Launched this week,
advisorbackgroundcheck.com is a free online service meant to allow consumers to investigate the professional background of financial advisers. Its creators claim it is the first website within the financial services industry to offer prospects and clients the ability to submit feedback similar to what is available on the websites of
eBay.com and TripAdvisor.com.
After consumers fill out a brief online registration, they can have AdvisorCheck run what it refers to as a “basic” background check on an adviser who is a not a member of the site and an “advanced” background check if the adviser is a registered member.
The service looks into the background of financial advisers through civil and criminal background checks, credit reports, financial liens and bankruptcy proceedings, the records of the Better Business Bureau, the Securities and Exchange Commission, state departments of insurance and professional licensure, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc. and various other federal, state and private agencies.
In addition to background checks, consumer feedback will be openly visible on the website.
“Going through the process of securing a comprehensive background check typically takes numerous calls and hours of research. With all the recent economic turmoil, consumers must really know who they are entrusting their money with. In the same way that millions of people use the Internet to plan a vacation, they can now take the time to do their homework before investing,” Mike Dunlap, president of AdvisorCheck, said in a statement.
Financial advisers can benefit, according to the statement, by registering and thereby “providing an objective tool to demonstrate their consumer advocacy and support for ethical business practices … [They can] demonstrate that they have a clean professional record and drive new business.”
Registered members are also able to respond to any posted consumer feedback.
For more information visit
AdvisorCheck online.
DTCC readying new web portal for its managed-accounts service
The Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. announced this week its “MAS Portal,” a new web-based interface to its
Managed-Accounts Service that is intended to enable immediate connectivity for investment managers who oversee managed-accounts programs. DTCC plans to launch the new portal in the third quarter of 2009 and has selected the
Peridrome Corp. of New York and its DashWM platform to power the new service.
“This is a breakthrough solution that gives investment managers a secure, automated portal from which they can directly access MAS to exchange account information with their sponsor partners and begin to benefit from the efficiencies inherent in the service,” Ann Bergin, DTCC Wealth Management Services managing director and general manager, said in a statement.
Using the DTCC’s global one-to-many architecture, the new platform will help streamline communications among an unlimited number of business partners on either side of a transaction.
Using a digital certificate, investment managers will connect to MAS Portal through DTCC WebDirect, an interface that gives participants secure, direct access over the Internet to services provided by DTCC’s subsidiaries.
According to the DTCC, it should allow users to handle higher account volumes at lower cost, invest customers’ funds quickly, and decrease manual processing and lower operational risk.
“Managers won’t have to monitor multiple sponsor portals to keep up with daily volumes, and sponsors will be able to eliminate the cost of maintaining proprietary connections to communicate with those managers,” Gib Veconi, president of Peridrome, said in a statement.
For more information visit
DTCC and
Peridrome Corp. online.
