Q&A: State Street goes live with custody offering. 3 hours ago Britton, D. (2026, September 17). Q&A: State Street goes live with custody offering. WealthManagement.com. https://www.wealthmanagement.com/ria-news/state-street-launches-new-ria-custody-business * State Street went live this week with State Street Wealth Services, a new RIA clearing and custody business that the firm is now actively marketing to wealth managers. * The firm intends to bring on its first anchor client, a top U.S.-based RIA, within the next couple of months, and has approximately 40 additional RIA firms in the pipeline. * The offering is built on the digital clearing and custody platform of Apex Fintech Solutions, in which State Street took a minority interest last October, with State Street acting as introducing broker and adding its own layer of data, services and AI capabilities around Apex's APIs. * State Street sold a majority stake in its Wealth Manager Services business to FNZ about five years ago and continues to hold a minority stake in that business. * The unit hired Jennifer Stokes, former head of clearing operations at Altruist, as head of wealth custody and clearing, and Pete Dorsey, previously of LPL Financial, Altruist and TD Ameritrade, as chief revenue officer for wealth custody and clearing. * John Plansky, executive vice president and head of State Street Wealth Services, said the offering targets RIAs with $1 billion or more in assets rather than smaller firms, and that State Street has decided not to operate as a wealth manager itself. * Plansky cited legacy custodian practices such as charging ETF providers for platform placement, an issue analysts raised in connection with Vanguard's decision to buy Altruist, as an opening for a new entrant.

Arca, an AI-native wealth management firm that emerged from stealth in June 2026 with $64 million in funding, has partnered with Altruist as its preferred custodian and technology partner. Despite being recently launched, Arca already manages over $1 billion in client assets. The company has embedded Altruist's Realtime Custodial API into its proprietary platform. This integration enables Arca's AI agents to streamline operational workflows, allowing human advisors to focus on delivering personalised guidance to clients. Arca combines expert advisors with purpose-built AI to automate operational complexity in wealth management. The firm scales through acquisition and proprietary software rather than traditional growth methods. Arca is the first firm building on Altruist's real-time API, with additional tech-forward advisory firms expected to follow later this year.

Altruist launches AI financial planning agent. Janowski, D. (2026, August 31). Altruist soft-launches AI financial planning agent. WealthManagement.com. https://www.wealthmanagement.com/advisor-support-platforms/altruist-launches-ai-financial-planning-agent * Custodian and technology provider Altruist has soft-launched a financial planning agent within its Hazel AI platform that generates comprehensive financial plans within minutes. * The agent covers retirement planning, investment optimization, cash flow analysis, estate planning, tax strategy, and insurance and risk assessment. * The tool provides real-time scenario modeling and is available to firms regardless of their custody arrangements with Altruist. * Founder and CEO Jason Wenk stated that the agent allows a single advisor to do much of the work that a shop full of specialists would do, in a fraction of the time. * The platform gathers data from financial documents, client meetings, and connected sources under zero data retention agreements with AI model providers, using AI for data collection while relying on dedicated calculation programs for financial computations. * Pricing was not immediately available, though the company indicated it would mirror its tax planning capability, where Hazel Admin AI costs $50 per seat monthly annually or $125 monthly with tax planning included. * The announcement follows Vanguard's agreement to acquire Altruist for $4.6 billion in an all-cash transaction expected to close later in 2026. Knote: I like that they are only using AI for data collection and input, not the actual planning decisions.