Hi, I'm Eddie Sempek national sales manager with Orion and I'm really excited for you all to join us here. Today we're meeting with Apex to go through a new digital account, opening experience that we've created. At this time I'll let each of the individuals introduce themselves. Hi, I'm Brian Morgan, director of product here at Orion. I'm Marcel Sai I'm senior director of advisory platform at Apex. Hello, this is Megan Houseman, director of advisory success here at APEX. Awesome, we'd like to welcome you guys as well and appreciate your guys's time and kind of walking through what this this new partnership and engagement looks like. Before we get started, just to kind of provide a quick overview of the topics we'll be covering today, we are going to go through a brief overview of who Orion is, what we do and and how we support you as an advisor will then kick it over to APEX. Provide this a similar type overview, and then Brian Morgan will provide us with a demo of the new integration that we've created in concert with APEX. And then we'll end that with a overview of just the benefits of the of the partnership. And go through any questions and and answer any next steps for for the audience. So with that you know Orion's mission is really about powering the advisor client journey. We do that through a four four step process of prospect plan, invest, achieve, and when we really look at this, it's it's about helping tech enabled. You share advisors such as yourself, you know, grow, and we do that through the technology that we offer to firms, and really helping you ultimately achieve or help the client achieve their individual. You know definition of financial success. So getting into that four step process of Prospect plan, invests, achieve. These are really a cyclical process that you know really will find any client going through in that in that journey through their financial success. Through this tech enabled experience, we help advisors by delivering on technology that helps with the prospecting phase. So whether it's through marketing or CRM engagement and then leading them into that planning process, what you'll find is then from that that plan, helping connect the investment engagement. So what are the ultimate investment tools that will help them achieve that success and then ultimately helping you by providing technology that supports that? I'm going to client relationship through trading and reporting technology behind the scenes and allowing them that client to go through that process. Now this this experience has been built off of a a lot of in-house solutions that we've been able to develop. Ryan was established over 20 years ago, and since that time we have had our a very strong singular focus on supporting this. This tech enabled fiduciary process, and through that time we've been able to partner with phenomenal groups that have helped invest or provide investment capital for us to go out and either build new technology solutions. Or through acquisitions and mergers. A few most notable as of recent, is the acquisition of Redtail Technologies, which is a CRM that's helping provide a CRM solution. Over 100,000 advisors in the market as well as on the wealth management side of our business through the acquisition of Town Square, which helps provide outsourced chief investment Officer solutions to RA's in the market. A little bit more about our company as we have over 2300 RA's that we're supporting today, which accounts for just over three trillion of assets. So really, a powerful group of growth oriented advisors as a as a business we we have over 1300 employees spread across the country. And really, this enables us to support your business regardless of of where you're at and and who you're supporting on the wealth management side. The topic we won't really be covering today, but we do have over 62 billion of assets really supporting helping advisers like yourself that are interested in providing more of an outsourced solution on investment management. The ability to do so, and so one of the the largest wealth management. Turkey asset managers in the nation so. With that I'm going to go ahead and turn this over to Megan, who will give us an overview about Apex. Thanks Eddie, and thanks everyone for joining us today. I'm Megan Hausmann, director of advisory success here at Apex, a big part of my job is to help advisors understand how to work with a digital custodian and want to take a quick look at our firms. Mission, vision and purpose to help kind of connect the dots for you all. Most of you probably know us as the custodian behind online investing innovators such as Sofi stash and weeble, but you may not know that. We also provide custody to many RA enterprises such as. Altruist and facet wealth. Our success in serving both of these markets is attributed to our continued focus on innovation and remaining flexible in this evolving industry. Delivering on our vision is key for APEX to achieve our technological independence. As you see here in our vision and ownership of data, which allows us to eliminate barriers to innovation and dependencies on legacy platforms that often slow firms down as a purely B2B custodian, our API platform is built to enable our clients, which is you all the advisor? To control that their end client experience, which is kind of earned us the the nickname as the Headless custodian. Our focus on providing API's that enable a frictionless