LPL Financial is working hard to upgrade its client- and advisor-facing technology to help clients connect more directly and comprehensively with the firm and make it easier for advisors to do business.
For one, the firm is rewriting its client mobile application over the fourth quarter, said Rich Steinmeier, managing director and head of business development, in a video interview with WealthManagement.com. The mobile app is different from others in the industry, he argues, in that it presents the advisors’ own dba (the operating name of the practice), color scheme, images and pictures.
“It’s really giving the experience of 16,400 mobile apps versus one new mobile app,” Steinmeier said.
The firm also recently introduced texting capabilities, and now has more than 1,100 advisors using that platform. It gives clients and advisors the opportunity to interact as they normally do, but in a compliant way.
The firm is also focusing on advisor tech, incorporating more artificial intelligence and process automation, Steinmeier said. Over the summer, the firm reduced the number of data fields in new account opening forms by 25% to 35%. That took data entry for advisors from 10 minutes down to 4 minutes.
A new development is that the firm has employed bots to actually process those new account openings in the background, taking the process from 24 hours down to minutes. If something in not in good order, or NIGO—say a signature is missing, for example—it gets passed back to the advisor almost instantaneously for correction.
Watch the video to hear more from Steinmeier, including on LPL’s succession planning support and recruiting trends.