Products January 30, 2015

TD Ameritrade Rolls Out Adviser Platform

Veo One, TD Ameritrade’s adviser platform, offers a single sign-on adviser command center that lets advisers access and manage all tools and applications from one platform.
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Advisers with Veo One will be able to bring their existing Veo Integrated applications onto a single platform, gaining a complete view of their clients and their firms. The platform builds on the foundation of Veo Open Access and its integration with 85 technology firms.

TD Ameritrade says Veo One can help boost adviser efficiency by completing account opening, billing, trading, cash management and other workflows with fewer clicks. The platform applies a user’s preferences and adapts to each user’s role at the firm, delivering needed information. 

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Starting late last year, a small group of advisers began using an earlier version of Veo One that is integrated with five popular technology applications: DocuSign and Laser App Anywhere for account opening; financial planning software from MoneyGuidePro; Orion Advisor Services for portfolio management; and Redtail Technologies for customer relationship management (CRM). 

Throughout the year, TD Ameritrade will add technology providers and onboard more advisers. By the end of 2015, advisers using Veo One also will have access to Advent’s Black Diamond platform, eMoney Advisor, Finance Logix, Junxure, Laserfiche, Morningstar and Salesforce.com. TD Ameritrade says it will continue adding features and functionality from tech firms.    

The Veo One platform will serve as the launch pad for an adviser’s Veo Integrated applications, from CRM and account opening to financial planning, portfolio management and rebalancing. With multiple data streams flowing through Veo One, advisers can sign in once and navigate easily in and out of different applications while keeping client information in context. When users click over to a new application, they’re taken to the same client record they had been viewing.

Advisers can update information in one program and see the changes made automatically in its other integrated systems. Similarly, the platform collects investor information from different Veo Integrated applications onto one client view screen.

Other features are: one-click access to the adviser’s alerts, tasks and calendars; a summary page with access to CRM support, financial planning and portfolio management; drag-and-drop functionality among applications; and multi-custodial data views through third-party applications. Advisers can access account balances and positions, move money and, later this year, make trades, shift asset allocations and rebalance portfolios.

Accessible on Multiple Devices

Veo One’s responsive design means it can be accessed through desktop computers as well as through mobile devices. The platform is responsive to the habits and preferences of its users, analyzing activity patterns and then, like many popular online retailers, displaying more relevant information to that user. When opening a new client account, for example, the platform can display next steps and require fewer clicks.

Veo One gives the adviser a single point of access, which eliminates the need to switch in and out of different platforms, explains Jon Patullo, managing director of technology solutions at TD Ameritrade Institutional. “Firms can spend less time operating software and more time building their business,” he says.

TD Ameritrade cites the results of a survey in which roughly half the advisers expressed dissatisfaction with their level of technology integration. These advisers were seeking further investments to improve workflows and productivity, to increase their capacity to take on more clients and boost efficiency. 

TD Ameritrade Institutional has also redesigned a client website, AdvisorClient.com, and launched a free, cloud-based version of iRebal. These platforms form a technology ecosystem that can help advisers expand their firms, TD Ameritrade says.  

AdvisorClient lets investors track accounts, follow the markets and research investments. The redesigned site is a high-performance vehicle built on the chassis of TD Ameritrade’s newly redesigned retail brokerage website.

Like Veo One, the site learns the habits and preferences of each client. Users can personalize their screens with a collection of modular windows with information that’s important to them. AdvisorClient, also available as an iPhone application (app), in time will let clients mix and match other modular windows, such as video chat capabilities, many of which will be designed by third-party vendors. 

TD Ameritrade’s cloud-based portfolio rebalancing tool, iRebal, automates the labor-intensive task of rebalancing client portfolios, saving advisers significant amounts of time while letting them offer a higher level of service. Advisers also use the tool to manage cash flows and identify tax loss-harvesting opportunities, and can submit trades directly from iRebal to Veo.

“Advisers tell us it’s great that their applications can talk to each other and share information, but what they really want is for someone to bring their technology together one place,” says Tom Nally, president of TD Ameritrade Institutional. “With Veo One, we’ve answered that call. We’re building an advanced technology ecosystem, one that can help advisers evolve and thrive at the speed of innovation.”

