SAN DIEGO, Aug. 05, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- LPL Financial LLC’s Focus 2023 conference kicked off at the San Diego Convention Center, providing three days of insights and inspiration centered on helping advisors capitalize on growth opportunities, improve the investor experience, and drive scale and efficiency with emerging tools and technologies.
LPL’s annual flagship conference benefits advisors and financial institutions of all types and sizes by bringing together a broad mix of financial professionals, support staff, sponsors, thought leaders and LPL teams for knowledge sharing and networking. Attendees gain a view of LPL’s strategic roadmap, hear from industry experts and nationally recognized keynotes and have the opportunity to choose from more than 200 breakout sessions. They also have access to the LPL Expo, featuring more than 100 sponsor partners exhibiting an extensive range of resources to help advisors and institutions take care of their clients.
The LPL community of financial professionals and institutions collectively serves 5 million American families, helping them to navigate uncertainty, keep their goals in focus and pursue their financial dreams. And, according to Cerulli, demand for personalized financial advice is projected to grow, bringing the total assets managed by advisors to $37 trillion from $27 trillion over the next decade.1
“As we look forward together, we are bullish on the future of financial advice and our strategy to help advisors and institutions turn a blue ocean opportunity into reality,” said Dan Arnold, president and chief executive officer, LPL Financial. “For us, that means empowering advisors and institutions to deliver great advice to their clients and to be great operators of their businesses. Focus is our opportunity to bring that vision to the mainstage and showcase new capabilities and solutions that help our advisors deliver personalized advice and planning experiences to their clients and run thriving businesses.”
Themes of optimism and opportunity are front and center at Focus as the need for personalized financial advice grows and LPL unveils several new initiatives to support its base of nearly 22,000 financial professionals.
“The increasing demand for advice and preference to receive that advice from a financial professional are strong tailwinds, especially for advisors who act now to position their firms to capitalize on the growing market and momentum,” said Matt Enyedi, managing director, Client Success, LPL Financial. “At Focus this year, we’ll demonstrate to attendees ‘The Power of You’ — the ability to capture that opportunity by enhancing how they engage with their clients, deliver more personalized experiences and, ultimately, help them pursue their life goals, as well as those of their clients.”
The message from the mainstage at Focus centers on the need for advisors to reimagine the day-to-day aspects of managing a business and serving clients, including eliminating low-value administrative tasks and adding high-value, differentiated services like tax planning and insurance planning. Another key theme is the need to embrace change and emerging trends, such as generative artificial intelligence (AI) and its transformative possibilities. Rather than replacing advisors, LPL experts share their excitement about AI and its potential impact on a firm’s ability to boost productivity, performance and scalability.
“Advisors who leverage AI will be well positioned to lead and forge the future of financial advice delivery. When it comes to AI, we don’t believe there’s any replacing the advisor-client relationship. We see AI as an additional opportunity for advisors to enhance the way they engage with clients and run their business,” said Greg Gates, chief technology officer, LPL Financial. “While it is still early to make predictions, the history of technology’s influence on the wealth management industry gives us reason for optimism about AI’s future in further enriching the role of the financial advisor.”
In addition to advancing AI capabilities, LPL continues to make strategic investments in technology enhancements, wealth management solutions and expanded professional services and educational resources to help financial advisors and institutions compete and grow.
Enhanced Technology Tools to Improve the Advisor and Investor Experience
LPL has made significant improvements in the Account View experience to help ensure an advisor’s clients have a great digital experience. LPL has streamlined the steps clients need to access their Account View portal. With the mobile Account View app, clients can set up access to their account in less than a minute. Once a client is set up, Account View enhancements make it easier to add and edit beneficiaries, transfer funds into their LPL accounts, make mobile check deposits, view account activity and aggregate external accounts for a comprehensive view of their household finances. For clients who want more information about what’s going on in the markets and with their holdings, they can access LPL Research’s Daily Market Updates directly from the Account View portal. Administrative controls are available for advisors who want to customize the Account View experience for their specific clients’ needs.
