Pershing has rolled out the first iteration of NetXInvestor, a new portal for end clients of RIAs and independent BD advisors that offers customized views and tools for individual clients controlled by their advisors who custody or clear with Pershing.
Patrick Yip, director of Advisory Market Technology Strategy at Pershing, said in a Friday interview that the new portal—which replaces NetExchangeClient—reflects Pershing's business strategy to help advisors "grow their business and build their brand," and its technology strategy to meet the changing demands and expectations of end clients.
"When I was younger," said Yip, "all the cool technology was at work; now it's at home." Yip says that "for the last 20 years we've been building tools for baby boomers," but now it must build them for Gen X, Gen Y and millennial clients, offering those clients choice to interact with their advisors "through any device at any time."
In addition to the end client platform, which was "built from the ground up," says Yip, and will be enhanced throughout 2014, Pershing also is planning to release this year new versions of its NetX360 platform for advisor use and its mobile platform.
The NetXInvestor platform is white labeled for either the RIA firm or the broker-dealer and comes with a choice of "themes," Yip said, by which he means the design and options that clients can view and use on the site. For example, Yip said that for some clients, the theme will look like what Apple device users are accustomed to, while for younger clients—"a Gen Y who's looking for something that pops more, with streaming news and more popup alerts"—there will be a design more familiar to Android users.
