We understand your role as the Financial Advisor, but what is the difference between KeyMoney, Royal Alliance, Pershing and SunAmerica Trust Company?

Think of the relationship as one similar to health care. If Key Financial is your family doctor, it is important to use state-of-the-art technology to help diagnose, treat and make sure you stay in sound financial health.

  1. KeyMoney is the system we use to monitor your financial plan. This is like having an MRI every day. You will have your own website that gathers all of your accounts, no matter where they are held, onto one dashboard for easy viewing. Your financial plan, bank accounts, 401ks and other assets come into one secure site updated every night as of the 4:00PM close in the financial markets. Transactions can be pulled in too, and you can get as much or as little detail on each holding, including research, as you want. You will have a living, breathing financial plan that monitors your progress on an ongoing basis.
  2. Royal Alliance is our primary broker dealer, similar to a Charles Schwab or TD Ameritrade. Think of this company as you would the hospital you would go to. We use Royal Alliance because they work with independent advisors and help us maintain compliance with SEC and FINRA regulations. There is no such thing as a Royal Alliance Mutual Fund. We pay Royal a percentage of our revenue and they monitor every trade, email and all of our books and records to make sure we are providing advice for each client. Royal Alliance is owned by AIG, once again the largest insurance company in the world.
  3. Pershing is the clearing firm for Royal Alliance (and SunAmerica Trust Company). A clearing firm is the company that reconciles all of the data, processes the trades, and actually puts your statements together. Each account has the $500,000 SIPC insurance against fraud, as well as an additional policy through Lloyds of London.
  4. Sun America Trust Company is the custodian Royal uses for IRAs. Every IRA must be hosted by a trust company as custodian, because there are specific reporting requirements to the IRS. Not everyone has an IRA so not everyone is going to see Sun America Trust Company on their statements. It’s like the pharmacy, and not everyone needs medicine.

By now you might be wondering if there are a lot of hands in the cookie jar. In reality, most firms’ private label the services described above, but each entity is necessary no matter who you deal with. We believe in full transparency and are proud of the choices we have made to protect our clients.