Custody provider aims to extend the reach of its Advisor Solutions division. Pershing is out with a consulting and service program called RIA Complete to help independent broker-dealers provide support services to RIAs. The clearing firm's pitch is that the number of independent and dually registered advisors is growing sufficiently to call into question the long-term viability of traditional non-clearing -- Pershing calls them "introducing" -- broker-dealers.

"Introducing broker-dealers must proactively enhance their business models and platform capabilities to support hybrid advisors and independent RIAs so they can continue to grow their businesses," says Pershing managing director Jim Crowley. "We are working collaboratively with our customers to help them achieve this in a way that best suits their strategic objectives."

By proxy

RIA Complete starts with a process of helping broker-dealers select operating models best suited to their approaches to providing support for RIAs -- whether as an adjunct to an existing corporate advisory platform, the establishment of an investment-advisory subsidiary, or a support platform for independents.

The third option brings Pershing's Advisor Solutions unit into play -- along with its NetX360 investment and NetExchange front-office technology suites. This is supposed to give Pershing's institutional clients the wherewithal to manage their commission- and fee-based business, including their advisory and managed accounts, on a single platform.

Pershing Advisor Solutions' CEO Mark Tibergien says RIA Complete is a highly customizable offering that "can be turn key, completely integrated or open architecture. This innovative offering underscores our ongoing commitment to provide introducing broker-dealers with an array of choices that will help them win the battle for fee-based advisors and assets."

Jersey City, N.J.-based Pershing is a subsidiary of NAMEBank of New York Mellon. -FWR

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