Pershing X moves performance reporting to the cloud

BNY Mellon Pershing’s strategy for Pershing X is coming into focus as the company prepares to migrate advisor data to the cloud.

The custodian announced Monday that it will move its multicustodial performance reporting software to Snowflake, a provider of cloud-based data management. Formerly known as Albridge before it was absorbed into Pershing X last year, the 20-year-old software reports on roughly $5 trillion in assets.

Moving that data to Snowflake will boost Pershing X’s data processing speed by about 60% and establish real-time file sharing, said Ainslie Simmonds, president of Pershing X. More importantly, Snowflake establishes a modern infrastructure to build the all-in-one advisor technology platform Pershing envisioned when it launched Pershing X in 2021.

As more fintech companies hit the market, Pershing’s clients — typically broker-dealers and large registered investment advisors with more than $500 million in assets under management — are increasingly frustrated by the inability to connect them all into a single user experience, Simmonds said. Pershing X aims to solve this integration problem.

“That’s where we believe the white space is … an opportunity to come in and solve a big problem in the industry that hasn’t been solved before,” Simmonds said.

The average advisor uses five different technology vendors, and a third of firms are looking to add more, according to InvestmentNews Research’s 2022 Advisor Technology Study. However, 57% of advisors cite a lack of integration between applications as their biggest tech pain point.

This has been an ongoing problem in wealth management for more than a decade. An InvestmentNews survey of advisors in 2012 also found dissatisfaction with technology integration.

Nor is Pershing the only company attempting to solve it. Wirehouses, competing custodians, turnkey asset management platforms and fintech startups have all pitched advisors on their vision to build a tightly integrated digital ecosystem for financial advisors.

“The wealth management industry is a growing industry, and technology is just becoming more and more important, so I think there is plenty of tide to lift all boats, and plenty of opportunity for firms doing different things,” Simmonds said.

Pershing X has been in a private beta with a handful of clients since November, she added. The firm plans to release the product publicly at its annual Insite conference in June.

The company landed Snowflake as its cloud provider based on feedback from clients in the beta program. Many were already exploring making their own move to the cloud, and saw Snowflake as a company that they had engaged with and felt comfortable with, Simmonds said. But data migration is a complicated process, and Pershing X is offering to make the process quicker and more painless for firms.

“We are carefully planning migrations on a client-by-client basis. Many of those conversations have already started, and most are excited because they see the value of what they are being upgraded to,” Simmonds said. “I wouldn’t say change is easy on any day for anyone, but it’s certainly better than changing providers.”

Schwab Advisor Services, the advisor custody business at Charles Schwab and one of Pershing’s primary rivals, is currently undergoing its own data migration project. During the company’s winter business update, managing director Bernie Clark said Pershing is focusing more on being a pure fintech provider with Pershing X.

While Simmonds declined to respond to Clark’s comments, she said Pershing does see technology as a primary growth driver. Drawing on her experience at fintech companies like thinkorswim and LearnVest, she believes that Pershing X can bring the speed and agility of Silicon Valley to large wealth management firms, and that that investment will feed back to the firm’s core custody business.

“If we do it well, I do believe there is opportunity for this product at this time,” she said.