Portfolio Accounting Data™

Simply put…focus, focus, focus by the best people in the industry. As a team, we have over 100 combined years of experience in the portfolio accounting, reconciliation & reporting industry. We’ve been in the trenches like you! Having this much experience really gave us the list of things “Not To Do”, which allowed us to develop a business model that is cost efficient and we pass our savings on to our clients.

We focus only on custodian data, nothing else. We do not have a custodian data business as a necessary means to sell you software or other products. We have our business because we know that there is tremendous value in the custodian data that we can leverage to help your firm automate reconciliations, integrate your account data with your mission critical apps and move you toward a true straight through processing environment.

Since we started in the modern big data age, we were not plagued with legacy, dinosaur age technology like our competition. We built our platform leveraging new cutting-edge technology from the ground up. We do not have the huge infrastructure or overhead that our competition has so we pass those savings along to our clients.

We are a true virtual global company; we do all our development in our Argentina office where we have top quality programmers for a cost less than an equivalent US based programmer, and they are more loyal. We do all our administrative work in our Philippines office, where we have excellent people who are more loyal at a cost less than US based administrators. We are frugal with fixed costs. We do not have fancy offices on 5th Avenue in New York or a historic building South of Market in San Francisco, our US based employees work from home.

We follow the Warren Buffet Way. Just like Warren; we do not like when we get gouged on price, so we do not gouge others. Our founders are smart, frugal people who started WealthTechs with our own hard-earned money. We are bootstrappers and have no outside investors or shareholders who are looking for a 10-bagger in the next 3-5 years constantly forcing us to raise prices so they can line their pockets at our clients’ expense. We see frugality as a virtue, not a bad thing. Using our own money allowed us to take our time and come up with the best plan for the best price. Due to the acuity of our business plan and our attention to detail executing the plan; we can offer our products for fair prices where our clients save money, and we make a fair profit. We are ok with that.

All these factors add up to WealthTechs being able to offer a better product for a cheaper price.

The first step in building a new Custodian interface is we contact the Custodian and find out if there is a team of people or department at the Custodian who manage data feeds or an individual at the firm we can work with. We prefer to work with teams, so we are not reliant on an individual. However, with some small custodians…it is an individual. If we see that the custodian is disorganized, overwhelmed or is reliant on one person for data feeds, we offer our Custodian Custodian Data Management Services to the custodian to co-source their data management to WealthTechs. If you are a custodian and would like more information on our Custodian Data Services, please go to this page: Custodian Data Management Services™.

Normally, let us assume that we do find a team at the Custodian. Our goal is to work with the Custodian team to build a secure, scalable process to setup new clients like your firm, add and delete accounts and streamline other administrative tasks like paperwork & signatures.

Before any data starts flowing, we work with the Custodian’s compliance department who conduct vendor due diligence on WealthTechs.

After due diligence is completed and WealthTechs is established as a certified vendor with the Custodian, we work with the Custodian’s IT team to establish and test the secure connection between the Custodian and WealthTechs.

Once the secure IT connection is established, with the Custodian our administrative team will make a formal request for the accounts that you manage to be added to the WealthTechs secure connection.

Once your account data starts flowing from the Custodian to WealthTechs, our Data Development Team will analyze and write the code to translate the Custodian data to the standardized WealthTechs format.

We have written over 250 interfaces to all major North American custodians. So, when a new Custodian interface is necessary; typically, the custodian is smaller and less known. Smaller and less known custodians typically do not have proprietary back-office systems, rather they use a third party back office or a clearing broker for which WealthTechs has previously developed an existing interface. Some of leading third party back-office custodian systems and clearing brokers are FIS, Sungard, Pershing, Wells Fargo, etc. Once this initial coding is done, we will notify you that the interface is ready to be tested and used by your firm. We will fix issues that you report to us and work with you until the data flows perfectly and is ready for accurate portfolio accounting. The total time from start of data flowing to you being able to use the data is about 2 weeks.

Cost: it is considerably cheaper to host in Canada instead of the US. We pass our cost savings along to our clients, as you know, we charge 50% less than Advent’s ACD product.

Security: Canada’s privacy policy is at the national level for Canadian web hosting. The major custodians and the Canadian government host at the same Canadian web host. If they had a security breach, they would also have broken the federal law and they would be heavily fined and prosecuted at the federal level. Additionally, our vendor is SOC2 certified in Canada, and we did our due diligence on them beforehand. SOC2 is an internationally recognized standard. Also, the Patriot Act enacted by Congress as a result of 911 is extremely vague and allows the US Government to ostensibly access any data on any server in the US under the Act. We feel this is a constitutional breach. The Canadian government feels the same way and therefore does not fall under the Patriot Act and its long reach of the US Government into data housed in the US.

