Orion and Pontera have added another layer to their ongoing collaboration, this time bringing held-away retirement account data directly into Orion Eclipse – the company's portfolio construction and trading environment – to give advisors a more consolidated view when managing client portfolios.
Under the latest development unveiled on Tuesday, Pontera will deliver a dedicated data feed to Orion Eclipse, enabling visibility into retirement account-held funds and better-informed portfolio rebalancing.
The two companies have had a relationship going back to May 2021, with the most recent prior expansion announced in January last year, when Pontera's capabilities were embedded into Orion Trading to allow household-level, tax-aware rebalancing that incorporated 401(k)s, 403(b)s, and other workplace retirement accounts.
For advisors who rely heavily on Eclipse for portfolio construction, the practical difference is meaningful. Pontera provides access to retirement plan fund lineups, which are visible within Orion's Eclipse trading system, meaning firms can manage household allocations – including retirement plans – without leaving the Eclipse environment.
The broader intent is to reduce the workflow friction that comes from managing assets across disconnected platforms. Together, Orion and Pontera are aiming to bridge the gap between custodial and held-away accounts, enabling advisors to serve clients holistically while reducing manual processes and enhancing data accuracy.
In a statement, Pontera's chief business officer David Goldman said the companies are "committed to listening to our customers and enhancing our platform with innovative solutions that enable advisors to scale efficiently and drive better results for their clients."
Orion is a prominent name in the advisor technology landscape. In the most recent 2026 T3/Inside Information Software Survey released last month, Orion Advisor Services led the trading and rebalancing category with a 10.46% market share. Orion also ranked as the top portfolio management platform in the survey, with an 18.62% market share in that category. And while Eclipse didn't make it into T3's leaderboard for online portfolio management tools, the report said it received the most write-in votes, "suggesting that it should have been included in the survey instrument."
Pontera, meanwhile, registered a 2.65% market share in the trading and rebalancing category in the T3 survey – down from 3.48% the year prior – while its account aggregation market share stood at 5.13%.
While Pontera has more than its fair share of advisor fans, it was also at the center of a high-profile dispute last year challenging Fidelity, a big three RIA custodian that's also one of the largest 401(k) providers in the country. The two have been at odds over the practice of credential sharing, which Fidelity maintains is an unsafe practice that can potentially expose clients' retirement accounts to undesirable actors. From Pontera's perspective, Fidelity's stance is just part of a broader "anti-competitive" strategy meant to keep client assets within its control.
Pontera is positioning its continuing integration with Orion as a direct response to demand from advisors who want to incorporate workplace retirement savings into portfolio management without toggling between separate systems. The arrangement allows them to provide a value-added service through a unified platform for managing all household accounts – improving portfolio alignment, reducing risk, and enabling tax optimization through asset location – while integrating held-away accounts and plan-level information into Eclipse to streamline investment research, portfolio construction, and rebalancing.
The integration also gives advisory teams full visibility into order status from submission through completion, with email confirmations and guided error resolution built into the workflow.
"Advisors want to deliver advice that reflects the full household, not just the assets they can easily see," said Reed Colley, president of Orion Advisor Technology. "By bringing held-away retirement accounts into Eclipse workflows, this integration gives advisory teams better context to rebalance more efficiently and serve clients with greater confidence."
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