Enjoy the current installment of “Weekend Reading For Financial Planners” – this week’s edition kicks off with the news that Fidelity is planning to raise its minimum asset threshold for RIAs on its platform to $100 million, with affected firms having until June 30, 2027 to reach this minimum or start the process of finding a new custodial home. While this move is already leading to competition amongst other RIA custodians to serve the (few hundred) affected firms, more broadly it demonstrates the consequences of the current RIA custodial model (where neither RIAs nor their clients pay a direct fee to the custodian but rather ‘pay’ through the services clients use [e.g., relatively low-rate cash sweep accounts and lending products]) and suggests that an approach with more explicit fees could potentially serve custodians, RIAs, and individual clients alike.
Also in industry news this week:
- The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) this week released a new examination handbook that offers fresh insights into how it determines which RIAs to examine each year
- The SEC also released a proposed framework for advisor custody of clients’ cryptoassets, which could provide greater assurance for advisors interested in doing so
