Platform Progress: A Recap of New Innovation Launched in 2021

New ideas that shape the future can often arise when change occurs. In the wealth management industry, evolving client needs and expectations continued to impact digital transformation initiatives in 2021.

For example, this year, as we observed users of the Black Diamond® Wealth Platform, the team noticed a commonality – visitors to the Client Experience portal tended to stay for about three minutes and 21 seconds per day. It was helpful to look at this browsing behavior when trying to determine what may be top of mind for clients. Based on the frequency and duration of these visits,we concluded the time spent reviewing their portfolio each day was sufficient in answering the question, "Am I going to be ok?"

Analyzing behaviors helped the Black Diamond team create product enhancements to allow advisors to provide the customized solutions and communications needed to address their clients' concerns. For example, there have been many opportunities for advisors to communicate with their clients in meaningful ways this year. Advisors understand that a lack of communication with their clients – especially during changing or uncertain times –can be detrimental to their business. Many advisors create comfortability and security by being responsive. Responsiveness is not only a trait of professionalism, it helps reduce anxiety and allows trust to build, resulting in a mutually beneficial relationship. Technology solutions, such as the social-media-style Relationship Timeline, aid an advisor’s ability to react quickly and positively to their client’s concerns. Whether advisors prefer to interact with clients in a fully digital experience or a more traditional, face-to-face sense, technology will always play a critical part in the relationship.

The Black Diamond Wealth Platform provides the capabilities that paint a comprehensive and accurate picture of a client’s financial life, assisting advisors with monitoring to stay on track. Black Diamond also allows advisors to be more responsive, communicative, and transparent without sacrificing efficiency. Our mission is to help advisors and their clients make better decisions and accomplish goals through the financial technology provided on the platform. Put simply, we believe in advisors’ ability to change their clients’ financial lives for the better.

To support our mission and to proactively address the changes occurring in the wealth management industry, we released a variety of product enhancements, including:

• Client View Home Space brings together relationship-centric details in a succinct and informative way from different parts of the platform, giving advisors the ability to quickly take action. Client View is the primary command center for client Information, client reports, documents, communications, net worth, and performance.
• Client View Support for Portfolios and Accounts that haven’t been added to a relationship yet, furthering the flexibility and power provided by Client View.
• Relationship Setup and Maintenance added automation options which increased the efficiency of keeping the platform organized.
• DocuSign Integration which is launched from Client View incorporates client reminders, automatic envelope and recipient creation, advisor notifications upon completion, vault storage, and more. This integration makes it easier to create, send and track document signature requests.
• Insurance Space added to Client View provides a new operational dashboard to help you access, manage, report on, and bill insurance and annuity solutions through the Advent Insurance Marketplace Powered by DPL.
• Plaid Investor Driven Aggregation enables outside account aggregation such as 401ks, bank accounts, and credit cards. Plaid makes it easier for advisor’s clients to fill out their balance sheet and total financial life picture. Plaid, an industry-leading provider for account data, replaced Quovo in the platform.
• Client Experience Portal Portfolio Space Enhancements continue to make impactful changes to the end client’s experience, including additional reporting options and data points.
• Rebalancer enhancements were made to increase flexibility and add transparency while also providing additional capabilities. Many of these capabilities were driven by user feedback. Two of these major enhancements include:
  • Mutual Fund Trading Expansion for Fidelity and First Clearing accounts via FIX. Previously, advisors were able to trade equities but needed to submit the mutual funds separately using a manual upload process.
  • Rebalancer Session Analysis introduced the ability to analyze all Rebalancer sessionsholistically versus reviewing each session individually. Advisors can view and manage trades for an entire session through the Session Analysis page instead of client- by-client, adding increased efficiency.

• Reporting Flexibility added the first phase of advanced reporting options. Most notably are improvements within performance reporting that include multiple benchmark assignments, as well as additional alternative reporting options and transparency within position-only reporting. These enhancements continue to allow advisors to shape data to tell their story through the platform.
• Near Real-time Data Mining for Snapshot Data Set keeps Data Mining reports as current as possible. We are transitioning the system to be current with data changes as they are occurring.
• New Advisor Reports: Alternative Investments + Fixed Income reports are intended to complement the client relationship-focused experience in Client View by allowing you to report on portfolios that are not tied to a relationship. We plan to further evolve these to better support the analysis of an advisor’s book of business over time.

Although 2022 will likely be as unforeseeable as this year, Black Diamond, including its new enhancements, will help advisors continually improve their relationships by offering a best-in-class solution and a premium client experience.

Request a personalized demo today to better understand how Black Diamond’s new product enhancements can support your business.