UBS Wealth Management USA has announced that its long-awaited automated advice platform is now live.
The U.S.-based brokerage business officially launched its new online UBS Advice Advantage platform, along with an investment advisory product dubbed the UBS Advice Portfolio Program.
The platform includes features that now seem to come standard with digital wealth management services, including account aggregation, portfolio diagnostics and goals tracking, in addition to some version of automated investment advice.
Like other robo advisors that offer investment allocation in just a few steps, the UBS Advice Portfolio Program will include risk assessment, regular monitoring for rebalancing and tax loss harvesting. The portfolios will also be driven by managers and capital markets assumptions aligned with UBS Global Wealth Management’s Chief Investment Office.
All of the portfolio services, research and other tools are included in the cost of the advisory program, which carries a minimum investment of $10,000 and an annual advisory fee of 0.75 percent of invested assets.
SigFig, a San Francisco-based wealth management technology company, designed the new UBS platform. The two companies said they worked closely on it and that the platform was customized to offer UBS research and market views in portfolio diagnostics and construction. SigFig’s Enterprise Digital Wealth Management platform, which it customized for UBS, is used to manage $400 billion in assets around the world.
SigFig has partnered with numerous other financial institutions to build robo advice platforms as well, including Wells Fargo, Citizens Financial, Eaton Vance and others.
“Technology is changing how people invest and playing a critical role in how financial institutions are improving the overall client experience,” SigFig CEO Mike Sha said in a statement. He added that working closely with UBS on the platform ensured the world’s largest wealth manager would meet the needs and expectations clients associate with its traditional services.
The Advice Advantage and Advice Portfolio Program live within the bank’s Wealth Advice Center, which it established years ago to offer wealth management services to clients who might not meet requirements for a traditional advisory relationship.
Clients using the UBS Wealth Advice Center don’t have traditional relationships with advisors but do have access to them. The advisors affiliated with the center are located in Weehawken, N.J. and Charlotte, N.C., and provide insights-based advice and solutions tailored to meet the needs of the clients, the bank said. Unlike its traditional brokers, Wealth Advice Center advisors are paid a salary and have the opportunity to earn a discretionary bonus.
UBS declined to comment further on the new platform. SigFig couldn’t be reached for comment on this story.
