BOZEMAN, MT MAY 19, 2020
AdvicePay, the leading fee-payment-processing platform designed exclusively for financial advisors, announced today the largest enterprise agreement in the company’s history. LPL Financial, the nation’s largest independent broker-dealer and a leading retail investment advisory firm and RIA custodian, will provide its advisors an enterprise solution for “fee-for-service” billing for one-time and ongoing financial planning.
As part of the agreement, LPL advisors will be able to charge fees directly for their financial planning services, and accept online payments via credit card or through a bank account using ACH. This technology solution will simplify workflows for both advisors and their clients, eliminate manual and paper processes and costly physical check processing, while also providing compliance oversight.
“A dramatic shift is underway in how consumers are accessing and paying for financial planning, increasingly separating product sales or managing assets from simply paying a fee for a standalone financial advisor,” said veteran financial advisor and AdvicePay co-founder, Michael Kitces. “The changing fee environment, including subscription models, retainers or hourly arrangements, creates significant opportunities to expand financial planning advice to new markets, but necessitates new technology to ensure that alternative fee models can be billed and paid for scalably and efficiently. AdvicePay was specifically designed to support this approach, and we are delighted to be working with LPL as the advisory industry continues its transformation.”
As the fee-for-service movement in financial planning gains momentum, more and more advisors are working with clients by directly charging for their advice, outside of or alongside an asset management fee for portfolio management or compensation for implementing a product solution. LPL advisors working with their clients in a fee-for-service model will be able to simplify how payment will be invoiced, processed, or accounted for – AdvicePay’s powerful automation tools streamline all of those processes, freeing advisors up to be more productive.
“With access to AdvicePay, LPL advisors have even more resources and support to be able to efficiently and effectively deliver personalized financial planning services to their clients,” said Rob Pettman, LPL executive vice president, Investor and Investment Solutions. “We believe technology is an integral part of helping advisors thrive, and AdvicePay is able to automate a workflow in the advisor’s business so they can gain efficiency and scale in their practice.”
AdvicePay Enterprise provides dedicated tools built specifically for organizations that support large numbers of advisors and must be able to execute alternative fee models scalably, in addition to handling key oversight and compliance requirements. AdvicePay Enterprise capabilities include a dedicated home office portal enabling firms to centrally manage and control billing and payment processing while allowing for local flexibility at the advisor level. Additionally, AdvicePay Enterprise meets the specialized compliance and security requirements of larger financial services organizations, as well as provides dedicated relationship managers to facilitate the onboarding of new advisors, training, and ongoing support.
“Our Enterprise platform has seen explosive growth since launching just one year ago,” noted Alan Moore, CEO and co-founder of AdvicePay. “Large financial institutions have been looking for a purpose-built technology solution to support their ability to scale a high volume of fee payments. We are extremely excited to be working with LPL as our largest Enterprise client, and look forward to continuing to enhance the platform to make billing for financial planning services easy, compliant, and secure.”