NPH offers 'virtual' assistants

National Planning Holdings Inc. has begun offering Virtual Interoffice Platform, a program that hires and manages an in-house licensed and trained assistant. The Santa Monica-based broker-dealer says the VIP program — currently available only to registered representatives at INVEST Financial Corporation — saves financial firms time and money by handling the entire hiring and training of someone to act as a “virtual sales assistant.” The program automatically provides a back-up assistant when the VSA is out of the office, and hires a replacement upon a VSA’s departure, NPH said in a press release. Beginning January 2008, the VIP program will be available to NPH’s other three firms: Investment Centers of America, Inc., National Planning Corporation, and SII Investments Inc.