SS&C's Deliver conference showcased how cutting-edge technologies can simplify securities operations.
Chicago-based Choreo, LLC, a financial planning and investment advisory services firm, reports using SS&C Accord. This new service leverages artificial intelligence (A.I.) to help wealth managers aggregate and validate their customers’ alternative investment data.
The SS&C Accord launch aligns with other A.I.-related and cutting-edge announcements at the SS&C Deliver 2024 Conference underway in New Orleans, Oct. 6-8.
“There are 1,012 attendees at the moment, with a few more expected to come tomorrow [Tuesday],” a spokesperson for SS&C tells FTF News about Deliver attendees. “Additionally, there are 26 exhibitors at the event.”
Launched in time for Deliver, SS&C Accord “leverages SS&C’s wealth management and alternative investment fund administration expertise to help advisors aggregate and process siloed data across their investors’ portfolios,” according to SS&C Technologies officials.
For Choreo, the SS&C Accord deployment is helping it consolidate client accounts “on a single platform after acquiring the affiliated wealth management business of BDO USA last year,” officials say. Choreo acquired the BDO USA business unit on Oct. 31, 2023, which allowed Choreo to expand and become an independent member of the BDO Alliance USA Business Resource Network (BRN).
Choreo has offices nationwide that offer financial planning, estate planning, financial advice, investment management, wealth management, retirement planning, retirement plan consulting, aggregated reporting, tax planning, and CPA partnership, officials say.
“The BDO USA acquisition added more than $8 billion in assets under advisement to our business, much of it in alternative investments,” says Matt Bankston, managing director, platform and innovation at Choreo, in a prepared statement.
Bankston oversees the technology team for all advisor-related technology, national operations, performance, and reporting. He also oversees the investment strategy group and centralized portfolio management team, according to Choreo.
“We needed a way to aggregate alternatives data to be able to provide clients with a holistic view of their traditional and private investments. SS&C Accord helped us expand our reporting to our clients and provide them with an all-encompassing view of their assets,” Bankston says.
As intended, SS&C Accord “delivers a single source of clean alternatives data to wealth managers,” according to the provider’s announcement.
In addition, the SS&C Accord end-to-end service is managed by a dedicated account team that can:
- Leverage “digital workers for monitoring and retrieval of end clients’ alternative investments relevant correspondence;
- Apply “natural language processing and large language models to extract relevant data points for further processing;”
- Oversee “document aggregation and data extractions for completeness and accuracy; and
- Process “data to downstream systems” for reporting.
The SS&C Accord features a control panel for “wealth managers, registered investment advisors, pension funds, endowments, and family offices” that can provide “clients’ alternative investments data … The data is systematically integrated across the entire SS&C ecosystem, including the SS&C Black Diamond Wealth Platform. This service also delivers the reviewed data to third-party reporting systems,” officials say.
“Alternative investment data collection and reconciliation is a major pain point due to a lack of consistent reporting standards. Wealth managers often find it challenging and costly to manage the operational aspects of collecting, processing, and integrating alternative investment data into their reporting systems,” says Steve Leivent, co-head of SS&C Wealth & Investment Technologies, in a prepared statement.
“SS&C Accord aims to take over this process as an extension of their team, delivering timely analytics needed for advisors to provide data-driven holistic portfolio decisions,” Leivent adds.
The Choreo-SS&C Accord news aligns with SS&C’s efforts at Deliver to show how it is “simplifying our customers’ operational complexity,” says Bill Stone, chairman and CEO of SS&C.
“We have invested more than $2.9 billion in research and development over the last four years. Harnessing the power of intelligent automation, A.I., and other cutting-edge technologies drives SS&C’s strategy,” Stone says in a prepared statement.
The conference included a discussion between Stone and David Rubenstein, co-founder and co-chairman of the Carlyle Group, about “the evolution of private markets, entrepreneurship, and philanthropy,” officials say.
The conference features more than 70 sessions, product labs, and immersive workshops.
During the conference, SS&C will showcase its efforts across several key areas:
- Digital Transformation and Modernizing Operations: Some of the key offerings on display are streamlined investor onboarding, improved fund administration processes, and loan processing across SS&C GlobeOp, officials say. SS&C’s acquisition of Battea-Class Action Services, a securities class action claims management and settlement recovery services provider for $670 million is part of this effort, subject to certain adjustments, officials say. “Battea helps more than 900 banks, asset managers hedge funds and proprietary trading firms receive the maximum distribution of entitled settlements. The acquisition is expected to close this year. SS&C expects the transaction to be accretive over the next 12 months and plans to fund the purchase with a combination of debt and cash on hand,” according to the announcement.
- Artificial Intelligence and Intelligent Automation: SS&C Intralinks will showcase “advancements through the DealCentre A.I. platform” such as the SS&C Blue Prism Enterprise A.I. portfolio, which combines generative AI with enterprise automation to enhance user experience and operational efficiency,” according to SS&C.
- Managed IT Services: SS&C will attempt to focus attention on how firms can “optimize and outsource their in-house technology operations” via managed services “built on SS&C’s proprietary tech stack” that will help clients with “a strategic, scalable approach to managing IT infrastructure.”
Bill Stone
SS&C also plans to offer showcases on loan management and regulatory compliance via demonstrations of end-to-end solutions for optimizing lending, administration, and servicing operations across all loan types, officials say.
There will also be a focus on delivering solutions for “digitally savvy investors” via the SS&C Intralinks FundCentre for the fundraising lifecycle and the new Contact Center platform that “modernizes the customer experience for asset management, life and pensions, and retirement sectors,” officials say
SS&C officials also say that there will be previews of next-generation innovations such as:
- A Fund Services Portal: “This next-gen initiative includes the SS&C Portal Assist Chatbot, which provides users an interactive way to engage with funds data, enhancing operational transparency and efficiency;” and
- The Algorithmics Risk Intelligent Agent (ARIA): “This A.I. assistant embedded within SS&C Algorithmics’ solutions suite enables risk professionals to use natural language to quickly create detailed financial reports, day-over-day change analysis for risk assessment, and what-if analyses.”
