RadNet, an e-commerce company in Wakefield, Mass. has created an Internet product called PortalWorkX that gives mutual fund companies the power to offer brokers personalized websites just like search engine Yahoo! does its users with My Yahoo!. The product is expected to be available within the next few weeks. The company is targeting mutual fund and hi-tech companies for sale of the product.
"The asset management industry was ripe (for this type of product)," said David Scult, president and CEO of RadNet.
RadNet, which is backed by venture-capital money from Warburg Pincus, is in various stages of talks with about 30 fund company prospects, he said. One fund company has already purchased the technology and plans to begin using it this summer, said Scult. He declined to name the company.
The PortalWorkX product will allow fund companies to adapt their existing websites to incorporate the additional capabilities of PortalWorkX, Scult said.
While most password-protected fund advisor sites have generic content, the PortalWorkX system allows brokers to customize these sites.
On the simplest level, brokers can decide which news to receive. But they can also decide which marketing materials to receive so that they correspond to the products they are selling. The product also allows fund companies to better track what literature its brokers are ordering.
It further allows two-way communication between the broker and fund wholesalers, said Scult. Wholesalers can communicate with their brokers through the personalized site, answering broker questions and offering advice and tips.
