Integrated marketing tools, expanded relationships with Schwab and Fidelity Institutional, and all-new risk rubric elevate Orion’s platform experience
Orion Advisor Solutions, the premier provider of the tech-enabled fiduciary framework that empowers financial advisors to Prospect, Plan, Invest, and Achieve within a single, connected experience, today is announcing a flurry of major enhancements to its turnkey asset management program (TAMP), Orion Portfolio Solutions.
Working in lockstep with Orion’s tech-enabled fiduciary process for building stronger advisor-client relationships, these updates help advisors capture the attention of prospects with easy-to-build marketing campaigns, springboard their first steps with an all-new proposal system; and empower investment success with access to Schwab’s industry-leading custodial services, an expanded roster of investment strategies from Fidelity Institutional, a next-generation risk scoring system, and ultra-efficient Market Cycle Advised Mandates portfolios. This news comes just a year after Orion initially announced the first phase of highly anticipated technology updates to its TAMP platform.
Giving Advisors’ Prospecting Efforts a Running Start
Proactive client acquisition is the first step in developing a strong advisor-client relationship. To that end, Orion has begun to extend Market*r, its automated prospecting and campaign building solution, to advisors leveraging the Orion Portfolio Solutions platform. This will help them bring prospects to their virtual doorstep with customizable, omnichannel campaigns tied to personalized goals, immediately setting the stage for planning engagements.
Streamlining the Transition From Prospect to Client
Orion has released its new in-house proposal generation technology, a step-by-step framework that ties diversified investment proposals to investors’ specific needs. Right from the upgraded, easy-to-use interface, advisors can quickly access real-time portfolio data to aid in investment selection, including risk and asset class information. Once proposals are built, advisors can adjust them on the fly between single strategy, unified managed accounts (UMAs), and self-directed proposals.
“The most important steps in the advisor-client journey are the first ones,” said Cory Kendall, National Sales Manager at Orion Portfolio Solutions. “A modern TAMP experience needs to catch a prospect’s interest and sustain it with proposals that speak to their financial goals. Our new technology lets advisors cast a wider net for new business and get right to work crafting goal-based investment strategies.”
Unlocking the Multi-Custodial Advantage
As advisors open the floodgates of new business with integrated marketing and new proposal technology, they will enjoy more optionality than ever in their choice of custodians. Schwab Advisor Services joins the Orion Portfolio Solutions platform as a custodial option, granting advisors access to the services of the industry’s largest custodian. Schwab has deepened its existing partnership with Orion, and its addition brings Orion Advisor Technology’s multi-custodial power and flexibility to Orion Portfolio Solutions, making it easier for advisors to extend the advantages of Orion’s technology and outsourced solutions to more investors than ever.
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Fueling Long-Term Engagement With Greater Variety
Meanwhile, Fidelity Institutional has made its core lineup of strategies available in both Orion Portfolio Solutions and through Communities, Orion Advisor Tech’s model marketplace. Orion Communities will carry Fidelity’s lineup of more than 30 model portfolios and model-delivered separately managed accounts (SMAs), and Orion Portfolio Solutions will feature eight Fidelity model portfolios and a themed model SMA strategy, including:
- Fidelity Target Allocation Model Portfolios, Fidelity’s earliest suite of models with the longest track record, which offer five different asset mixes designed to achieve a spectrum of risk profiles as well as seek to enhance potential for excess return. These strategies aim to diversify across asset classes with a blend of active and passive funds.
- Fidelity Business Cycle Model Portfolios, which incorporate a dynamic investment approach based on shifts in the business cycle, designed to enhance risk-adjusted returns. The business cycle model portfolios are based on the framework of Fidelity’s Asset Allocation Research Team (AART), which conducts economic, fundamental, and quantitative research.
- Fidelity Bond Income Model Portfolio, designed to provide a high level of income and manage risk with a diverse investment universe, including ETFs.
- Fidelity Advisor Women’s Leadership SMA, which seeks to invest in companies that prioritize and advance women’s leadership/development and have strong competitive moats that can result in durable earnings growth, or in companies Fidelity believes can benefit from open-ended growth opportunities.
Bringing Enhanced Transparency to the Investment Process
A volatile year of investing has made strengthening the advisor-client relationship more important than ever. Built to enhance clarity and transparency for end investors, collaboration between Orion’s new Investment Strategy Research Group and its time-tested Investment Committee has produced a simpler, seven-question client assessment. Orion matches this new rubric with an enhanced risk scoring methodology for investment strategies, applied consistently across all of Orion’s brands, designed to keep pace with a quicksilver market landscape.
Adding Efficiency to the Portfolio Diversification Process
Orion’s time-tested, three-mandate diversification process, Market Cycle Mandates, highlights the role each mandate, or strategy, plays in a portfolio: Beta capturing market movement, Active adjusting to market changes with active management, and Diversifier, a low-correlation source of potential risk and return. Now, new turnkey UMA portfolios, Market Cycle Advised Mandates, bring even greater efficiency to outsourced investment management with $0 platform and strategist fees.*
While many turnkey UMA solutions on the market rely heavily on in-house investment strategies, Market Cycle Advised Mandates are composed predominantly of well-known third-party investment strategies, customized and blended by Orion’s investment team.
“Investors demand to see their priorities, market attitudes, and long-term goals reflected in their relationships with their advisors,” said Rusty Vanneman, Chief Investment Officer of Orion Advisor Solutions. “The new technology and expanded partnerships we’ve invested in our TAMP offering break asset management out of its silo and connect it to a more complete and engaging process. We’re proud to have built an experience that excites investors and encourages growth and long-term success for advisors.”
With these improvements, Orion is energizing the TAMP market with an end-to-end, tech-enabled approach that fosters and reinforces stronger relationships between advisors and investors.
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