Lisa Shidler

“The problem is this is a retail offering and these don’t work well in business-to-business for the professional advisor. Advisors would prefer free merchandise. They don’t care about free trades. There’s no real substance to moving the needle here.”

What is meant by “free merchandise?”

Because Schwab, TD Ameritrade and Pershing receive cash payments from High Frequency trading firms to direct order flow they do not need to charge a customer for the trade at the front end.  This should have happened long ago when HF firms began directed trade payments years ago.  Read "Flash Boys" by Michael Lewis, he explains the ruse in great detail.

Schwab launches biggest RIA-targeted price war in years -- but TD and Pershing say they won't play along

Evan LaHuta: Is it reasonable to offer this type of discount for new clients, but not your long-term valuable existing clients?

Pershing

TD Ameritrade

Nexus

Brouwer & Janachowski

Bernie Clark

Tim Welsh

Stephen Janachowski

Evan LaHuta

Charlie Latimer

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

In what may be a prelude to commission-free RIA custody era, Schwab eliminates equity and ETF commissions for all new clients for a year; Fidelity says it is still cheaper

Schwab launches biggest RIA-targeted price war in years -- but TD and Pershing say they won't play along

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