experience for all investors is is brought to life here through this partnership with Orion and the automated account solution provides a seamless experience for your clients that brings truly digital account opening and funding to life and enables advisors to serve a broader audience. Investors with our fractional share solutions. These core capabilities, uniquely positioned APEX that the convergence of the digital and traditional investing worlds and we're excited to work with growth Oriented advisors who recognize the need to scale their business and deliver on their value prop and more digital way. And now I'll turn it over to my colleague Marcel to talk more about Apex senior director of advisory platforms at APEX. As Megan mentioned, we're a digital Castilian. We're well known as that Intel inside, right that most of the top fintech and brokerage app providers use to service. The next generation investors because what they want is that Amazon like horsepower and technology to create that truly digital end to end client experience for their clients. In fact, you know advisors today at APEX. They're enjoying instant account opening in minutes and nearly no Nye goes out as a result of apex. So simply check out any of those fintech apps that they use, such as the the betterments, the weebles and the stashes and what you'll see is real time power that they're delivering via account opening and funding in seconds. So you don't then have to be reliant on friction fill paper forms like faxing or E signature apps like DocuSign or signings that many advisors have been conditioned to use by their current custodian. So the good news for all of you is that we can offer a better and truly digital experience. So kudos to Ryan for you know. Really leaning in with apex, innovate and modernize their digital experience with all of you and like, Orion Apex is also a true supporter of the independent RV community. So with that said, it's my pleasure to introduce the next speaker, Brian Morgan, who will demonstrate how Orion's automated count solution is going to transform account opening from start to finish via the advisor proposal tool. The client. Portal so that you can have the speed so you can have the efficiency to deliver that better and more modern client experience. All right, well thank you, Marcel. So let's jump into the demo. I'll first start by how does a client get here so you know. As far as inviting them, there's several options. You can invite a client one by one, so this is an existing client or prospect you're able to send an invitation link, or even create a URL as part of an e-mail that you're crafting. You know to that client or prospect, so if you already have that existing relationship, you can send it in directly or. If, let's say you're doing a, you know some sort of marketing campaign, or if you want to have a button on your website, there can be a link that you put where the client will click on that. They'll just do a simple registration. You know their name, e-mail address, password just so that they can log in again in the future, and then once they hit, you know, submit. They'll be on this screen, so again, you can invite a client, either one by one, or you can have many clients click on the same link through some sort of marketing campaign, for example. You know, once they're here, we're going to ask them, you know what type of account do they want to open a taxable account or retirement account. So with retirement account, just so you can see the options traditional Roth IRA, rollover account, or simple if it's going to be a taxable account, it'll be single or joint, so I'll click on single and we'll just start with the inputs. So ask for their date of birth. How much they can invest? And how much they're going to save per month, so we're asking them how much they can invest and how much they're saving really is part of our our simple planning workflow and you'll see some of the estimates that we'll calculate later on. Next, we'll take them into a risk tolerance questionnaire. You know you do have two options for this. We'll have a shorter version, which is I'm going to show right now. It's seven questions long. We also have a longer version which we call our 3D risk profile, which takes into account not just risk tolerance, but also to risk composure and risk capacity. So definitely a more thorough. Risk Questionnaire this was created by our Chief Behavioral Officer, Doctor Daniel Crosby. So definitely check that out if you're interested. But for the sake of time I'll stick with the shorter version. So I'm going to quickly go through this. You know, these are pretty. I would say pretty standard risk tolerance questionnaires questions so you know nothing. You know that you haven't seen before. Then we'll give projections. So based off of that initial amount that was entered and based off how much they're saving will give you an estimate here. Now, the models that we're going to include here, so these are going to be your models, and you can have 5710. It's up to you as far as the number of options that you've created, but again, what's really cool about this solution, and one of the many cool things is these are your models that clients will be able to select, because ultimately these will be what you're trading, right? So when you see a moderate model, imagine that this is your moderate. You can call it whatever you like, so that's one of the big points