What Is a Financial Portal?

Financial portals are websites or apps that provide a variety of financial data and information all in one place. They act as information hubs for users or clients, who are often individual investors and provide up-to-date financial news and data to make their investment decisions. Financial portals are often cloud-based platforms that are customizable for both the financial institution and the investor client.

Most online brokerages now offer their customers financial portals in addition to trading services, but non-brokers also provide portals either for free or by subscription.

Understanding Financial Portals

Investors need the latest information in order to stay current with the markets and make educated trades. Although there are many sites to choose from when deciding where to get your news, some make more sense than others depending on the information you need.

Financial portals are intended to give clients all of the finance-related information they need in one place. Often the portals will provide visitors with quotes, research, articles, analyst recommendations and so on. Financial portals may also provide links to various relevant sites that offer this kind of information. In addition, many financial portals provide email accounts, chat rooms and web forums. Use of a financial portal offers benefits to financial services and institutions as well as investors, leveraging technology so that customers can have more control of their financial future and advisors can work more efficiently.

InetSoft is an example of a company that builds custom financial-sector client portals. This kind of developer can handle all the service and integration work necessary to build the web portal. Specifically, InetSoft offers features such as live chat with financial advisors, document or task management, calculators, asset views and estimates, on-demand reports or financial indexes, and financial-news tracking. InetSoft's client portals are cloud-based, with no hardware or software infrastructure.

Example of a Financial Portal

Pensionmark, a financial services company for employees, offers an interactive personal financial portal, which they market as a "financial control center" that offers budgeting and savings tools. Pensionmark's financial portal shows an investor everything they are making and spending as well as everything they own, including savings, investments and real estate, all in one place and kept up-to-date in real time. Customers can chart how long their savings will last based on their expected retirement date.

Pensionmark claims that its "unique service model aims for better outcomes with less effort for every stakeholder." Their financial portal includes elements such as: an organizer, which connects all accounts and information for an organized, consolidated view; a financial workshop, which offers individualized tips on staying on target and managing financial goals; an education center, which offers a personalized library of videos, articles and resources; a vault, which clients can use to store sensitive documents that are available any time they need to access them; a spending tracker and other budgeting tools; digital post mail, which offers secure online delivery of a client's U.S. postal mail; and interactive charts and detailed views on a client's investments.