Morningstar Announces Morningstar Office Cloud, an End-to-End Practice and Portfolio Management Platform for Independent Advisors

CHICAGO, Nov. 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Morningstar, Inc. (NASDAQ: MORN), a leading provider of independent investment research, today announced Morningstar Office Cloud℠, a new cloud-based practice and portfolio management platform for advisors, powered by more than 30 years of investment data and research. The latest software development, which was unveiled at the Schwab IMPACT^® 2017 conference today, brings together Morningstar's data, analytics, and research tools, with the ability to integrate client data into a single, web-based experience that can replace multiple legacy systems.

"Amid increased regulatory uncertainty and heightened investor expectations, advisors are being challenged to rethink existing business models and better demonstrate the value of their advice to clients," said Tricia Rothschild, chief product officer at Morningstar. "With Morningstar Office Cloud's fully-integrated data and research capabilities, advisors can focus on what really matters—helping their clients reach their financial goals. Advisors and investors can now be confident that their interests are aligned."

Morningstar Office Cloud helps advisors consolidate and improve their everyday routine by bringing together all aspects of an advisor's practice to a single system to help streamline workflow and eliminate data-processing bottlenecks. Tight integration with third-party software packages allows advisors to customize their experience while maintaining a single source of client and investment data. The solution also offers a client web portal, where clients can access their reports at any time on multiple devices. The new cloud-based architecture is a fully web-based experience on all devices featuring real-time market monitoring capabilities, increased data security, customizable components such as an actionable dashboard and portfolio views, and the seamless delivery of Morningstar research.

"As the financial landscape continues to evolve, our new cloud-based platform gives advisors a competitive edge by saving time, reducing errors, and increasing responsiveness," said Dermot O'Mahony, Morningstar's head of software products. "The cloud architecture helps us deliver stronger data security and reduces mundane administrative work through outsourced data management, account aggregation, automatic market data, research updates, and flexible report management tools."

"Regulatory issues, scalability, client responsiveness, and data integrity are top of mind for us," said Lee Ann Matsuda, vice president of Lee Financial Group Hawaii. "Using Morningstar Office Cloud will help us to gain operational efficiencies in our practice, providing opportunities to focus more closely on client relationships."

Morningstar Office Cloud will be available to advisors in the first quarter of 2018. Historical data conversions are available for advisors who would like to migrate their client data from other popular portfolio accounting systems. Existing Morningstar Office users can migrate to Morningstar Office Cloud with no data conversion required.

Please visit http://www.morningstar.com/company/morningstar-office for more information about Morningstar Office Cloud.

About Morningstar, Inc.

Morningstar, Inc. is a leading provider of independent investment research in North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia. The company offers an extensive line of products and services for individual investors, financial advisors, asset managers, retirement plan providers and sponsors, and institutional investors in the private capital markets. Morningstar provides data and research insights on a wide range of investment offerings, including managed investment products, publicly listed companies, private capital markets, and real-time global market data. Morningstar also offers investment management services through its investment advisory subsidiaries, with more than $220 billion in assets under advisement and management as of Sept. 30, 2017. The company has operations in 27 countries.

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SOURCE Morningstar, Inc.

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