I want to make with this workflow. Is that when it comes to you know how they're actually going to be invested? These will be your models, you know, not just some cookie cutter models that they can select from. Now, once they have a recommended model, they can go up or down one risk level. So if they go up and risk level, you'll see the change in amount here. We also have what ifs that the client can use so you know if they want to change their starting amount, how much they save per month or even when they start taking withdrawals. You know by making that change. If, let's say I wanted to change my monthly contribution to $250 a month, you'll now see this number here. On the left will get updated right away, so it's a nice interactive experience for the client just to see the impact of these changes. So once they choose a model that's like like to move forward with, then we have this open account button here at the bottom. So I'm going to click on that. The next question or next screen is going to be your agreements. So these are agreements that you'll upload. You can upload as many as you'd like. You'll notice that this button is grayed out, so I can't continue until the client actually reviews the document, so I just have sample text here, but you'll notice you'll have to Scroll down only to the bottom to hit agree, so we're making sure the client actively reads the agreements before they can move forward so you know. Again, you can add as many of these as many agreements as you like to show up on this. I mean, before client can continue and later on I'll show you that whatever the client agrees to, this will be available in the document vault and it'll be time stamped as far as you know, the client agreed to this agreement on this day and time, so I'm going to hit continue here. Now we get into the apex account opening question, so pretty standard form, so I'm going to quickly fill this out just so I can show you the end. And phone number. You'll notice that you know for an e-mail address for the name, we'll be able to populate that Chris from when they registered prior. So we'll just add in an address here. All right, some of these questions we will have you know populated by default just to help save some time. If the client you know fits within those ranges already. You know the clients can certainly go in and override these if they like it, they need to. There are some questions where we will require that the client to actively answer, so what's their risk tolerance? What's their investment experience? But otherwise, you know pretty straightforward questions. This question here on top you know this is the apex custodial account agreement. They'll have to select. Yes, here to move forward. Now one of the cool things with this, and I'm showing you our client experience right now. We also have an advisor let experience where the advisor, you, the advisor, can answer all the questions prior to the screen and then send the client you know an e-mail to say, hey, we just need you to to finish this this questionnaire off, you know, and some of the one of the questions, for example, is is the custodial. My room will want the client to actively sign yes here, so clients or the you the advisor can fill out, you know some of this information if you have it for the client already just to help make the process even easier for the client and then they can finish by you know, clicking yes here and then hitting confirm at the bottom, but you'll notice that we actually give you a playback of all the inputs. This way you know if there's a mistake somewhere the client can fix that as well. If there is any issues, for example with the address you know we are checking that with APEX behind the scenes, so we will populate an error message if there is an issue, but assuming everything works out, you'll notice that the account you know process is started. Clients can, as part of this work will also add their bank account for to do the ACH funding so they can link their account. We use played for this just so they can link. Let's say a checking account savings account. For example. So I will just choose an account here. Put in the password. All right, so once the account, well, you know, once you've linked your account, you can choose you know which of the accounts I actually want to pull money from, so I'll choose my my checking account here. And then you can put in the dollar amount you know. So let's say I want to do $5000 for example. So it'll say you know pending transaction. All right, and once your account is pending, you know you, as the advisor will be able to see you know everything related to that account being opened inside of Orion Connect, which is your main hub as an advisor as an Orion client. So you'll be able to see those accounts being created if there's any issues with the accounts. If there's any errors that need to be resolved, you'll see that in here you'll see any ACH transactions that are being done, so you know as an advisor you know have everything being in that hub is really powerful. You know this is where you're going to be managing your households. You'll be doing your normal, you know, reporting billing for clients potentially, and also to your trading so you know once the account is opened, we're going to send that information to apex. We'll also send all that information from that workflow into Orion Connect. Everything will be teed up for you to do that