BNY Acquires Archer to Tap Retail Managed Account Market

BNY agreed to acquire asset management solutions firm Archer.

“Managed accounts are one of the fastest-growing investment vehicles in the asset management industry, enabling investment advisors and asset managers to offer customized portfolios to retail investors at scale,” Emily Portney, global head of asset servicing at BNY, said in a news release announcing the deal Thursday (Sept. 5). “By combining Archer’s market-leading capabilities with BNY’s broader footprint and expertise, BNY will offer fully integrated, end-to-end retail managed account solutions across our entire platform.”

Archer provides middle- and back-office solutions for asset and wealth managers working with institutional, private wealth and retail investors, the release said. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of this year.

By integrating Archer’s managed account solutions, capabilities and professional servicing team, BNY will bolster its enterprise platform to support retail managed accounts, a market expected to reach $8 trillion in assets over the next three years in the United States, according to the release.

In addition, Archer will provide BNY Investments and BNY Pershing’s Wove wealth platform for advisors with “expanded distribution of model portfolios and access to Archer’s multi-custodial network,” the release said.

“Today’s asset and wealth managers have a strong desire to create multi-asset solutions across a variety of products, along with direct indexing and tax optimized portfolios, to meet the needs of their distribution partners and investors,” Archer President and CEO Bryan Dori said in the release. “As a new addition to the BNY platform, Archer’s expertise, capabilities and scale will be leveraged across all of BNY to help even more clients drive long-term growth for their businesses.”

BNY rebranded from BNY Mellon in June. It also renamed its investment management and wealth management arms BNY Investments and BNY Wealth, while its financial solutions unit, BNY Mellon Pershing, became BNY Pershing.

In other wealth management news, PYMNTS wrote earlier this year about the potential for open banking to reshape the industry.

Despite its promise, “the widespread adoption of open banking across sectors, including investment and wealth management, is not without its challenges,” the report said. “Interoperability issues and varying API standards across regions and institutions can impede seamless integration and collaboration within the open banking ecosystem.”