Schwab tries to wow advisers with its technology progress

Schwab Advisor Services last week showed off the first of its completed integrations with Salesforce.com and announced a new partnership. The moves mark the most significant developments in months in the Schwab Intelligent Integration initiative, which aims to dovetail advisers' disparate technological systems in their practices. Among the enhancements that it touted at its Impact conference was a new work flow library for Salesforce.com. Schwab Intelligent Technologies, a subsidiary of The Charles Schwab Corp., also unveiled a partnership with Salentica Corp., an independent software vendor. Its Salentica Advisor Desk is a customized version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM and is the first Microsoft ISV to participate in the Schwab OpenView Gateway. This offering will be available as either a desktop or hosted system. Salentica is also developing an integration plug-in for firms that have purchased Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 directly from Microsoft that will provide both the integrations with Schwab data and customizations specific to advisory firms. “What's really exciting about this relationship is that it will allow advisers who choose to work with Salentica and those who prefer to work directly with Microsoft Corp. to reap the benefits of integration with Schwab's custody data,” said Neesha Hathi, vice president of technology solutions for Schwab Advisor Services. “Adding to our work with Salesforce.com and Junxure, advisers will now have even more choice and flexibility,”she said. In an interview, Ms. Hathi said that Schwab might work with at least one other independent software vendor in the Microsoft Dynamics arena. Because registered investment advisory firms often follow significantly different business models, it makes sense to have as much breadth as possible in terms of offerings, she said. Email Davis D. Janowski at djanowski@investmentnews.com