Independent Research Firm Names SunGard’s WealthStation Best-in-Class for Financial Planning Software

Lombard, IL (PRWEB) April 04, 2012

SunGard’s WealthStation Financial Planning solution has been named best-in-class in CEB TowerGroup’s “Financial Planning Software: Technology Analysis”* published in February 2012. WealthStation received a best-in-class designation for Client Engagement Tools, Advisor Experience, Advisory Tools, and Enterprise Support.

CEB TowerGroup’s “Financial Planning Software: Technology Analysis” is tailored to reflect the needs of the end-user, in this case the advisors, to diagnose the technology attributes particular to a firm, and to effectively identify vendor products that align with the firm’s needs. By combining qualitative and quantitative data from interviews with industry experts, financial institutions, vendors, and surveys of wealth managers, CEB TowerGroup identified 23 attributes that define a “best-in-class” financial planning technology. These attributes are grouped into the 4 categories that highlight a firm’s client, advisor, and enterprise needs.

Among the WealthStation Financial Planning key differentiators that contributed to its best-in-class assessment, as cited in the report, include:

   •      Client Engagement: Extensive reporting options easily exported for the client from any module
   •     Advisor Experience: Native integration to the full WealthStation suite and other SunGard products
   •     Advisory Tools: Ability to adjust asset designations for non-traditional assets
   •     Enterprise Support: Multiple, adjustable pricing and deployment options to meet any size client’s needs

Darrin Courtney, research director, at CEB TowerGroup, said, “A majority of firms anticipate improving their financial planning capability significantly in the next 12 months. In a recent survey nearly 70 percent of wealth managers are investing in improvements in their financial planning capabilities. Furthermore, as clients demand more collaboration with advisors, technology will facilitate this relationship shift with tablet computing options, mobile planning applications, and interactive client portals.”

Sean Cunniff, senior vice president, advisor solutions for SunGard’s wealth management business, said, “SunGard’s focus on improving the advisor and client experience is well demonstrated in the results of CEB TowerGroup’s analysis. Our continued investment in WealthStation’s financial planning capabilities, mobile applications and client access portals are helping advisors of all sizes improve client collaboration, differentiation and effectiveness in attracting, retaining and servicing clients.”

*Technology Assessment Disclaimer
CEB does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in our CEB TowerGroup publications and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors rated “best in class.” CEB TowerGroup research publications consist of the opinions of CEB TowerGroup’s analysts and should not be construed as statements of fact. CEB disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

About SunGard’s WealthStation
SunGard’s WealthStation provides wealth managers with tools to help them acquire, service and grow their client relationships. Integrating client management, financial planning, investment management, asset allocation, data aggregation, trading, rebalancing, reporting, client access and compliance tools into a single platform, WealthStation delivers a flexible architecture to help advisors improve their productivity while providing increased service levels to their clients.

About SunGard
SunGard is one of the world’s leading software and technology services companies. SunGard has more than 17,000 employees and serves approximately 25,000 customers in more than 70 countries. SunGard provides software and processing solutions for financial services, education and the public sector. SunGard also provides disaster recovery services, managed IT services, information availability consulting services and business continuity management software. With annual revenue of about $4.5 billion, SunGard is the largest privately held software and services company and was ranked 434 on the Fortune 500 in 2011. Look for us wherever the mission is critical. For more information, please visit http://www.sungard.com.

Trademark Information: SunGard, the SunGard logo and WealthStation are trademarks or registered trademarks of SunGard Data Systems Inc. or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and other countries. All other trade names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

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