while other Windows-based technologies are used for the back office functionalities.

Jerry Cooper, senior editor, The Trust Advisor Blog. Steve Maimes contributed to the reporting.