SEI Cuts Onboarding Time

SEI has rolled out a digital onboarding system for collective investment trusts, moving a process long handled on paper into an online workflow. (ir.seic.com) The product, called SEI Access for Collective Investment Trusts, was announced April 14 and is aimed at retirement-plan setups that use both public and private market investments. SEI said it cuts onboarding from hours or days to minutes. (ir.seic.com) SEI said the system automates data capture, pre-populates forms, routes digital approvals, and gives plan sponsors, advisers, and recordkeepers a shared dashboard to track progress. The company said the design is meant to reduce manual entry mistakes and email back-and-forth. (ir.seic.com) Collective investment trusts are pooled investment vehicles used mainly in workplace retirement plans, and they have been gaining share as employers look for lower-cost structures than mutual funds. SEI markets them through SEI Trust Company, which provides trustee, accounting, valuation, administrative, and fiduciary services. (seic.com; stocktitan.net) SEI is pitching the new tool as part of a broader push to modernize the plumbing behind retirement investing, not just the investments themselves. Its website says the platform is built to help bring collective investment trusts to market faster and keep up with reporting and regulatory demands. (seic.com; seic.com) The launch also extends technology SEI had already been building in private markets. SEI said it launched an onboarding platform and alternatives marketplace in 2025 after acquiring Altigo, then expanded those capabilities into the collective investment trust market. (ir.seic.com) That matters for SEI because the company sells itself as a financial-technology and operations provider as much as an asset manager. SEI said it had about $8.1 trillion in wealth platform assets as of Dec. 31, 2025, alongside its investment-processing and custody businesses. (stocktitan.net; ir.seic.com) SEI has also been expanding its trust lineup. In January, Mackenzie Investments partnered with SEI to launch four quantitative equity collective investment trusts for United States retirement plans, with SEI Trust Company serving as trustee for a platform the company said held more than $260 billion as of Sept. 30, 2025. (stocktitan.net) The immediate test is whether retirement-plan clients adopt the digital process quickly enough to replace the paper habits SEI is targeting. For now, the company is framing the pitch in operational terms: fewer forms, fewer handoffs, and faster access to the trusts once a plan decides to use them. (seic.com; ir.seic.com)