Tom Nally and his team at TD Ameritrade are betting on big data and on technology-choice when it comes to RIA-support for the future.

Tom Nally TD Ameritrade Institutional President

This morning in his opening remarks at the TD Ameritrade Institutional LINC 2016 at the Orlando World Center Marriott, Nally, president of TD Ameritrade Institutional, reveals several big initiatives for the RIA custody firm. Those initiatives include making an acquisition, rolling out a new platform, launching an awareness campaign about RIAs, and more.

"RIAs can take advantage of the waves of digital automation tools and 'big data' insights hitting the industry right now," Nally states. "It's a huge opportunity."

In a "big data" push, TD Ameritrade is buying the brand, benchmarking, consulting, and research work of Tacoma, Washington-based FA Insight, known for its People & Pay and Growth by Design studies. FA Insight co-founders Daniel Inveen and Eliza De Pardo will stay on to do research, appear at events, and more. The deal is slated to close by Q2.

Jim Dario TD Ameritrade Institutional Managing Director, Product Management

Jim Dario, managing director of product management at TD Ameritrade Institutional, pitches the FA Insight deal as a way of "bringing Big Data for RIAs."

Nally also talks about TD Ameritrade's Veo One advisor technology platform, which was revealed a year ago at the last LINC. Veo One, Nally says, is being tested by advisors now and is slated for a broader release in fall 2016. The idea will be to take RIAs' different systems like customer relationship management (CRM), financial planning, and portfolio management and put them into an integrated desktop. And FA Insights' 15 years of advisor benchmarking data will be integrated into Veo One.

"Veo One is built with big data in mind," Nally says.

On the subject of robo-advice, Nally urges RIAs to embrace such technology. TD Ameritrade's Veo Open Access technology platform just hit 103 tech providers in total, including 16 roboadvisor (or roboadvisor-like) tools and services. Nally says that eight percent of RIAs are already using some kind of "digital advice solution", and another 20 percent are looking into it.

Nally also touts several initiatives around building public trust in RIAs. TD Ameritrade's new Human Finance Project, a campaign using "collect and share" RIAs' stories via video recordings to "amplify the RIA difference," Nally says.

Nally ties together the trust issue and the talent one. He urges RIAs to hire more millennials to better serve, and build trust with, millennials while also addressing the advisor shortage. And he calls on RIAs to push back againsts those who point to the infrequency of SEC examinations (averaging once in every 10 years for an RIA). 

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