Together the firms will continue to provide RIAs
with exceptional service and easy-to-use software.
Altruist acquired SSG in March 2023 in an effort to accelerate a shared mission – to make financial advice better, more affordable, and accessible to everyone.
Advisors using SSG’s custodial services should expect business as usual with zero disruption to existing services.
The merger provides numerous benefits for advisors including expanded customer support, modern practice management software, and continuous innovation for independent financial advisors.
Schedule a conversation with our team to get your questions answered, see the platform in action, and understand how Altruist makes life better for advisors and their clients.
Talk with our product experts
After over two decades in leadership and accomplishing everything they set out to, the SSG founding team decided it was time to focus on the next chapter of growth. The leadership team was looking for an ideal partner they trusted would carry on their commitment to exclusively serving RIAs. After months of due diligence, SSG selected Altruist for their commitment to RIAs and novel approach to custody and RIA technology. The founding team believes Altruist has the team, product, and vision to meet the needs of SSG advisors and clients for decades to come and accelerate a shared mission – make financial advice better, more affordable, and accessible to everyone.
SSG and Altruist share a commitment to always operate in the best interests of RIAs. The acquisition forms a trusted partnership with a shared promise to never go direct to consumers or compete for advisors’ clients. In addition, SSG advisors will have access to innovative software and services that can help them reduce costs, save time, and grow faster and more efficiently. Altruist’s platform combines a self-clearing brokerage and easy-to-use software for digital account opening, trading, performance reporting, billing, rebalancing, and integrations, along with a beautifully designed client application. Within portfolios, advisors can benefit from commission free trading, fractional shares, and simple model and model-of-models trading, all built in at no cost to advisors or end clients.
We recognize and value the contributions that Dan, Peter and the SSG management team have made over the last several decades to ensure the success of SSG. They’ve built a tremendous organization with a steadfast commitment to always operate in the best interests of RIAs. To that end, advisors should continue to work directly with the SSG service team and will receive the same holistic, attentive service they have come to expect. There will be no major organizational changes, and Peter, Dan, and key leadership at SSG are all planning to remain with Altruist and are excited to work alongside the Altruist leadership team.
Account statements are issued by the custodian of your client accounts. For accounts custodied with SSG at PershingNetX360, Pershing will issue statements. Should you and your client opt to transfer the account to Altruist, Altruist will then become responsible for providing the statements.
Yes, SSG Valet (forms section of the SSG Website) will be discontinued in May 2024. This decision aligns with our goal to simplify the number of logins you manage. We’ve transferred all forms from SSG Valet to Altruist. To access the latest SSG and Pershing forms, simply log into Altruist, click on your avatar in the upper right corner, and select “SSG Forms” from the menu.
Altruist is the modern custodian built exclusively for RIAs. Our mission is to make independent financial advice better, more affordable, and accessible to everyone. To that end, Altruist has built a self-clearing brokerage firm vertically integrated with software for account opening, trading, e-signature, reporting, and billing–all in one streamlined solution. Over 3,500 advisors across the U.S. have partnered with Altruist to reduce costs, save time, and grow their business. Altruist was founded by Jason Wenk, an industry veteran who built and led multiple RIA firms that grew to over $5B in AUM. Altruist Clearing is a marketing name of, and brokerage products and services are provided by Altruist Financial LLC.
We're grateful that over 3,500 independent advisors trust Altruist to help them grow their business. SSG currently works with approximately 1,600 firms. Together, that makes us the third largest custodian by advisors served behind Schwab and Fidelity.
Altruist is venture-backed by firms with extremely long time horizons. The company is significantly employee-controlled, and our founder Jason controls the board. Our focus is on long-term growth and success.
Altruist offers commission-free trading for ETFs, individual securities, and warrants, with industry-low costs for other products. See our full fee schedule at altruist.com/legal.
We strive to provide our clients with the best executions possible on every trade, every day. To view our execution standards of speed, routing optimization, and price improvement as well as proof of our quality by numbers, you can view a report here (updated quarterly).
