SMArtX has been selected to power Morningstar’s turnkey asset management platform.
SMArtX’s industry leading, cloud-native, API-first managed account technology will support Morningstar Investment Management’s integrated advisor solution for seamlessly managing client assets, including intra-day portfolio and performance pricing, click-to-allocate functionality, automated trading and rebalancing, exclusions/substitutions, cash management, and tax harvesting tools. The solution streamlines day-to-day tasks for opening, managing, and monitoring client accounts.
This provides Morningstar Investment Management with an engine to help grow its TAMP business by consolidating its vast subject matter expertise into a modern platform fit for today’s managed accounts industry. Additionally, Morningstar, Inc. made a direct investment in SMArtX, structured as a convertible note, earlier this year to support its continued growth.
Over the last 13 months, SMArtX’s assets under management have increased approximately 785% to top $18.84 billion and client accounts have grown 827% to 79,029.
“When SMArtX made the decision to consider new strategic prospects we knew there were opportunities to team with many firms, but we decided to focus on a handful of firms that would help us grow both strategically and commercially,” said Evan Rapoport, CEO of SMArtX Advisory Solutions.
“We have previously been supported by private equity firms and we believe now is the right time to develop deeper relationships with some of the industry’s largest companies. We couldn’t be happier to work with Morningstar and its investment management group.”
SMArtX’s continued growth is driven by two main applications of its technology: the off-the-shelf TAMP offering, which is built using SMArtX Advisory Solutions’ proprietary UMA technology, and the ability to further deploy that UMA technology through its application programming interface (API) to meet the tailored mandates of large enterprises.
“Putting investors first permeates everything we do, including the technology choices we make to help advisors put their clients’ needs front and center,” said Daniel Needham, president, Morningstar Investment Management.
“Leveraging SMArtX’s flexible and scalable API for unified managed accounts technology for enterprises helps us create a seamless experience for advisors that drives successful investor outcomes.”
“The recent groundswell of financial technology advancements requires a flexible, cloud-based infrastructure built on a modular, micro-services architecture with highly efficient data flow to effectively integrate and bring clients the best outcomes. That is exactly what SMArtX brings to the table,” said Jonathan Pincus, President & COO of SMArtX Advisory Solutions.
