What’s The Best Single Sign On Solution (SSO) For My RIA?

In this episode of RIA Tech Talk, David explains the benefits of a single sign on solution (SSO) for RIAs and financial advisors and provides insights on how to choose one that fits your office. 

Here are the highlights from the podcast:

What is SSO  - Web Single Sign On ?

SSO a secure way to access your web-based applications with a single login.  This includes common RIA applications like Wealthbox, Tamarac, Orion, redtail, salesforce, e-money, QB online, and others.  Your team accesses their SSO via a browser, it’s highly secure, and allows everyone to be more productive. 

SSO is not a Password Manager

Many RIAs are either not using SSO at all or are using a consumer solutions like Chrome Password Manager or LastPass. 

LastPass is not an SSO solution, LastPass is a password manager.  SSO and password managers are 2 different things.  Password manager will not provide the security a RIA or financial advisor needs. 

What are some of the best enterprise SSO out on the market today?

We generally recommend Microsoft, Okta, OneLogin, IBM and others that you’ll find on Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Access Management. 

For our client’s, Microsoft is the clear winner for 3 reasons:

·        It’s in the Gartner Leader Magic Quadrant

·        There’s a lot of enterprise /big business security features built it

·        If you have Microsoft Enterprise 365 E3 or E5 subscription, it is included in your subscription.  If not, you can upgrade or buy the Microsoft Entra Single Sign On add on.  A

Microsoft SSO Security

There are several security features that are important for an RIA or financial advisor:

·        Microsoft ‘s SSO solution comes with enterprise-grade security which should be the standard for anyone in the wealth management space

·        There is a secure direct integration between Microsoft and the software vendors

·        All your accounts are protected by Microsoft Security and their best practices

·        This includes Identity Management & Protection with Azure Active Directory.  This is what over 90% of Fortune 1000 companies are using. 

What do RIAs like about SSO?

·        It’s very easy to access from a work computer.  They simply open a browser and all the web-based applications are listed.  Remember, the work computer must meet your IT compliance requirements before they can log on with their SSO. 

·        Very productive for employees with everything in one space.

·        Our clients rest easy knowing that the security is enterprise-level.

·        When you fire or hire an employee it’s very easy to disable or enable new accounts. 

·        You can identify critical application that an employee can only access from a certain location or certain compliant computer.  For example, you can restrict access to the IP address in your office. 

·        Logs are available so you can see what apps a user accesses via their SSO, when they accessed those applications, which location, and so on.

·        SSO simplifies shared web accounts when you want to give login access to multiple people to access applications like Fedex or UPS.  You’re able to give them access without sharing the actual login credentials.