Altruist’s Fully Paid Lending Program provides clients the opportunity to earn income on eligible stock positions they already own. Altruist’s Securities Lending team monitors client portfolios to identify lendable positions. If there is demand for any of your clients’ positions, the team will borrow from their account and lend all or a portion of the available position to an external broker dealer. Once the positions are on loan, clients will earn income based on the loan rate. The more demand for the position, the more potential income they will receive, which will appear on their statements as a separate line item. Enrollment happens during the account opening process when clients acknowledge the Altruist Fully Paid Lending Agreement and Risk Disclosures (which can be found on altruist.com/legal). Clients can opt-out of the Fully Paid Lending program at any time by contacting support@altruist.com.
View more detail about our Full Paid Lending Program here.
At present, you'll need to call into our bond desk for trading fixed income. Digital fixed income trading–including fractional bond trading–-will be available on Altruist later this year.
You own your data. We have an open API that lets advisors do anything with their data, without restrictions on where it can go.
We plan to have connections with a third party trading system (Flyer Financial Technologies) live by this Summer.
We will always be transparent about how we make money. Our income sources align with those of other custodians, encompassing interest income on cash balances, mutual fund transactions and 12b-1 fees, payment for order flow, and revenue from fully paid lending.
Additionally, we provide a Model Marketplace that features over 350 investment models, each employing a variety of strategies. These models carry individual fees, further contributing to our revenue.
While our Portfolio Accounting Software (PAS) is available at no cost for all Altruist brokerage accounts, enhancing our mission to foster an open platform, we extend our services to advisors using other custodians. For these advisors, utilizing Altruist for portfolio accounting and fee billing incurs a nominal PAS fee of $1 per account monthly, after their initial 100 connected accounts, which are offered free of charge.
Clients can be moved to Altruist at any point. We plan to offer a bulk conversion opportunity via negative consent some time in the future. However, you’re welcome to move client accounts and assets from PershingNetX360 to Altruist. This can be done through our fully digital multiple-account opening and ACAT process. If interested, please reach out to us at support@altruist.com.
Yes. Advisors moving accounts from SSG Pershing to Altruist are eligible for reimbursements of outgoing ACAT fees. Each month, our Client Services team compiles a list of all completed transfers from SSG Pershing to Altruist Clearing, labeled with "ACAT fee refund," for the purpose of reimbursement.
No, there will be no paper involved. If you choose to move clients, digital account opening and the negative consent process will be paperless. Paper is only involved if you switch to a completely unrelated custodian.
Although we are one of the newer custodians, Altruist today is helping over 3,500 financial advisors keep their clients' money and investment safe. Because we do not have a retail arm like other custodians (and that will always be the case), it's not surprising that they may not have heard about us yet. You can share this brochure with your clients. It includes details about our security, insurance, and compliance policies. We also offer a digital Client Hub specifically for clients of Altruist advisors that you can share.
We have a lot of information both for you and your clients on how to use Altruist. Here are some links to get started:
If you're interested in learning more about Altruist, reach out to us at support@altruist.com.
Altruist serves firms of all sizes. We have no AUM minimums, industry low fees, and offer commission-free fractional share trading on ETFs, individual securities, and warrants. You can expect the same level of world-class service SSG has been known for, regardless of AUM.
Absolutely. All firms currently with SSG have been invited access to the Altruist platform. You’re able to test features, open new accounts, and get a feel for the platform prior to deciding whether to transition your clients and accounts partially or fully to Altruist. Pershing will remain the custodian for your clients' accounts that are custodied with SSG at Pershing. If you and your client decide to move an account to Altruist, then Altruist will become the new custodian for those accounts.
Make sure check deposits are made payable to Altruist Financial LLC. Our address is
Altruist Financial LLC
300 S. Pearl Expressway
Suite 250
Dallas, TX 75201
Checks for deposit must include the Altruist 8-digit account number and account holder’s name in the memo field on the check. Please also remember to note the contribution year on the check.
As a best practice, we recommend sending checks via certified mail to guarantee tracking and delivery.
SSG offers a money market fund and FDIC insured bank sweep, whereas Altruist automates cash management to create the best of all worlds. This makes managing contributions, withdrawals, RMDs, and avoiding cash drag much easier.
