Commonwealth Financial Network®, a national RIA dedicated to providing financial advisors with holistic, integrated business solutions, announced the firm’s latest investments in cutting-edge programs and tools designed to drive efficiency for advisors and their businesses and deliver value to their clients. The announcements, centered on Commonwealth’s investment platform and technology solutions, were unveiled by Commonwealth leadership at the firm’s National Conference.

“These advances across investing and technology come as a result of our listening to advisors and committing ourselves to be a leader in building value for independent businesses,” said Trap Kloman, president and COO. “Many partner firms only have one way to do things—their way. Our best ideas come from our advisors, who have outperformed their peers when it comes to growth in fee-based assets (based on industry data*), which can lead to more valuable practices. We’re curating the best practices from the best advisors to provide guided choices that enable our advisors to maintain their competitive advantage and decide what is right for them.”

Preferred Portfolio Services® (PPS) Select Platform Enhancements

“We know that advisors who use Commonwealth’s PPS Select outsourced investment platform grow almost 14 percent** faster than those who don’t,” said Peter Essele, SVP, head of advisory solutions. Two-thirds of Commonwealth advisors use PPS Select, which offers more than 100 model portfolios.

On the National Conference main stage, Essele presented an ambitious, four-prong evolution of the PPS Select platform to be rolled out in 2025:

Personalized indexing. Commonwealth will be augmenting its existing direct indexing capabilities to offer personalized indexing in full integration with the PPS Select platform, making it easy for advisors to offer customized, tax-efficient portfolios. Advisors will have access to a complete, highly integrated direct indexing solution to client investment management within PPS Select.

Tax transition to PPS Select. With tax transition, advisors will be able to set a tax budget and transition accounts to any PPS Select model—or personalized indexing—over time.

Tax overlay service. Advisors will be able to elect a tax overlay on any PPS Select model as well. The system can automatically conduct tax-loss harvesting, without the advisor needing to request specific trades, enabling advisors to free up time and redirect their energy to better serving clients.

Unified managed account (UMA) structure. Advisors will be able to combine multiple PPS Select models and third-party managers in one account, streamlining reporting and offering greater flexibility in portfolio construction. “UMA is the biggest opportunity of all from an advisor efficiency perspective,” said Essele. “Advisors still have great flexibility around model selection, and they can easily control allocations within a single, unified account—whether that’s PPS Select models, personalized indexing, or third-party separately managed accounts. Structurally, it’ll be very easy for advisors to serve their clients as managers of underlying portfolios and give clients a streamlined, transparent experience.”

Outsourcing Tech Stacks to Commonwealth Experts

“As advisors’ businesses grow, so do their technology needs. By seeking to deliver the best technology expertise and solutions tailor-made for businesses, advisors can focus resources on meeting client needs rather than managing an IT team and equipment,” said Chris Blotto, SVP, chief digital & information officer.

On the main stage, Blotto announced a significant advance in the firm’s technology offering to power advisors’ efficient operations to be rolled out in 2025.

CTO Services. A major new initiative, Commonwealth will offer advisors a turnkey managed service offering: comprehensive outsourced IT support, including hardware management, AV, networking, and telecom services. Blotto continued, “As a concierge offering, our new CTO Services will help them scale efficiently and be more productive, without headaches. It’s something we’ve studied carefully—both what’s worked and what hasn’t worked in the industry—and are thrilled to roll it out to our community.”

The 2024 National Conference was Commonwealth’s largest ever, hosting attendees from across the U.S. for three days of education and connection structured around the theme Find the Good: The Future Is Now.