Morgan Stanley is announcing a partnership with cloud content management platform Box that will provide its clients with an encrypted document sharing portal, according to a company announcement. Morgan Stanley Wealth Management will be using Box Platform, Box KeySafe and Box Governance to provide an encrypted vault to facilitate sharing of documents like wills, deeds, estate plans, financial statements and tax filings with financial advisors.
The cloud-based solution supports two-way sharing and can be accessed through Morgan Stanley Online and the firm’s mobile app. Documents can be uploaded via those same platforms and notifications will be pushed to both clients and advisors. Advisors or clients can comment on uploaded documents, increasing their value as tools of communication.
“By investing in a cloud content management platform like Box and leveraging other best-of-breed technology partners, we have been able to create a more secure, efficient and collaborative environment for conducting business," said Naureen Hassan, chief digital officer at Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, in a statement.
Besides providing more convenience, and presumably more security, for clients and advisors, the service is a signal that cloud-based solutions like Box are increasingly gaining traction among financial services enterprises, according to a TechCrunch report. Financial advisors have been hearing about the power of cloud-based architecture for years—and many are already familiar with it as consumers of technology services from maps to music streaming.
In fact, some entrepreneurs are betting the industry will move into “cloud-native” architectures, a different look than Morgan Stanley’s partnership with Box. For example, Finance Logix’s former president and CEO, Oleg Tishkevich, launched cloud-native software development firm Invent.us earlier this year. His firm partnered with wealthtech provider Envestnet in April and has been working with at least one U.S.-based broker/dealer to develop a tool that supports thousands of users, Tishkevich said in January.