WealthTechs is SOC2 Type 2 Certified for data security. The SOC2 Type 2, is the Service Organization Controls 2 (SOC 2) examination under the Statement on Standards for Attestation Engagements No. 18 (AT-C section 205, Examination Engagements) of the AICPA. Completion of the SOC 2 Type II examination indicates that WealthTechs processes, procedures and controls have been formally evaluated and tested by an independent accounting and auditing firm. The examination included the Company’s controls related to the Trust Services Principles and Criteria for Security. A SOC 2 examination is performed in accordance with AT-C section 205, Examination Engagements. SOC 2 is designated as an acceptable method for a user entity’s management to obtain assurance about service organization internal controls set forth in TSP section 100— Trust Services Principles and Criteria for Security, Availability, Processing Integrity, Confidentiality, and Privacy (2017) (AICPA, Trust Services Criteria) (applicable trust services criteria) without conducting additional assessments.

A SOC 2 examination is widely recognized, because it represents that a service organization like WealthTechs has been through an evaluation of their control activities as they relate to the applicable Trust Services Principles and Criteria. A Type II report not only includes the service organization’s system description, but also includes detailed testing of the design and operating effectiveness of the service organization’s controls.

Here is a link to the AICPA website for more information on SOC2. SOC for Service Organizations (aicpa.org)

Many of our clients felt the same way, however once we explored their day-to-day processes, we were able to uncover inefficiencies that they thought were unsolvable. We helped streamline operations and, in some instances, save hours per day in daily manual labor that they previously thought was impossible.

Also, the automation capabilities of our solution are head and shoulders above our competition and enable our clients to start processing before they wake up and focus on breaks in reconciliations when they get to the office.

The wonderful thing about the way we sell is we do a full parallel pilot test of ACD versus PAD, so your team is trained, all data feeds up and running and in production before you pay us a dime. Through the pilot testing we uncover the inefficiencies, fix them and when you go live with WealthTechs you are operating at maximum efficiency.

Also, if we identify new features that can help you automate, we add them to our solution during the pilot. We are insanely fast at fixing data issues, adding data transformation features and automation capabilities. All of this is evident in the pilot.

We know how you feel, this is an arduous task that you have been assigned and be assured that we have done your job before and understand the criticality.

We know that you need to reconcile and have your order management system ready to go by 0900 AM EST or earlier or your portfolio managers and traders will have a fit.

The proof is in our performance history. WealthTechs custodian data technology is in production at more than 75 firms managing in excess of $91 trillion.

To achieve near our 100% on time delivery of custodian data, WealthTechs has built a state of the art, military grade secure data center in the cloud. At our data center, we run our proprietary data collection technology that robotically procures all your custodian data from each custodian.

Once the data is safely at our data center, our proprietary data preparation technology validates and formats the data, places it into your secure SFTP mailbox organized by custodian and sends you a detailed email of all files processed. The data may also be accessed at the same time via our API.

Most data are available by 0700 AM EST or earlier. We process the data custodian by custodian, therefore, if we get the data from the custodian at 0200 AM EST, your data will be ready by 0215 AM EST.

Our service level agreement that we put in writing states that by 0900 AM EST, your custodian data is available and ready for your start of day processing.

If, for some reason a data procurement procedure fails at a custodian, our 24/7 data technicians monitor and begin troubleshooting. Most problems are resolved while you are still in bed, and if not, you will have an email in your inbox with status and timing for when the issue will be resolved. The status of your interfaces is also available via our free, secure ClearView Web Portal.

The most important factor in delivering accurate data is akin to the old adage “garbage in, garbage out”. WealthTechs PAD is as accurate as the source of the data. Here at WealthTechs, we only build direct, high-quality data connections from custodians & other investment-book-of-record sources. When we first initiate contact with a data source, we look for a few important attributes:

• Managed by a team of people
• Full documentation
• 24/7 service with a ticketing system for issues tracking
• Frequent updates and readily available documentation on updates
• Conversion plans for massive industry changes such as the Options Symbol Initiative that occurred over the weekend of January 23, 2010
• Ability to deliver mission critical data which are transactions and positions with closing prices & fx rates by 0700 EST and other non-mission critical data such as account list, security aka vehicle information, positions by tax lot with cost basis and adjusted/amortized cost basis by the end of the business day

If WealthTechs finds that the source of data is inadequate, we offer a valuable service to the custodian or investment-book-of-record provider, our Custodian Custodian Data Management Services (“CCDMS”). CCDMS is a fully outsourced, modern, secure set of services offered to custodians or investment-book-of-record providers to help them get their data service in order and compete with the “big boys” and offer a quality data service to their clients…. like you.

