BNY Pershing is integrating Wove, its technology platform for financial advisers, into the parent company’s Wealth Solutions infrastructure. The move follows a restructuring that brought managed accounts and Pershing under the Wealth Solutions division, led by Global Head Adam Vos. It advances BNY’s effort to bring its services together, while putting a familiar question back in focus for registered investment advisers (RIAs): how much technology should they take from a custodian, and how much choice should they retain over vendors?
Wove moves into BNY’s broader technology platform
BNY described the latest changes to Wove as an operational step consistent with its wider effort to connect services across the company. In a written statement, Vos said BNY wants to give advisers and investors a more connected, flexible experience and strengthen its position as a long-term wealth solutions provider through an integrated ecosystem.
The company has not given a timetable for moving Wove into the broader Wealth Solutions structure or disclosed planned spending on the platform’s development and rollout. The transition is under way.
Launched in 2023, Wove was developed by Pershing X, Pershing’s technology unit. The unit was then led by president Ainslie Simmonds, with a goal of giving advisers a connected experience beyond simply linking separate software products. Former Pershing global head Jim Crowley said Wove helped Pershing win relationships with RIAs and other wealth managers, including Lincoln Investment Planning. Simmonds has recently been among the executives to leave the company.
Wealth Solutions adds clients and assets
RIAs rely on custodians and technology providers across a range of functions, including customer relationship management, performance reporting, billing, trading, portfolio rebalancing, data and investment services. Changes to a custodian’s platform can therefore affect advisers’ everyday workflows and the mix of vendors they use.
At the end of last year, US-registered RIAs collectively managed nearly $177 trillion in assets, making custody relationships with these firms a significant opportunity for financial services companies.
On BNY’s third-quarter earnings call, Chief Financial Officer Dermot McDonogh said Wealth Solutions had added seven clients and attracted $48 billion in net new assets. He said the company no longer views clearing and custody as a standalone “legacy Pershing business,” but as part of its new Wealth Solutions division. The unit manages or has custody of nearly $4 trillion in assets.
McDonogh said BNY had partnered with several large RIAs and signed multiple long-term contracts. He described the business as performing strongly and said the new leadership team was developing a different strategy.
Why advisers value independent software choices
Tim Welsh, founder of consulting firm Nexus Strategy, said custodians’ efforts to bring adviser workflows onto their own platforms are not new. But independent advisers are generally reluctant to tie their entire technology stack to a single custodian. Fidelity Investments and Charles Schwab have also pursued similar technology-integration strategies.
RIAs value running their businesses independently and often prefer to keep existing software relationships, Welsh said, in part to avoid disrupting operations by switching platforms.
Welsh has previously questioned whether Pershing could use its own software to generate enough new business for related services. Custodians want advisers to start each day in their portal and complete multiple tasks on one platform, he said, but that ambition does not change the RIA market’s underlying structure. Advisers may use only parts of a bundled offering, while independently run firms want to keep their technology choices independent.
Debate around Altruist touches on a similar issue. The company is reportedly set to be sold to Vanguard, but it remains to be seen whether advisers will continue using its technology tools and how the business will develop after the transaction is completed.
BNY says its brand is drawing advisers
BNY Chief Executive Robin Vince said custody remains a competitive business, but the connections among the company’s banking, asset-management and artificial-intelligence operations, along with its standing as a large financial institution, are making BNY more attractive to advisers.
In conversations with clients, Vince said, some advisers who previously wanted to retain the Pershing brand are now more willing to use the BNY name. He said the brand can help them explain their businesses to clients and connect with the broader range of services across the group.
Some advisers are looking beyond traditional Pershing services and seeking access to BNY’s wider resources through Wealth Solutions, Vince said. BNY has not provided additional documents or data to quantify the shift in brand preference.
Wove’s integration and the move toward a unified brand reflect BNY’s effort to serve wealth-management clients through a more connected business. Whether independent advisers adopt a custodian’s full technology suite will continue to depend on how they weigh that offer against control over vendors and established workflows.