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The Platform Approach to Wealth Management Technology

The wealth management industry has been hampered by complex, inefficient and expensive technology. Relationship managers, advisors, registered representatives and their support staff must generally deal with a confusing collection of software, built using different technologies and with diverse user interfaces, resulting in significant duplication of data.

This fundamental lack of integration and simplicity, from both the user's perspective and from a support perspective, means that the business is less flexible and more expensive to operate than it needs to be.

The Integrated Wealth Management Platform Approach
Advisors need an integrated software suite that enables all aspects of day-to-day activities -- software that either provides the needed functionality directly, or is seamlessly integrated so that the user barely knows where one application ends and the next begins.

The Integrated Wealth Management Platform is the solution. At x.eye, we define the term Platform as: 'A technology framework upon which a diverse range of functionality can be choreographed into one truly integrated (and graceful) solution'.

A true Platform delivers most of the functionality required by advisors on a day-to-day basis. There are six core areas of functionality required by most wealthmanagement firms. x.eye's Platform eithe provides this functionality directly or by seamlessly integrating third party tools. The core areas of functionality are: 1. Vertical Relationship Management 2. Holistic Portfolio Management 3. eStatements & Performance Reporting 4. Service Management 5. Business Management 6. Decision Support

While an Integrated Wealth Management Platform must provide deep functionality, it must also provide the architecture to easily integrate 3rd party point-solutions or be extended with custom-developed functionality suited to business-specific needs.

Consequently, the technical attributes of the platform must include: - A single database that is scalable, extensible, cost-effective, multi-lingual, client-centric; - An open data access layer; - Integrated messaging and alert services; - Document Management services; - Scheduling and Reporting services; - Single user access / permissioning model; and - Extensible, personalized User Interface.

At x.eye, we believe that the breadth and depth of integrated functionality offered, coupled with the ease of integration and extension, is the true measure of an Integrated Wealth Management Platform.

Wealth Management TECHNOLOGY Today
From an I.T. perspective, the technologies now available fundamentally change what should be expected of vendors. And yet, few vendors have achieved a truly Integrated Wealth Management Platform. Instead, they offer a collection of loosely associated point-solutions under the auspices of a Platform. But as technology moves forward, the point-solution approach to wealth management technology is destined to give way to the Platform approach. For advisors to excel in the market today, they must be equipped with a comprehensive, integrated, scalable, useable and technically agile Platform.

Without the Platform,
functionality is simply a collage of point-solutions.
Without the Platform, integration is limited and very expensive.
Without the Platform, firms face "technology rigidity", making it unacceptably difficult and expensive to implement new strategies.
Without the Platform, clients can feel the effects of business silos.
Without the Platform, service is hampered and a holistic approach to wealth management is near impossible.

x.eye's INTEGRATED WEALTH MANAGEMENT PLATFORM
x.eye's focus is on offering comprehensive, seamlessly integrated functionality through x.eye.wealth.managerTM, our Integrated Wealth Management Platform. Together with rich, pre-integrated functionality, our open platform enables clients to mold x.eye into existing environments, thereby leveraging past technology investments.

x.eye was recently ranked 'Top North American Wealth Management Platform' by Celent, a leading research firm specializing in technology for financial services. In the report, Celent's senior analysts commented that "In the constantly evolving wealth management technology market, x.eye can be considered one of the few firms that has succeeded in creating a true wealth management platform."

Every so often, technology innovation results in a new development that dramatically outpaces existing systems. One only needs to look around the financial services world to see examples of this: from ticker tapes to real-time data; from telegraphs to digital fax machines. Such is the case with x.eye's Integrated Wealth Management Platform. The introduction of the Platform approach has created a rare opportunity for those who adopt it. This approach enables firms to leapfrog past the competition in their efforts to reduce cost structures, adopt a more flexible technical architecture, increase advisor productivity, provide better client service and ultimately increase Assets Under Management.

Ken Roebuck is Co-Founder and Co-President of x.eye incorporated and a thought leader on wealth management platform technology. Since 1993, x.eye incorporated has been helping private banks, brokerages, financial planning firms, insurers and trusts enhance profitability through closer, more effective relationships with clients. The company's flagship product, x.eye.wealth.managerTM, is the first integrated and highly scalable wealth management platform.

For more information, please visit www.xeye.com

x.eye incorporated
575 Madison Avenue, 10th Floor New York, NY 10022
Phone: (212) 605-0243
Contact Person: Nick Pedota
E-mail: [email protected]
www.xeye.com

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