“We’re building this for very complex products with a lot of conditional logic,” he says, adding that Merrill plans to continually add account types, including trusts, until COBE can handle 80% of account volume. Yet building the functionality for advisors at large financial institutions is difficult given the more sophisticated investing needs of many clients and the legacy systems many firms still use, Vuolde says. “ all areas when speed is lost as the process needs to be restarted over and over again.”Īdvisors across the industry are demanding firms make new account opening as easy for them as it is for consumers going to digital advice startups or robo advice offerings at retail brokerages. the client needs to provide a wet signature or upload a document, emails get sent between parties,” Pirker said in an email. “Onboarding across the industry has improved in recent times, however, the processes to be found at most firms have system breaks, i.e. But it's the collaboration technology that allows clients and advisors to go through the virtual onboarding process together that really differentiates what Merrill has built. This ability to open multiple accounts across the firm’s business lines sets apart COBE from other digital onboarding products currently available to advisors, says Alois Pirker, research director of the Aite Group. Advisors can even put an order in for checks while they are opening a client’s new bank account. Before COBE, this would have been five different requests, requiring five separate forms and five separate wet signatures from the clients, says Vuolde.

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