Online services improve workflow for tracking investment documentation, form submissions, and communications between investment sponsors, investors, advisors, and service providers
OAK BROOK—June 22, 2016—Millennium Trust Company a leading provider of technology-enabled asset custody solutions for institutions, advisors, and individuals, today announced the launch of a centralized, secure, online portal that helps speed up the often time-consuming process of investing in alternative assets. By improving the workflow for tracking investment documentation, form submissions, and communications between investment sponsors, investors, and service providers, Millennium Trust takes another step towards its overall goal of creating an end-to-end, digital custody solution for complex, documentation-heavy, non-traditional assets.
The IRS allows self-directed Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) to hold a broad range of investment types. Most non-traditional assets (or alternative assets) can be held within an IRA, but the investment documentation is not standardized as it is for traditional investments like stocks and bonds and tends to involve multiple legal documents and investment forms.
Before Millennium Trust can provide custody for an alternative investment, a review of the investment documentation is needed to identify the administrative requirements involved with each particular asset. Each investment has a unique set of documents, and historically, the process of collecting them for review involved several phone calls, emails, and even mailing or faxing paper forms between Millennium, the investment sponsor, and the advisor or investor. It was inefficient and time-consuming. The kind of process ideally suited to being improved with technology.
“We spend a lot of time thinking about how to make our clients’ lives easier when it comes to investing in alternative assets within their IRA,” said Millennium Trust Company CEO Gary Anetsberger. “Improving an outdated, and to be perfectly blunt, ‘clunky’ process and moving it online gives our clients and staff the tools they need to stay connected while ensuring all the appropriate documents are received and the correct forms submitted for their investment.”
Investment sponsors, advisors, and individuals can now work collectively with Millennium Trust within this secure online document portal to:
• Upload investment documents
• Track required forms through submission and processing
• Send communications or requests to complete appropriate forms
• Receive status notifications at each stage of the process
“Our goal is to speed up the process while keeping everyone involved on the same page with regards to where things stand,” said Meg Zwick, Millennium Trust’s senior vice president and director of alternative custody services. “Advisors and clients have enough to think about with planning for retirement and managing their investments; we want to make our part in this process as easy and helpful as possible. For example, clients have indicated that they will really appreciate getting automated emails with a status update at each stage.”
For more information about Millennium Trust’s custodial services for alternatives investments and MAIN, its alternative investment network, please visit www.mtrustcompany.com.
About Millennium Trust Company
Millennium Trust Company provides innovative custody solutions for IRA rollovers, alternative assets, and private funds. With $18.1 billion in assets under custody and more than 440,000 accounts under administration (as of 3/31/2016), Millennium Trust Company is a leader in providing custody services for both alternative and traditional assets. Millennium Trust performs the duties of a directed custodian. As such, it does not provide due diligence on prospective investments, sponsors or service providers and does not sell investments or provide investment, tax or legal advice. For more information about Millennium Trust Company visit: http://www.mtrustcompany.com
