Effective channel blending in retail brokerage - Oracle

While discount firms are adding brick and mortar retail operations for relationshipbased
investing, their approach to advice and guidance is often a little different
from a full-service firm. Ameritrade created Amerivest, Schwab has their Schwab
Portfolios program, and E*Trade offers advice and guidance from their Investment
Specialist Group (see Figure 3 on page 3). The advice and guidance functionality
for each exposes more directly to the retail investor and is augmented by both the
call centers and branch locations. Advisors are not necessarily the direct conduits
for fund selections and performance reporting like they would tend to be in a
full-service firm.
This approach provides retail customers with more generic advice and guidance
tools without the dependence on recurring human interaction. Most firms pre-select
a group of funds to offer and load those fund selections into models based on
pre-defined investment objectives and risk tolerance.
Vendors are also playing an important role in expanding channel opportunities.
SunGard WealthStation offers three levels of planning product, all synchronized to
the same data, to enable distribution of financial planning responsibilities:
• Advisor Series. This is the high end set of planning functionality suitable for
people working with high net worth clients.
Figure 3: E*Trade Sample Portfolio Report
Source: etrade.com
Effective channel blending in retail brokerage
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