Brooke Southall

Kimberly is correct on the importance of advisors relying on those serving in a co-fiduciary capacity, but he has overstated that Betterment has the capability to presently serve in a co-fiduciary capacity. Perhaps that is his aspiration, but if that assertion is repeated betterment users will have mislead their clients. Most advisory services platforms are more trading platforms than advisory services platforms. Prudent process authenticated back to statutory duties required is largely neglected. Thus, advisory services support as a co-fiduciary does not presently exist in any meaningful form. The responsibility is largely unfulfilled.The future goes to those seriously engaged in advisory services not transactions.

SCW Stephen Winks

Betterment hires an RIA chief who reframes the vision from 'robo' to 'one-throat-to-choke' custodian -- and viable Schwab competitor

Tom Kimberly: Incumbent custodians like Charles Schwab and others haven’t kept up.

Envestnet

Betterment

Celent

Upside

Ezra Group

AdvisorNow

Jon Stein

Will Trout

Tom Kimberly

Craig Iskowitz

Asset custodians are the central players in the RIA business and choosing one is the biggest decision most financial advisors will make to build their business. As the place where RIAs park their assets (the same way a captive broker would park assets at Merrill Lynch or UBS), custodians serve hundreds or thousands of these registered investment advisors and make big investments in technology and service on their clients' behalf.

This section features a series of articles under the “Asset Custody Project” label that cover these companies in a way that keeps advisors abreast of their progress – both with journalistic commentary and a common set of data so that advisors can easily compare them. The articles look at the strengths, weaknesses and niche capabilities of these companies.

&mdash; Brooke Southall

Here are links to the profiles of custodians:

 <li><a href="http://www.riabiz.com/a/11942001/">Equity Advisor Solutions</a></li>
 <li><a href="http://www.riabiz.com/a/4977738934910976/with-robo-advisors-on-the-rise-robo-custodian-apex-is-rising-them-a-diamond-mined-from-the-rubble-of-the-penson-worldwide-debacle">Apex Clearing</a></li>
 <li><a href="http://www.riabiz.com/a/11320001">Raymond James</a></li>
 <li><a href="http://www.riabiz.com/a/10207085">State Street</a></li>
 <li><a href="http://www.riabiz.com/a/1812010">Ceros Financial</a></li>
 <li><a href="http://www.riabiz.com/a/9033656">Fidelity</a></li>
 <li><a href="http://www.riabiz.com/a/7435709">Pershing</a></li>
 <li><a href="http://www.riabiz.com/a/1212007">Royal Bank of Canada</a></li>
 <li><a href="http://www.riabiz.com/a/133138">Scottrade</a></li>
 <li><a href="http://www.riabiz.com/a/8101589">Schwab</a></li>
 <li><a href="http://www.riabiz.com/a/8788433">TD Ameritrade</a></li>
 <li><a href="http://www.riabiz.com/a/124061">Trade-PMR</a></li>
 <li><a href="http://www.riabiz.com/a/1161005">Trust Company of America</a></li>
 <li><a href="http://www.riabiz.com/a/1490002">BNY Mellon</a></li>
 <li><a href="http://www.riabiz.com/a/5385142">Folio Institutional</a></li>
 <li><a href="http://www.riabiz.com/a/108011">Shareholders Service Group</a></li>
 <li><a href="http://www.riabiz.com/a/5933001">National Advisors Trust</a></li>
 <li><a href="http://www.riabiz.com/a/22600260/how-us-bank-appeared-on-the-scene-as-an-ria-custodian-and-where-it-might-find-love">US Bank</a></li>
</ul>

If you want a more chronological look at news about the custodians, just scroll down.

RIA Custodians

Stripped down to its essentials, financial advice is a fairly straightforward proposition. Done well, a highly ethical individual stewards the assets and actions of an investor in a personal and professional interchange.
 
But now a vibrant new class of entrepreneurs is staking their fates and their fortunes on the premise that financial advice can be delivered in a better, cheaper, easier, more ethical, more transparent manner and, as a bonus, in a way more devoid of human annoyance on both ends of the transaction.
 
Cue the robo-advisors, arguably a callous misnomer for automated asset management. 
 
The prototypical robo-advisory entrepreneur has more brands on his or her resume than NASCAR. The bona fides of these industry upstarts often include Ivy-level colleges and MBA programs at Harvard or Stanford. They are often flush with IPO dollars realized at concerns like LinkedIn, Facebook, eBay, Amazon  and Microsoft. 
 
Robo-folk believe that technology is not an enabler of advice but rather, if engineered correctly, advice itself in digital form. 
 
And, they believe the best solutions originate in Silicon Valley or academia, not Wall Street. Robo-entrepreneurs are white-boarding the whole business model, culture and technology from scratch in the conviction that little can be learned from a legacy advice system still rooted in an investment banking culture acting under the core premise that if stockbrokers get rich some of the good effects will trickle down to clients – with the clients none the wiser. 
 
Robo-advisors are a scintillating topic for students of the advice game as they grow by hundreds of millions in assets every month, constantly evolve their business models and receive cash infusions from ever-larger swaths of venture capitals.
 
Throw in the fact that robo-advisors have yet to see a dime in profits -- and won’t in the foreseeable future -- and you have real intrigue. 
 
RIABiz has avidly covered the fast-evolving robo-advice phenomenon and will continue to do so. We present the growing body of articles here.

Robo-Advisors

Fresh off selling Upside to Envestnet, Tom Kimberly is Betterment Institutional's general manager and architect of a new vision

Betterment hires an RIA chief who reframes the vision from 'robo' to 'one-throat-to-choke' custodian -- and viable Schwab competitor

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Stephen Winks

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