The compan'ys Personal AdvisorServices are used by less than 1 million investors today out of theroughly 20 million investors that Vanguard works with worldwide.(Photo: Shutterstock)

Four years after Vanguardintroduced Personal Advisor Services — which combinesrobo-investing and some access to its own financial professionals —the firm says it is moving to give all financial advisors theability to use its investment modeling and relatedtechnology.

“We're continually looking for new ways to enableadvisors and expand our existing suite of services to our financialadvisor clients,” the company said in a statement. “We oftenreceive requests for access to methodologies that have beenperfected in our Personal Advisor Services offering, and we're inthe beginning stages of building out those capabilities in order tohelp advisors improve end investor outcomes.”

PAS has about $130 billion inassets, the fund giant says, out of the $5.4 trillion in totalassets that Vanguard manages. It is used by less than 1 millioninvestors today, according to industry consultant Gavin Spitzner,out of the roughly 20 million investors that Vanguard works withworldwide.

With this development, Vanguardwill “join … the ranks of Charles Schwab and Betterment forAdvisors,” said Spitzner, president of Wealth Consulting Partners,in a recent LinkedIn post. It's unclear, though, if the plan “ispart of push into [the] RIA custody space or more of a tech/assetmanagement pure play,” he added.

(Vanguard formed a partnership with FinancialEngines in 2003 to serve workplace plan participants.)

Executive discussions

During the Morningstar InvestmentConference two weeks ago in Chicago, Vanguard CEO Tim Buckley tolda group of reporters that Vanguard could soon offer third-partyadvisors access to some or all of its PAS technology platform,according to WealthManagement.

“The technology behind PAS islargely digital, and there's a lot we can do with that both interms of helping plans and helping advisors,” Buckley told thepublication.

“We're building the nextgeneration of this in modules so that it could actually be used byadvisors,” he continued. “If we can help lower the cost of advice,we'll do that, even if it's not directly through our ownadvisors.”

No timeline for such a launch hasbeen revealed by Vanguard.

Last week, Tom Rampulla, head of Vanguard's FinancialAdvisor Services division, spoke about the hybrid-model plans withFinancial Planning.

“We'll be rolling that out atsome point to give [advisors] the ability to use technology thathas been proven to help with their business — different types ofsoftware to do their business and make them scalable,” Rampullasaid in the report.

The Vanguard news comes about twomonths after Charles Schwab said it was introducing a$30 monthly subscription planfor its hybrid services.

In another acknowledgement of thegrowing role that robo services have in wealth management, Canadianrobo-player Wealthsimple just picked up $75 million in additionalcapital from Pimco owner Allianz and PowerFinancial.