training. Remember that model I was talking about earlier? All that information will flow through to this experience. You know just to make it as easy as possible, as efficient as possible for you to manage your business, and then when it comes to the client experience because it's a, it's a great account opening workflow. Obviously it's going to make things a lot more efficient for you and for your clients, but this is also going to just be part of your client portal experience. You know here at Orion, so you know all the great things that you can do, you know, as an Orion customer with all the reporting that Orion has available. You know, so you're able to. You know, clients are able to see you know all their performance numbers, their positions, their transactions. We also have financial planning as well, and this will all be in a white labeled solution, so you know your branding will put will flow through to the client when they're logged in, even your color. So this line on top. This button here at the bottom, so your branding will start. We'll certainly shine through and then they'll be able to open accounts just as part of this experience, they'll be able to manage their accounts as part of the experience, so they need to update an address if they want to do additional. Transfers, you know all that will be done through this account. Opening experience and I wanted to keep this demo pretty brief, but hopefully you saw you know all the main components of the account, opening experience and even our client experience, you know, but we'll always be happy to do a much more thorough demo of our overall experience if you'd like it. So with that, I'm going to turn over to Eddie and Megan to to round us off. Well, thank you Brian for providing that demo. Hopefully you all were able to understand just the the the immense value that this is creating in unifying that digital experience into your own ecosystem and really providing a singular approach to having that client go from that prospect to client and having access to all the necessary you know components within that experience natively within the planning solution. So to really tie this together? I think we wanted to just cover a couple of the benefits that really stand out for use an advisor and then Megan will kind of cover some of the client benefits here, but really, what we've been able to, you know, as we partnered in this in this experience, is really trying to identify the best ways in which we can help you all win in the market. And really, in connecting that tech enabled fiduciary process by allowing you to more effectively or efficiently, you know convert that that prospect into that client with a connected proposal and account opening experience. This also allows you to, as you know, making it kind of outlined earlier really engage in not only just your core market segment then, but also being able to broaden that out. And so as you're working with maybe a rising generation. Or you're engaging with those that are in that legacy asset transition. Being able to find ways to build that brand equity, providing a solution for them that allows them to experience you know, really the the company culture that you've built and the solutions that you can offer, allowing them to step into that earlier on in the process, and being able to build that relationship at the same time. And ultimately, this really helps from your back office solutions and building scale around you know the trading process. Around the client management and overall engagement and then also more efficiently allowing you the ability to. You know, deliver on risk and proposal solutions, so even as they're as that client changes throughout, you know the the time that they're with you. You can more effectively turn that on and allow them to go through that risk tolerance questionnaire or even generate a new proposal whenever it's needed. Megan, I'll let you talk about some of the client benefits as well. Yeah, thanks Eddie. I obviously you know there's a lot of great benefits for the advisor. The client also wins in this sort of solution, right? We get to kind of empower them to be able to tailor their own portfolios to engage in their investment journey. You've obviously you know, done a lot of work to, you know, take them through the planning process and guide them through different life events and and different key decisions so. Gives them some empowerment and and also enables them to engage with you in a more digital way as they may be used to and in other parts of their life as as Marcel outlined on Amazon.com. Type of experience enable them to kind of go through an end to end experience without having to wait to receive paperwork or DocuSign instructions and then having to wait days if not longer to actually have an account open so that they can fund it and start trading within that account. Anyways, we look forward to talking more. With you all about how this solution can benefit you and your clients and what we you know definitely recommend, taking a look at the one pager that we've included on this webinar, as well as clicking on some of the the different buttons to learn more about APEX and Orion. OK, well we're starting to get some questions flowing in, so I'm going to go ahead and start getting those kicked off. So the first one is asking, let's see here if you wanted. If you want to use the automated account solution, do you have to be an apex