Coconut Grove Bank picks SunGard's WealthStation

FWR Staff

19 November 2007

Florida bank adds SunGard advisor desktop to same-source UMA, trust system. Having been using SunGard's unified managed account program for that past nine or 10 months, Miami, Fla.-based Coconut Grove Bank has now selected the Wayne, Pa.-based software and processing company to provide its front-office wealth-management technology.

Coconut Grove will integrate SunGard's WealthStation advisor desktop -- which provides financial planning, portfolio construction and presentation capabilities -- with SunGard's Charlotte trust accounting and SunGard's "Unified Overlay Management" UMA program.

Sans seams

UMAs are fee-based, single-account investment products that typically feature combinations of separately managed accounts , mutual funds and ETFs. In this context, overlay management refers to processes associated with account-level rebalancing, restrictions, cash flows, and, where relevant, tax-liability management.

"The seamless integration that WealthStation provides with Charlotte and the overlay program greatly simplifies the process of customizing and optimizing client portfolios," says Barry Givner, senior trust officer for the Coconut Grove's Trust and Wealth Management department. "With WealthStation, we have the ability to swiftly analyze our clients' portfolios, financial and estate plans and present the information in a coherent and professional manner using the system's presentation and reporting tools."

And this, adds Givner, lets Coconut Grove give its wealth-management clients investment products and services that are competitive with big-name bank and brokerage offerings.

Coconut Grove has been using SunGard's overlay program -- which is based on technology from Cambridge, Mass.-based Smartleaf -- since February 2007.

Coconut Grove Bank says it has seen its revenue grow by 15% over the last year -- in part, it suggests, because of the UMA program.

SunGard is one of six leading advisor-platform providers, according to a 2007 report by Aite Group, a Boston-based consultancy. The others are Xeye, Thomson Financial, NorthStar Systems International, Finantix and AdviceAmerica.

Of this half dozen, Aite classifies AdviceAmerica and SunGard as standalone advisor-platform providers; the rest figure as platform integrators.

Coconut Grove, which has been in business since the mid 1920s, has nearly doubled its assets over the last three years to $680 million and deposits to $500 million. It has branches in Miami, Coral Gables, Aventure and Pametto Bay. -FWR

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