Online functionality helps advisors open and fund accounts more efficiently. Fidelity Investments has introduced e-signature capabilities to facilitate account-opening processes for its RIA clients. The new system, developed in partnership with e-contract maker DocuSign, lets advisors and clients electronically sign all documents needed to establish and fund brokerage accounts -- and saves them the bother of sending and storing hard copies of these documents.

"By making it easier to manage the process of opening new accounts, advisors can reduce their administrative burden and free up more time to spend with their clients," says Ed O'Brien, senior v.p. of Fidelity Institutional Wealth Services (IWS). "And clients, in turn, have access to the convenient electronic capabilities they've come to expect in many other facets of their life."

Paper, ink and postage

Using Fidelity's e-signature set-up, an advisor can collect new-client from his CRM application and drop them into all required Fidelity and advisor forms, which are then emailed to the client for electronic signatures. Once the client does that and send the forms back to the advisors, the advisor can download and forward the forms to Fidelity for account opening and funding, which triggers account generation in real time. Fidelity then sends an electronic notification to the advisor along with a status number, so that the advisor can track progress and status of the transaction.

Fidelity IWS client Retirement Corporation of America (RCA) is one of the beta-testers of Fidelity's paperless account processing.

"Fidelity's e-signature capability will enable us to extend our investment advisory services to the children and grandchildren of our existing retired client families thereby contributing to the overall growth and profitability of our firm, while at the same time allow us to reduce expenditures on paper, ink and postage," says Cincinnati, Ohio-based RCA's CEO Dan Kiley. "Integrating this type of technology will significantly enhance our overall efficiency in establishing new investor accounts."

The e-signature capability will be available to more of Fidelity IWS' clients this year -- and next year it will part of Fidelity's WealthCentral, a web-based platform that integrates technologies that support things like portfolio management, CRM and financial planning.

Fidelity's rival Pershing introduced a paperless account-opening capability for independent broker-dealer firms and RIAs a couple of months ago. -FWR

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