Mstar Releases Advisor Breakpoint Tool

A Morningstar news release said the company’s first offering under its new Advisor Compliance Tools is Compliance Data Digest, a Web-based application that organizes the information that advisors need in order to determine if their clients are entitled to a breakpoint discount on a fund’s sales charge.  

“Without a centralized source for this data, brokerage firms have either been developing their own systems or having their advisors search each individual fund’s prospectus or Statement of Additional Information, and then attempt to interpret each fund’s unique policies,” said Joe Mansueto, Morningstar’s chairman and chief executive officer, in the news release.

For the approximately 240 fund families offering load funds, Compliance Data Digest contains data on breakpoints, including rights of accumulation, letters of intent, share-class limits, and other factors that advisors need to consider before advising clients on the purchase of a mutual fund with a sales charge, according to the announcement.

Morningstar also offers to brokerage firms all of the data contained in Compliance Data Digest in an XML-based data feed, which can be used to power a firm’s order-entry systems or advisor/client Web sites, the news release said.

Also this year, Morningstar plans to introduce another Advisor Compliance Tool called Breakpoints Analyzer an application that advisors can use to review mutual fund holdings with clients, apply rights-of-accumulation rules, and assess share-class suitability, the company said in the announcement.

Through its Principia and Advisor Workstation products, Morningstar has relationships with more than 100,000 financial advisors, the announcement said.