WealthCentral’s Integration of Black Diamond’s Portfolio Management and Reporting Platform Further Expands Advisors’ Access to Integrated Third-Party Providers
BOSTON, September 23, 2010—Fidelity Investments® (Fidelity®), a leading provider of custody and clearing services to registered investment advisors (RIAs), today announced that it has expanded advisors’ access to third-party solutions within Fidelity WealthCentral® by establishing a strategic relationship with Black Diamond Performance Reporting™ (Black Diamond) to integrate its BlueSky portfolio management and reporting platform.
Black Diamond’s BlueSky portfolio management and reporting platform, an intuitive, customizable, Web-based solution, enables advisors to outsource and automate daily reconciliation of their clients’ investment information, including aggregation of assets that may be held-away from Fidelity, as well as run comprehensive, customized reports on demand or view data dynamically on Black Diamond’s Web platform.
“Working strategically with proven firms such as Black Diamond to establish deep integration differentiates WealthCentral from other platforms and reinforces our commitment to helping advisors achieve greater efficiencies and accelerate their growth,” said Michael R. Durbin, president, Fidelity Institutional Wealth Services.
“As the first custodian to integrate advisors’ daily workflows into one Web-based platform, we have learned a lot. We are using this knowledge to provide our clients with best practices on how to maximize the benefits of integration, as well as work with third-party providers to ensure the integration delivers the highest levels of efficiency,” continued Durbin.
Since its broad-based launch in late 2009, WealthCentral has offered contextual integration between market-leading third-party applications in areas such as portfolio management, financial planning, CRM, and portfolio modeling and rebalancing. Contextual integration allows client information entered in one application to automatically flow through to and be referenced in links between the other applications being used.
Currently used by more than 600 RIA firms, WealthCentral offers advisors the flexibility to use it as a turnkey platform or to use only those systems that meet their specific needs. Through traditional data interfaces and APIs (application programming interfaces), WealthCentral also enables advisors to send data to more than 80 third-party applications.
The Black Diamond platform offers a wide range of functionality through WealthCentral, including ad hoc and batch client reporting, composite reporting and maintenance, client billing, multiple levels of account/asset aggregation, customized target/asset allocation models, cost basis tracking, tax lot entry, and a private-labeled customer Web portal that includes vault capabilities for their clients performance reports. It also provides firms the ability to customize their asset classifications, homepage and reports.
“We are excited about our expanded relationship with Fidelity and how this will enable us to provide a great experience for our shared clients,” said Reed Colley, CEO and Founder of Black Diamond. “While we’ve already been working together to support over 80 shared clients, our BlueSky platform’s integration with WealthCentral, as well as our shared commitment to serving our clients, takes the relationship to a whole new level.
“We aim to ensure that advisors will spend less time entering and reconciling data and more time establishing and nurturing solid relationships with their clients, while delivering them performance reporting that is more timely, accurate and in a way they want their story told,” continued Colley. Black Diamond launched its BlueSky platform in June of this year, enabling each individual user to customize the platform to their role or unique needs for information.
Based on feedback from clients that has helped identify and prioritize the highest value integrations, Fidelity and Black Diamond are planning a series of operational and technology integrations to help advisors enhance their efficiency. In addition to single sign-on, contextual links in WealthCentral will enable one click access to accounts and portfolios within the BlueSky portfolio management and reporting platform. Re-keying of data will be minimized with automated bi-directional updating of account and client data between Black Diamond and several of WealthCentral’s integrated applications.
Additionally, cost basis data will be synchronized between WealthCentral and the BlueSky platform to help facilitate consistency in support of the proposed cost basis reporting requirements that the IRS is scheduled to phase in starting on January 1, 2011. Finally, Fidelity and Black Diamond are collaborating to deliver a superior client experience for conversion, implementation, product support and deployment of the integrated systems.
“The combination of WealthCentral and Black Diamond represents a great reporting system for advisors and brokers across a variety of revenue and client models, from fee-only to dually-registered or mass affluent to ultra-high-net-worth families,” said Edward O’Brien, senior vice president and head of technology, Fidelity Institutional Wealth Services.
“Now more than ever, advisors see that efficiency is a way to help enhance profitability,” said O’Brien. “WealthCentral is designed to address this need by helping to relieve advisors of the burdens of managing technology and minimizing tedious operational tasks through an open and integrated approach.”
About Fidelity Institutional Wealth Services
Fidelity Institutional Wealth Services is a leading provider of trading, custody and brokerage services to registered investment advisors, trust institutions and third party administrators. The company is able to leverage the capital, resources and expertise of the Fidelity organization, one of the world’s largest financial services companies, on behalf of its clients. This includes access to a comprehensive set of products and services, innovative investment tools and research, an integrated brokerage and trust platform, and dedicated client service professionals—all designed to help its clients thrive by growing their businesses, more effectively meeting customer needs, and enhancing operational efficiency and profitability. Fidelity Institutional Wealth Services custodies more than $410 billion in assets on behalf of approximately 3,300 clients, as of June 30, 2010. For more information about Fidelity’s services, please visit http://fiws.fidelity.com.
About Black Diamond Performance Reporting
Black Diamond is a leading provider of Web-based, outsourced portfolio management and reporting platforms to independent advisors, wealth managers, banks, broker-dealers and family offices. Founded in 2003, Black Diamond is a pioneer in delivering daily reconciliation and performance reporting services through a dynamic, user-friendly and customizable platform. Black Diamond has been recognized as a top ten fastest-growing firm in Northeastern Florida for the past two years and one of the top three of the Best Places to Work in Jacksonville by the Jacksonville Business Journal. Black Diamond Performance Reporting is headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida, with offices in New York, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Dallas. For more information about Black Diamond services visit http://www.blackdiamondreporting.com.
About Fidelity Investments®
Fidelity Investments is one of the world’s largest providers of financial services, with assets under administration of nearly $3.2 trillion, including managed assets of more than $1.4 trillion, as of August 31, 2010. Founded in 1946, the firm is a leading provider of investment management, retirement planning, portfolio guidance, brokerage, benefits outsourcing and many other financial products and services to more than 20 million individuals and institutions, as well as through 5,000 financial intermediary firms. For more information about Fidelity Investments, visit http://www.fidelity.com.
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