Let us assume that the data connection from the custodian or other investment-book-of-record is indeed adequate and WealthTechs has written the interface to normalize the data received. This is where our Quality Assurance and Data Validation (“QADV”) process occurs. WealthTechs QADV process is a proprietary battery of 250+ tests that we have developed to assure that the data is accurate and reconciled. No other data aggregator goes to the lengths that WealthTechs does to assure data quality. The end result to you, the user of the data is evident in your ability to reconcile faster and achieve the elusive goal of straight-through-processing.

From time to time, we make mistakes, we admit it. When you encounter an error such as a miscategorized security type, or transaction code; report it to us and we usually fix our data bugs in less than 2 days, often the same morning the issue is reported to us. No other data aggregator can attest to the rapid turnaround time on data bug fixes like WealthTechs.

People often ask us how and why we deliver such high-quality data for such a reasonable price versus our competitors. The answer is simple: focus. WealthTechs only focuses on building solid relationships and interfaces with the leading custodians and investment-book-of-record providers. We constantly innovate and are self-critical of our processes and make them better and better each and every day. This is our company culture with the goal of being the best in the world at one thing: Data Aggregation>Normalization and Integration.

First of all, let’s define what is a “held away” account is. Held away accounts are typically accounts that an advisor tracks for their client and includes in their over asset allocation, but the account is not under the direct management of the advisor seeking to track the account. Bottom line, the advisor is not named on the account, therefore has no legal access to the account. A great example of this is a 401k plan, where the advisor’s client is a participant in their employer’s 401k plan. The sponsor for the plan (the employer) and the system that tracks the transaction and position data for the participant (the client of the advisor) in the plan is not readily available via a direct data feed.

Regarding held away or other non-managed account data; WealthTechs will always contact the data source and attempt to procure a direct data feed. In recent years, some 401k plans and other pooled investment vehicles have been investing in data technology that allows WealthTechs to procure a quality, direct data feed. For the most part, this is not the case. The alternative is screen scraping, where a screen scraping vendor stores the login credentials of the advisor’s client and uses readily available web data screen scraping tools like Beautiful Soup, and other open-source HTML-to-structured-format development tools. Screen scraping has been the way for advisors fintechs to access held away accounts for over 20 years, basically since the beginning of the internet.

Screen-scraping is useful for basic account balance information from difficult to get data held away, such as 401K providers and other esoteric investment vehicles. Screen-scraping is definitely not a reliable source for portfolio accounting, trading and ultimately performance measurement, performance composites for marketing and tax lot level client reporting. WealthTechs chooses not to pursue screen-scraping and leaves this up to the data aggregators who do. We partner and work with the leaders in the field of screen-scraping such as ByAllAccounts, Ponterra, Yodlee and Quovo. They are not perfect, but until the time comes that there is a globally accepted API standard for securely procuring quality account data, such as FDX, we believe that screen-scraping technology serves as a stop-gap solution. WealthTechs will do its best to make the data from ByAllAccounts, Ponterra, Yodlee and Quovo as good as it can be and provide it to you.

Let us be clear, again, here at WealthTechs, we do not build any interfaces from sources of data that are screen-scraped or other client login-based systems. Our belief is that APIs, particularly the Financial Data Exchange initiative, which WealthTechs is an active contributing member of, will be the solution to the problem. Whatever the secure, scalable solution is now or in the future, be assured that WealthTechs will have a seat at the table and assure that usefulness of new initiatives will be well thought out and provide quality data for quality portfolio accounting.

• In the ever-changing world of application development, it is critical that you offer your clients the best product and stay a step ahead of your competition.
• By outsourcing your data aggregation needs to WealthTechs, you will join an elite group of fintech vendors who have partnered with WealthTechs and have had tremendous success. Indata, Blaze, Forest, just to name a few.

• Wealthtechs takes on the responsibility of aggregating all your customers’ accounts from all of their data sources.
• As you know, some data sources are difficult to get due to your customer potentially not being on record with the data source. This is very predominant in corporate sponsored retirement programs like 401ks, sponsor based programs like UMA or WRAP and private investments.
• In any case, WealthTechs will work with the sponsors to procure the source data or we will work with other vendors who have expertise in these niche businesses; such as Pontera, ByAllAccounts, Quovo, Yodlee, Arch, Private Client Resources, Altsmart, and any other vendor with niche specific expertise. We will take in data feeds from these partners and provide one cohesive, normalized data feed to you. This takes all the burden off of you to provide.