It doesn’t matter to us one way or another if the firms we support have broker/dealer relationships. However, since we provide an RIA to RIA agreement to each firm, should you decide that your business model requires you to keep a broker/dealer affiliation, then that broker/dealer must allow you to have your own outside RIA. In situations where advisors are dually registered with both the SEC and FINRA, we simply provide the broker/dealer with feeds and access to all relevant activities they need from an oversight standpoint. We can certainly provide thoughts to you if you’re currently reviewing broker/dealer options.
Each firm we support has one central point of contact here at FocusPoint who handles all of their day—to—day issues. This means the advisors who work with us enjoy the simplicity of not needing to deal directly with custodians. We have chosen to align with specific custodians because of the excellent service, support, leverage, and pricing they provide to advisors we support. Each year we conduct due diligence on these firms.
“It was pretty common for me to have a client with an American funds account held directly at American funds, a brokerage account at my IBD, a variable annuity account at the Hartford, and a managed account at a third-party money manager. Now you’ve got four different sets of forms, four different websites, four different 800-numbers, four different statements coming in, and so on. So from a staff—and client—standpoint, to become familiar with all of that is just impossible.
We’ve now simplified everything. We have procedures and policies manuals in place, checklists, everything. And all we had to do it for was one custodian, so that was helpful. This all gives me peace of mind when I’m out of the office as well.”
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