Merrill Lynch has installed CheckFree Investment Services' newly released APL Workflow for New Accounts module, which allows for real time account opening between portfolio managers and clients.
APL Workflow for New Accounts is the first module of CheckFree's New Gen platform, which is a multi-million dollar upgrade of its portfolio mangment system for institutional and high-net-worth money managers, Checkfree APL.
CheckFree says the new module will streamline the investment management process by enabling real-time new account opening between managers and sponsors.
The application has already been installed at Merrill Lynch where three money managers in the bank's Consults programme are beta testing the functionality.
Bob Rubino, a director of Merrill Lynch's managed accounts solutions group, says: "Funding an account instantly gets an investor's account working for them immediately. The elimination of paper-based and e-mail communications improves accuracy and timeliness. The benefits over batch processing are significant."
The vendor says its New Gen platform, which will use Six Sigma standards and processes, will aim to cut costs associated with maintaining separately managed accounts by 50%.
Cheryl Nash, formerly vice president of the CheckFree Investment Services brokerage business unit, is leading the project team working on the New Gen project. Work on platform conversion began 18 months ago with extensive participant requirement research and technology development. The project will span the next two to three years.