Asset-Map announces integration with Black Diamond. LPL makes MoneyGuide available in ClientWorks. Goldman Sachs creates consumer & wealth management arm. UBS cuts up to 500 jobs in wealth management shake-up. BBVA Wealth Solutions, Inc. names Jorge Unda its Chief Investment Officer.
The move to zero commissions would not influence RIAs’ decision to use ETFs versus mutual funds.
US banking giant Goldman Sachs has restructured its global business. Up until now, it was divided into four business segments: investment banking, institutional client services, investing & lending and investment management.
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UBS Group AG UBS 0.23% will cut up to 500 jobs, according to a person familiar with the matter, stripping out layers of bureaucracy in its wealth-management arm as it attempts to keep its edge as bank to the world’s rich and cut costs.
In an internal memo reviewed Tuesday by The Wall Street Journal, wealth management co-heads Iqbal Khan and Tom Naratil said that up to three layers of management would be removed in some areas, to try to give managers greater powers in attracting and servicing clients. Financing and trading operations for wealth clients will move to UBS’s investment bank.
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Asset-Map, a Philadelphia-based financial technology company, announced a new integration with SS&C Advent’s Black Diamond® Wealth Platform to streamline productivity for advisors using each platform and simplify the transfer of data to Asset-Map.
Asset-Map will integrate with the unique Relationship Timeline feature in Black Diamond’s Client Experience (CX) portal. Advisors using both systems can share Asset-Maps with clients on the Relationship Timeline web feed, which documents fundamental advisor-client interactions.
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BBVA USA has appointed Jorge Unda as Chief Investment Officer of its asset management units. In his new role, Unda will be responsible for overseeing the asset management functions of both the bank’s Asset Management & Trust division and those of BBVA Wealth Solutions, Inc., a registered investment adviser affiliate of the bank.
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LPL Financial is going even further on its bet about the importance of financial planning. The firm is announcing Thursday that Envestnet MoneyGuide is the latest to integrate with the independent broker/dealer’s ClientWorks Connected platform. MoneyGuide will be the third financial planning tool available on ClientWorks, alongside its own free application called Client Goals and an offering from eMoney.
LPL advisors could use MoneyGuide previously; in fact, the technology has been part of LPL’s Vendor Affinity Program since 2015. But this will provide a deeper integration for the 1,450 advisors who currently use the software.
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Survey
The rise of zero commission ETF trades is not having a notable impact on advisors’ allocations. Sixty-four percent of registered investment advisors said the change would not influence their decision to use ETFs versus mutual funds, according to a recent national survey of 301 RIAs by TD Ameritrade Institutional.
In October, Schwab announced it was eliminating commissions for ETFs, stocks, and options; other online brokerages, including TD Ameritrade, E*Trade and Fidelity, followed suit. TD’s survey found that almost a third of RIAs do plan to allocate more assets to ETFs as a result, but just 14% plan to move money out of mutual funds into ETFs.
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