LPL is working to enhance digital experiences for advisors and their clients. For example, LPL’s newly announced partnership with PreciseFP helps eliminate manual, error-prone data entry by automating the collection of accurate information from new clients. The PreciseFP workflow is integrated with LPL’s core CRM and planning tools, streamlining the new account opening process and eliminating the need to enter data into multiple systems. LPL is also enhancing eSignature functionality. With AdobeSign, investors can now electronically sign documents anytime, anywhere, and advisors have access to an eSignature dashboard to better manage signature events and keep tabs on progress.
The firm is also focused on the future, developing tools that leverage AI to drive efficiencies and growth for advisors. For example, LPL’s recently launched Advertising Review Tool reduces content approval time to help speed up the marketing process. The tool has embedded artificial intelligence, resulting in a 60% auto-approve rate, meaning advisors can get marketing content to clients and prospects faster.
And coming in 2024, LPL will roll out its ClientWorks Rebalancer, a dynamic trading and rebalancing system that can be used by practices of all sizes, affiliations and sophistications.
Expanded Holistic Advice Solutions to Help Advisors Accelerate Growth
Investors today want and expect their advisors to provide holistic financial advice, beyond investment management. To that end, LPL is focused on helping advisors deliver to their client base a scalable financial planning experience, including making it easier for financial professionals to do more financial plans through programs like LPL’s outsourced Paraplanning Services.
In addition, LPL is enhancing how financial professionals demonstrate value to high-net-worth clients and prospects through tax planning, expanded High Net Worth Services and life insurance planning support. Financial professionals will have access to qualified and credentialed tax professionals, CPAs and JDs who can help identify tax savings strategies. LPL continues to grow its team of high-net-worth experts to support an advisor’s prospecting and planning efforts, including adding estate and philanthropic planning expertise and access to respected insurance carriers to meet a client’s legacy planning needs.
New Performance Optimization Services to Drive Scale and Operational Efficiency
LPL is currently rolling out Practice Hub, a new centralized dashboard in ClientWorks where advisors can view key practice metrics that provide visibility into their progress, set goals, benchmark their success against their peers and receive help to run their business more efficiently.
LPL’s CFO Solutions provides a skilled CFO to deliver personalized, executive insight to help advisors run their firms more efficiently and profitably at all stages. LPL knows that one-size-fits-all doesn’t work for every firm. That’s why LPL will also offer the CFO Essentials package for smaller to mid-sized firms looking to scale and grow. These advisors will get support with the KPI measurement, goal setting and client segmentation essential to build a foundation for accelerated growth.
Engaging Keynotes Take the Stage to Inspire and Entertain
In addition to LPL’s mainstage updates, Focus attendees will hear from guest speaker Col. Nicole Malachowski, USAF (Ret.) about her experiences in commanding extraordinary teams, prevailing over challenges and achieving success. Co-Founder and CEO of Blue Owl Capital Inc. Doug Ostrover will comment on the private and public markets, as well as his wealth of experience as a money manager and business owner. Finally, best-selling author, artist and TED speaker Erik Wahl will open the final day discussing how to use disruption as a competitive advantage.
Attendees will wrap up a memorable experience with a final-night reception featuring a performance by legendary singer-songwriter Bryan Adams.
1 2021 Cerulli U.S. Retail and Institutional Asset Management Report and Cerulli Lodestar projections. Excludes self-directed market.
About LPL Financial
LPL Financial Holdings Inc. (Nasdaq: LPLA) was founded on the principle that the firm should work for the advisor, and not the other way around. Today, LPL is a leader in the markets we serve, serving nearly 22,000 financial advisors, including advisors at approximately 1,100 enterprises and at approximately 550 registered investment advisor (RIA) firms nationwide. We are steadfast in our commitment to the advisor-mediated model and the belief that Americans deserve access to personalized guidance from a financial advisor. At LPL, independence means that advisors have the freedom they deserve to choose the business model, services, and technology resources that allow them to run their perfect practice. And they have the freedom to manage their client relationships, because they know their clients best. Simply put, we take care of our advisors, so they can take care of their clients.
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