VALLEY FORGE, PA — Vanguard has introduced customizable model portfolios for financial advisors, expanding its wealth-management offering with tools designed to let firms tailor investment strategies to client preferences without giving up the scale and lower costs associated with standardized models.
Vanguard Custom Model Portfolios allow advisors to modify selected existing Vanguard portfolios based on product preferences, asset classes and management styles while retaining the underlying portfolio-construction framework.
The offering targets a persistent tradeoff in wealth management: providing individualized portfolios while controlling the time and operational costs required to manage them across a large client base.
Vanguard research found that using model portfolios for core portfolio construction can reduce the time advisors spend managing portfolios by about two-thirds, freeing capacity for activities such as behavioral coaching and client prospecting.
“Helping advisors scale personalization while managing their practices efficiently remains a key focus for Vanguard,” Amma Boateng, managing director of Financial Advisor Services, stated.
Several of Vanguard’s existing multi-asset and single-asset-class portfolios will be available for customization.
Vanguard also cited cost as a competitive factor, reporting that the average cost of its model portfolios is about 80% below the industry average.
The customization framework gives advisors access to both index and actively managed strategies across asset classes, allowing them to alter portfolio exposures while maintaining a centralized investment structure.
“Vanguard Custom Model Portfolios allow advisors to construct more personalized portfolios intentionally—combining low-costs with thoughtfully selected sources of active risk,” Victor Zhu, global head of Model Portfolio Solutions, stated.
Vanguard is working with Vestmark, SS&C Black Diamond Wealth Solutions and Orion’s Tailored Allocation Portfolios to make the customized models available through advisor technology platforms.
Those integrations support trading, rebalancing and tax management, allowing firms to implement portfolio changes through existing workflows rather than manage customization manually.
Vanguard is also providing white-label and co-branded materials that advisors can use to explain portfolio strategies to clients.
The launch extends Vanguard’s model-portfolio business as financial advisory firms increasingly use centralized investment frameworks to manage more client assets while preserving some degree of portfolio-level customization.
“Advisors shouldn’t have to choose between scale and control,” Eve Cout, head of Advisor Solutions for Financial Advisor Services, stated. “Technology-enabled platform capabilities have made model portfolios increasingly customizable and simple to deliver and use.”
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