client, and if so, what's the next step? I think that one I'll turn over to Megan for a response. Great question. Yes, in in order to use the automated Account solution, advisors will need to have a custody and clearing agreement. With apex. You can do so by clicking the get started button on the the webinar screen, which will provide you with the contact form that gets submitted to our sales team and and we would love to schedule some time to discuss what working with Apex looks like as well as pricing. OK. Next question here. Has how does this solution so this is? If you're already in Orion firm today, how does this solution integrate with how you use Orion and effectively is this just? Is this a white labeled robo advisor? So I think Brian. I'm going to go ahead and turn that over to you for response. Yeah, so if you're already running customer today, this will just be, you know, another tool in the toolbox you know that same client experience that you're using today with your clients? This will just be another option to add to that so you know all the branding that you've already done with your logos and colors. You know all that's going to be incorporated to this experience as well, so you know really simple to turn on once you're all signed up. And yeah, as far as it being a white labeled robo solution, it's you know it's definitely going to be something where it's going to be your branding. Going through this process, you know your contact information. If clients have questions and then once they get to the end, you know everything's teed up perfectly for you. To, you know households, open accounts are open, clients are able to fund everything on their own, so you know definitely a solution that will, you know, help it. The entire process be a lot more efficient. For for both you and your clients. So Brian real quick. Maybe just to piggyback onto that. Does it require the advisor to turn the keys over? Completely to the client, or if they wanted to take this through more of like a hybrid approach, could they do that? Yeah, great question and this was feedback we received in our in our beta group so it can be both. So it's definitely something clients can do on their own, but for those advisors who like to have, you know more hands on approach, you know the advisor can go through answer pretty much. Most of the questions on your own and then turn it over to the client so you can click a button. We'll send an e-mail to the client, or when they log in the next time, they'll just see those remaining questions that they need to sign off on. Before the account gets open, so it can definitely be a hybrid approach as well. Yeah, I think that's a really powerful experience, especially as you know you as an advisor going through and and maybe just starting to make this more digital transition. You have that opportunity to kind of, you know, go into it at your own speed as opposed to having to maybe start completely, you know, new into this. What I would say this digital transformation, right? That's taking place today. So thank you, Brian. Alright, looks like we have a time for one more question. The question here is coming in how does this? How does this affectively this integration between Orion and Apex differ from what other competitors are offering in the market or so? Why don't you go ahead and take the take that one? So anyone that is trying to disrupt the industry, whether in the brokerage world or the advisory world like Orion, is, is by and large working with apex because you just can't fake real time. You know users are out there working with an app alone with no human. It just works or doesn't. So with apex there is no massive process to get accounts approved. It's not instantaneous and truly digital compared to perhaps your current custodian. You're filling out a form you hit send goes to DocuSign, goes to your client's e-mail. Helpfully, pass validation 3 to 5 days go by and then the counts open. But at Apex, we're talking about truly digital. The client pushes a button and they're ready to go. That's the difference. So Marcel may be piggybacking off of that just to you know, add to what this the the individuals asked here. How long does the typical process take to to open an account digitally? At Apex, the account is opened yay or nay within seconds, and then from there once it's been validated that it is opened. You can instantaneously fund it through being linking up your bank account. So that you then have an account that's ready to be traded on same day. That's quite a bit different I think, than what most advisors are probably used to, and they're in their day-to-day, so that's that's very cool. And thank you for for highlighting that. Well, I would like to personally thank Marcel, Megan and Brian for joining us today and going through. Really what has been over a year in the making. It has been really fun to engage with your team. I think we're really excited about what's to come from this. The journey does not stop here and we are really looking forward to not only receiving you know insights from you all in terms of what you'd like to see next. But also, we'd like to encourage you to go and learn more about about Orion and Apex. Use the the the form the button form down below to get started with that and we'd love to show you more about how we can help you in that when winning more client business. And in that tech enabled future process. _1713411367030