SunGard Helps Transamerica Financial Advisors Manage Clients’ Mutual Fund Transactions Without Generating a Single Piece of Paper

Transamerica Financial Advisors, Inc. will be the first major independent broker-dealer to deploy new functionality available through SunGard’s Protegent Customer Onboard in its comprehensive paperless office platform, TFA Synergy. Transamerica has been using Protegent Customer Onboard to facilitate the opening of new brokerage and non-brokerage accounts. It will now also use Protegent Customer Onboard’s new integration with DST Systems, Inc.’s new account web service, to facilitate the maintenance of new accounts and electronic mutual fund transactions for the direct-to-fund business channel.

Using Protegent Customer Onboard, Transamerica Financial Advisors will be able to initiate new mutual fund account transactions for mutual fund families that accept DST straight-through processing feeds. This will help representatives at the firm to complete the appropriate electronic application for a mutual fund transaction, to be reviewed by Protegent Customer Onboard for data completeness and suitability. Applications are then submitted through the DST interface to the mutual fund family, which can confirm receipt of the application and supply a newly established account number—facilitating tracking and management of the new customer record.

Paper checks from clients are processed via a conversion to electronic ACH banking instructions through Protegent Customer Onboard. Transamerica will be able to obtain real-time status reports on submitted business.

Dan Trivers, senior vice president and chief operating officer of Transamerica Financial Advisors, said, “Using SunGard’s Protegent Customer Onboard’s interface with DST Systems, will help our representatives manage their clients’ mutual fund transactions more efficiently and cost-effectively without generating a single piece of paper. Using Protegent to help enable straight-through processing for mutual fund accounts takes our TFA Synergy platform to the next level.”

Steve Sabin, chief operating officer of SunGard’s Protegent business unit, said, “With heightened regulatory scrutiny, increasing cases of identity fraud and prevailing antiquated systems, managing the new account opening process has been a growing challenge for many brokerage and insurance firms. Protegent Customer Onboard does more than address the manual and disparate process challenges – it is a comprehensive offering that helps firms manage the end-to-end client relationship.”

Targeting US-based retail broker-dealers specializing in general securities, life insurance, annuities, and advisory businesses, Protegent Customer Onboard helps reduce the number of accounts rejected due to missing or inconsistent data, e.g. Not In Good Order (NIGO) issues. Protegent Customer Onboard is available as a stand-alone solution or as an integrated component of the Protegent solution suite for management of the compliance lifecycle. It helps ensure compliance with FINRA regulations, such as Rule 2821, Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), Customer Identification Program (CIP) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations.

By automating and expediting operations for representatives and supervisors, Protegent Customer Onboard not only supports books and records requirements, but also provides a business-friendly platform for modification of rule logic and screen structure to support changing business and regulatory requirements.