What Advisors Can Learn from My RIA Firm’s Custodial Merger
I started my career as a financial advisor. I was one of the few advisors who launched an RIA back in the 90s – I immediately fell in love. I loved having the freedom to build my business the way I wanted to and work with clients the way I had always envisioned. I felt like the independent model let me focus 100% on my clients without any conflicts of interest. Having started my career as a broker at a larger financial institution, owning my own RIA was a dream come true.
Everything was going great until one day I learned that my custodian was sold. The provider I trusted was about to merge into a much larger custodian. I was assured this merger would be a non-event, so I took the wait-and-see approach and stuck with them through the move. Big mistake.
The merger created significant issues for my business. Accounts seemingly vanished, and monies were transferred incorrectly. It was difficult to get answers from my new custodian. I wasn’t getting the support I needed, and my clients paid the price. It took months to sort out the confusion and even longer to rebuild trust with my clients.
That is when I decided to launch TradePMR.
I set out to launch a firm that served RIAs the way I wanted to be served. A firm that addressed all of the pain points I had experienced as an advisor. To meet those goals, I needed to build a team focused on truly supporting RIAs. A team that relentlessly fights for RIAs’ success every single day, and never conflicts or competes with advisors’ goals. For more than 20 years, that’s exactly what we’ve done.
Today, TradePMR provides technology and custodial services to hundreds of advisors across the country. Not only have we maintained our white-glove service model, but we have also developed a comprehensive technology suite to meet the evolving needs of RIAs. Our technology platform, Fusion, is recognized across the industry and has been rated the top custodial services platform by advisor satisfaction twice in the last three years*.
My custodial merger experience was not ideal. It created an unnecessary turbulent time for my clients and my business. That being said, I understand why advisors facing an upcoming custodial merger are hesitant to make the move to a new provider. Changing providers can be daunting, and it’s hard to find the right time to transition. From what I can tell, if your custodian is undergoing a merger, you will have to transition your business to a new platform – there’s no way around it. We recommend you take that transition into your own hands, and move to a platform that is 100% dedicated to supporting your business.
Control your future and help ensure the long-term success of your business and clients. I invite you to set up a call with our team for a confidential conversation so we can see if TradePMR could be the right fit for your business.
* T3/Inside Information Advisor Software Survey, Joel Bruckenstein and Bob Veres, March 2021, sponsored by Salesforce, and 2019 Software Survey, Joel Bruckenstein and Bob Veres, January 2019, sponsored by Orion Advisor Services and Morningstar, Inc.
