Max, the cash management technology firm catering to independent RIAs, has entered into what its founder describes as an industry-leading partnership to unlock conflict-free private banking services for indie RIAs serving well-heeled clients.
The new venture with Fieldpoint Private, a Greenwich, Connecticut-based private commercial bank, sees the launch of Benchmark, a turnkey private banking platform built specifically for independent registered investment advisors and their clients.
"You've got a general migration of some of the largest advisor teams moving away from the wirehouses to form RIAs," Max founder and CEO Gary Zimmerman told InvestmentNews. "There's nothing in the market that I'm aware of that can deliver all of this in one package."
Mike White, senior managing director and team leader in advisory banking at Fieldpoint Private, said the driving force behind the Benchmark partnership – the culmination of two years of conversation with Max – has been the steady migration of advisor teams away from wirehouses, where in-house banking services were built into the client relationship.
"For us, the driver has been the migration of so many advisors from the wirehouses where they had banking services available from the in-house banks," White said. "And then in the transition to independence, suddenly felt the imperative to move those clients fully out of the legacy firm, including the bank."
According to White, cutting the proverbial cord can be hard for high-caliber wirehouse teams, who often have to "pull the cord out of the wall" as they break away into the independent space. Private banking and specialized lending services to clients are a major anchor, with one survey by Cerulli finding 83% of wirehouse advisors consider access to high-net-worth services – including private banking – as an advantage of operating with their current firm. Another 88% of wirehouse advisors said the same about access to lending products.
Among other banking offerings, RIAs on the Benchmark platform will have access to high-performance checking and savings accounts, with FDIC insurance well above what's normally available; bespoke private client lending including mortgages, securities-based lending, and loans involving art, collectibles, and aircraft.
Because most private banks also run their own wealth management businesses, independent RIAs who outsource those services would typically run a risk of losing their clients. Recognizing that, the leadership of Fieldpoint made a conscious decision to divest out of the wealth management business so as to focus on providing banking capabilities to other RIAs.
"Because of that strategic commitment they made, they're not competing with these RIAs in any way," White said. "And so it's a perfectly complementary model."
Fieldpoint's roots trace back to a group of 31 Wall Street veterans, including three former chairmen and chief executives of Merrill Lynch, along with former leaders of PaineWebber – which later entered its second life as UBS Americas – and TD Ameritrade. Together, that group built the bank into a roughly $5 billion boutique hybrid wealth advisory and banking firm before pivoting away from the wealth business.
"We have the sustainable advantage of being able to leverage that experience in introducing ourselves – along with the capabilities that Max brings to us – to the independent community as a completely natural fit," White said.
Describing the mechanics of the partnership, Zimmerman said an advisor can pull up a client record through an integrated customer relationship management system such as Redtail or Wealthbox, then click a button to pre-fill Fieldpoint's account-opening forms via a data link with Max. At that point, the client receives a welcome email, clicks through, and submits the application.
"Within 60 seconds, their new accounts at FieldPoint are fully opened," Zimmerman said. From there, balance data will flow automatically into selected planning and reporting platforms including Orion, Addepar, eMoney, MoneyGuide and RightCapital.
Firms using Benchmark can also opt into a revenue-share arrangement on loans and deposits generated through the platform.
"We offer firms the ability to earn revenue share on both loans and deposits. What we find is that some firms opt into that, but others choose not to," White said. " That's a fairly even mix across the firms that we talk to. And we're, of course, agnostic."
From Zimmerman's perspective, the Benchmark partnership can give independent RIA advisors looking to serve upmarket clients a foot in the door. Unlike many investors who report W-2 income, he said the most sophisticated clients may often report K-1 income through businesses they own, or buy properties aside from their primary residence, or even borrow against art and collectibles. Jet-setting clients may also require expertise in aircraft leasing, while the have-yachts would need someone who knows the nuances of marine financing.
"Through the launch of Benchmark, we've already seen Fieldpoint be able to handle some very complex client situations with some very demanding clients in ways that have really impressed the RIAs," Zimmerman said.
"In many cases, because RIAs are more open architecture, they can serve client needs even better," he said. "And so this really fills the gap in the market."
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