Pontera, the financial technology firm that lets advisors manage held-away retirement accounts, is adding a non-discretionary advice option to its platform, giving advisory teams a second way to guide clients through employer-sponsored plans they cannot directly control.
The offering, expected to launch next month, will let advisors deliver portfolio recommendations that retirement savers implement themselves through a guided, step-by-step process. That departs from Pontera's existing discretionary model, in which advisors execute trades directly once a client grants authorization.
Advisors can join a waitlist for the new feature starting now, the company said Wednesday.
Under the non-discretionary workflow, advisor recommendations flow directly to a client's personal portal, and both parties get real-time notifications when a portfolio adjustment is suggested. Pontera said the build includes drift calculation, rebalancing-alert infrastructure, supervision alerts and audit trails aimed at cutting the manual work firms currently absorb when overseeing outside retirement accounts.
"Retirement savers deserve choice in how they receive financial advice," said Yoav Zurel, Pontera's chief executive. "Some want their advisor to implement every portfolio decision. Others want to stay directly involved while benefiting from professional guidance. Our job is to build the infrastructure that supports both."
The non-discretionary rollout follows other product additions this year that were aimed at easing advisors' administrative load around workplace accounts. Last month, Pontera introduced a bulk rebalancing tool that lets advisory teams manage shared retirement-plan accounts in a single pass, rather than adjusting each client's holdings one at a time – a change the company said could save advisors roughly three hours of work per plan. That release came on the heels of a deepened data-sharing arrangement with Orion, which feeds held-away account data into Orion's Eclipse trading environment.
Pontera said the new non-discretionary offering comes with the same account-level guardrails as its discretionary product. Advisors cannot log into client accounts directly, cannot withdraw funds, cannot change beneficiaries and cannot adjust contribution levels.
"Retirement savers should have meaningful opportunities to benefit from professional financial guidance, regardless of how they choose to receive that advice," said Lisa M. Gomez, the former assistant secretary of labor for employee benefits security at the U.S. Department of Labor and now strategic advisor to Pontera. "Technology should expand access, not limit it."
Read more: Pontera cries 'anticompetitive,' Fidelity cites cyber safety in credential sharing standoff
Pontera's push into non-discretionary advice also follows a policy brief the company backed through the Aspen Institute Financial Security Program, which recommended measures to close gaps in retirement advisor for Americans. The brief, funded by Pontera and drawn from a February 2025 gathering of policy experts, argues that fixing leaks in the system would require a regulatory framework for secure data portability, AI-enabled tools that translate that data into usable guidance, and a broadly accessible delivery model – a kind of advice "public option" – that blends digital tools with human support.
The policy paper also flags a persistent advice gap in the market: while the needs of households who are "just in the black" are often too complex for basic budgeting apps, those savers are also not yet profitable enough for traditional advisory relationships to serve well.
"With Social Security's future uncertain and market volatility near all-time highs, access to advice is critical for retirement security," said Ben White, Pontera's senior director of retirement strategic partnerships. "Our responsibility is to build secure infrastructure that lets advisors, retirement savers, and institutions work together, so every investor has the opportunity to benefit from professional guidance."
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