In the coming months First Rate will be launching our first iteration of our Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) report package. We have authored and promoted several ESG articles in recent months, but the key principle to ESG reporting is that investors and asset managers alike have put a greater emphasis on Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) in recent years, and ESG scoring adds transparency by scoring assets based on these factors.

Adoption of ESG reporting has been somewhat slow for a few reasons:

1. Until recently there have only been a few firms who have produced reliable ESG scores across a wide variety of assets.
2. Even with scores now more readily available, there is an ongoing question about the reliability or accuracy of these scores.
3. There is an expense associated with gathering this data. In essence, asset managers are now expected to subscribe to these services, or partner with providers who do, in order to provide this additional level of oversight to their clients.

First Rate is addressing the demand for ESG Reporting by partnering with FinMason and Owl Analytics. Owl Analytics is an industry leader in providing robust, accurate ESG scoring at the asset level. Our Innovation team has developed an API call that is launched at report runtime in the First Rate Core application that pulls in data from FinMason and Owl Analytics. The ESG data is then compiled and presented in a crisp, sleek report package that shows ESG scores at the asset class level along with a deeper dive to the individual asset level. These ESG values can also be presented relative to a model portfolio to highlight how a portfolio is maximizing not only returns but also a sense of investing socially focused assets.

Adding ESG reporting to First Rate’s Core platform is in direct alignment with First Rate’s values of Love, Give, Serve, and Enjoy. Since our inception, First Rate has demonstrated a relentless focus on being a good “corporate citizen.” Furthermore, First Rate focuses on putting tools into the hands of wealth managers that help them act as good stewards of wealth. The ESG conversation fits nicely into the overall narrative and equips managers with additional data points that go beyond “what” the return is and get to a deeper level of “how” the return was generated.

Stay tuned! The report package will be available soon, and rumor has it we’re even developing a sandbox to allow users to get a taste of ESG scoring through a landing page on the First Rate website.

For more insight into First Rate’s latest innovations, register for our client-only webinar on March 23rd, 10:30am CT / 11:30am ET.