Tapping into an Overlooked Financial Segment

Human beings have proven themselves to be good at many different things, but the greatest element in our arsenal is that tendency to get better on a consistent basis. This mindset of improving under every situation has fetched us some huge milestones, with technology appearing as a major member of the stated group. The reason why technology enjoys such an esteemed stature among people is, by and large, based on its skill-set, which ushered us towards a reality that nobody could have ever imagined otherwise. Nevertheless, if we look up close for a second, it will become clear how the whole runner was also very much inspired from the way we applied those skills across a real world environment. The latter component was, in fact, what gave the creation a spectrum-wide presence, and consequentially, kickstarted a tech revolution. Of course, this revolution then went on to scale up the human experience through some outright unique avenues, but even after achieving such a monumental feat, technology will somehow continue to produce the goods. The same has grown more evident in recent times, and assuming a new fintech development works out just like envisioned, it will only make that trend bigger and better moving forward.

Altruist, the modern custodian for independent registered investment advisors (RIAs), has officially announced the launch of Altruist Clearing, a self-clearing brokerage leading the movement away from legacy financial institutions with cumbersome processes and time-consuming service models. Understood to be the industry’s first all-in-one custodian, the new solution will award Altruist with a major advantage over other custodians and tech platforms that currently have to bank upon third-party clearing houses. Such independency should allow Altruist to conceive wealth management capabilities which aren’t so prevalent across a retail-focused market. However, as we know, this isn’t all what Altruist provides to the RIA contingent. For instance, it also offers services like digital account opening, one-click commission-free trading, fractional shares, hundreds of model portfolios, automated rebalancing, flexible fee billing, an intuitive client-facing mobile app, and expert live chat support. Now, while all these services are pretty unique in their own right, they do share a knowhow in terms of saving time, developing a more attractive cost proposition, and accessing a wider set of revenue streams.

“From day one we’ve always planned to become self-clearing, as it’s the best way to provide maximum value to advisors,” said Jason Wenk, CEO of Altruist. “With this step, we’re able to build features tailor-made for RIAs and their clients, which accelerates our mission of making financial advice better, more affordable and accessible to everyone.”

The development provides a notable follow-up to the RIAs exponential rise over the last few years. In case you are not aware, the stated segment represents the fastest-growing category in the US wealth management market, with the numbers indicating a 12% annual growth since 2016. Having said that, though, it must be noted how the segment has been largely overlooked by the bigger players. Altruist’s latest solution, on its part, will hope to leverage that untapped potential sooner rather than later.

“Now, as a full-service custodian, we’re excited to be able to provide our platform to advisors of all sizes who have been underserved by existing options,” said Mazi Bahadori, chief compliance officer and EVP of operations at Altruist. “With no minimum, we’re committed to serving advisors who are looking to grow their practices.”