Compliance January 30, 2015

EBSA Issues Final Regs on Annual DB Funding Notices

The Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration says a new disclosure rule will ensure workers receive annual funded status notifications for their defined benefit pension plans.
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The Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) is set to publish in the Federal Register a final rule to increase pension plan transparency by ensuring that workers receive annual notification of the funded status of their defined benefit pension plans.

In a fact sheet presented on its website, EBSA explains the complicated history of the new final regulation. EBSA says that in 2006, section 501(a) of the Pension Protection Act (PPA) “significantly amended section 101(f) of ERISA to require administrators of defined benefit plans that are subject to title IV of ERISA, not only multiemployer plans, to furnish annual funding notices.” The PPA also shortened the timeframe for providing funding notices and changed the content requirements of such notices, EBSA explains. Pursuant to section 501(d) of the PPA, the amendments to section 101(f) applied to plan years beginning after December 31, 2007.

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Then, on February 10, 2009, EBSA issued Field Assistance Bulletin 2009-01, providing interim guidance under section 101(f), pending adoption of a final regulation. On November 18, 2010, the Department published a proposed final regulation, soliciting public comments. EBSA received 11 comments, which are available for public inspection. In March 2013 EBSA issued Field Assistance Bulletin 2013-01, providing guidance needed as a result of amendments to section 101(f) of ERISA by section 40211(b)(2) of the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act.

Then, on January 15, 2015, EBSA issued Field Assistance Bulletin 2015-01, providing even more guidance needed as a result of the Highway and Transportation Funding Act of 2014. According to EBSA, these earlier bulletins are not superseded by the final regulation.

The Department will officially publish the final regulation in the Federal Register on February 2, 2015. The final rule is applicable to notices for plan years beginning on or after January 1, 2015. Prior to this applicability date, however, the Department of Labor, as a matter of enforcement, will consider compliance with the final regulations as satisfying the requirements of section 101(f) of ERISA.

In its final form, the disclosure regulation generally requires administrators of defined benefit plans subject to Title IV of ERISA to furnish a funding notice each year to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC); each plan participant and beneficiary; each labor organization representing such participants or beneficiaries; and, in the case of a multiemployer plan, each employer that has an obligation to contribute to the plan.

The final regulation is “substantially similar to the proposed regulation,” EBSA says, but some changes were made to simplify the disclosure and reduce cost burdens on plans, including the adoption of narrow exemptions and alternative methods of compliance. The final regulation also reflects changes made to section 101(f) by the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014.

Content requirements for the annual disclosures include:

Funding Percentage – Annual notices must include the plan's funding percentage. Single-employer plans must report their "funding target attainment percentage" and multiemployer plans must report their "funded percentage," EBSA says, adding the funding percentage must be reported for the past three plan years.

Assets and Liabilities – Annual notices must include information regarding the plan's assets and liabilities. For example, notices must include a statement of the value of the plan's assets and liabilities on the same date used to determine the plan's funding percentage. Notices also must include a description of how the plan's assets are invested as of the last day of the plan year.

Material Effect Events – Annual notices must disclose amendments, scheduled benefit increases (or reductions) or other known events having a material effect on the plan's assets and liabilities if the event is taken into account for funding purposes for the first time in the year following the notice year. If an event first becomes known to a plan administrator 120 days or less before the due date of a notice, the plan administrator is not required to explain, or project the effect of, the event in that notice.

PBGC Guarantees and other Title IV Information – Annual notices must include a general description of the benefits under the plan that are eligible to be guaranteed by the PBGC, along with an explanation of the limitations on the guarantee and the circumstances under which such limitations apply. Single-employer plan notices must include a summary of the rules governing plan termination and multiemployer plan notices must include a summary of the rules governing insolvency.

Regarding the timing of these disclosures, EBSA says funding notices generally must be furnished no later than 120 days after the close of the plan year. Small plans (plans with 100 or fewer participants) must furnish funding notices no later than the filing of the plan's annual report, including filing extensions.

The final rule includes two model notices (one for single-employer plans and one for multiemployer plans) to aid plan administrators in meeting their obligations, EBSA says.

The full text of the final rule is here.

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