Hey gang, I’m back. Let me start by apologizing for neglecting the blog over the past few months. A few weeks after my March 5th post, my wife, who was pregnant with our first child, went into the hospital with a very rare pregnancy complication. One Saturday morning we were sitting on the couch planning out the day, and later that evening we were being told by the high-risk antepartum doctors that she wouldn’t be going home until June! Nine weeks later I brought home my beautiful wife and equally gorgeous and very healthy baby boy. My wife is one of the strongest and most amazing people I know. I’m lucky to have her in my life.

So, as you can imagine, my time was spent going back and forth to the hospital in the morning and again in the evening, while I worked on building  Advisor Exchange during the day. And in case you haven’t heard about Advisor Exchange, we are quietly pumping along, bringing on new clients, and slowly changing the account aggregation landscape which, until now, had been occupied  by two companies (BAA and CE) for the better part of the past 10 years.

A recent article by Bill Winterberg points out that Advisor Exchange is one of two go to aggregation solutions when it comes to using aggregated data in reporting tools.  We are doing all we can to keep the momentum going: we are working on several new exports which will allow our users to export reconciliation-ready data into AssetBook, Advent Axys, and IAS, as well as several additional CRM systems (Advisor Exchange currently supports integrations with Redtail, Junxure, and ProTracker). I will also be announcing an alliance with one of the largest custodians in the industry – I’ll be making a formal statement related to this alliance in the coming weeks. So things are coming together for our company and our clients, but it hasn’t been easy.

Andrew Gluck recently said that Advisor Exchange might be turning a corner after a couple of rough years. He’s right. We are moving towards doing something really wonderful, but we were not very good at what we did for the first few years. We tried. We tried very hard, but we failed at delivering a solution that really worked the way advisors needed it to work. While we are better today, and we are helping advisors become more efficient, we still have room to get better. And we strive to be better each and every day.

Andy’s comment really got me thinking about what this blog can offer you. Until now, I’ve tried to focus on delivering the happenings and goings on as it relates to account aggregation on a high level. But that’s going to change starting today. Here no out, I’m going to use this platform to talk about what I see and hear on a daily basis from aggregation users. What aggregation problems are they facing, how do they use the data in other technology platforms, what did it take to implement, how is it helping them become more efficient, and other discussions which add context to how aggregation is used by financial advisors. I also plan on including feedback from management at 3rd party technology platforms that work with aggregation solutions. I will include news here and there when I think it’s relevant to our discussion, but from here on out this is going to be a blog that brings transparency to how advisors use aggregation, and what part Advisor Exchange plays in making that user experience better.

Thank you again for visiting my blog. I hope you come away with a better understanding of account aggregation. Please contact me at jluciano@advisorexchange.com if you have any questions.