The WealthBench platform will support Northern Trust investment professionals with institutional-calibre risk and asset allocation analytics, investment planning, portfolio construction and proposal generation capabilities for both private and institutional clients, within the United States and abroad.

The addition of WealthBench will enable Northern Trust investment professionals to create custom asset allocations based on Monte Carlo simulations which can then be further optimized to match clients' specific risk/return objectives. Additional WealthBench capabilities include hypothetical transaction and event stress testing as well as portfolio diversification and holdings-level risk analyses.

Commenting on the agreement, Christophor Paolucci, RiskMetrics Group Director of Wealth Management Solutions said, "We are delighted Northern Trust will be using our WealthBench platform to deliver leading-edge asset allocation and risk management solutions. As investors demand greater transparency and their portfolios become increasingly complex, customized asset allocation strategies that incorporate and model liquidity needs, future cash flows, taxes and other financial goals and constraints will be required to achieve superior long-term investment results."

"After a thorough evaluation of several competing products, we selected WealthBench for its robust analytics, multi-currency flexibility and effective presentation capabilities. WealthBench will replace several of our current tools and will become a truly enterprise-wide platform for our asset allocation and risk management activities," said John Skjervem, Chief Investment Officer for Northern Trust's Personal Financial Services division.