Mercer Advisors Introduces Account Bridge, Enabling Advisors to Manage Clients’ Retirement and College Savings Plans

Expanding its family office platform, $70 billion RIA enables advisors to manage clients’ held-away investment accounts with no added fees to clients or advisors through its strategic collaboration with Pontera

Mercer Global Advisors, Inc. (“Mercer Advisors”), a national Registered Investment Adviser (RIA), today announced the expansion of its family office services with the national launch of Account Bridge, a proprietary program that streamlines its advisors’ ability to implement and provide advice on clients’ held-away investment accounts. Account Bridge helps advisors elevate the client experience by positioning clients’ investments in line with their financial plan while promoting appropriate diversification, alignment in time horizon and risk tolerance, and better integration with their bespoke planning strategies.

Held-away account management is now part of Mercer Advisors’ core service offering for its 32,800+ clients. The solution enables the firm’s advisors to adhere to its fiduciary commitments by better understanding the context of clients’ investments and having a view into the entirety of their financial pictures. Since initially making Account Bridge available, more than half of the firm’s advisors have adopted the solution to manage clients’ workplace retirement accounts such as 401(k), 403(b), 457 as well as 529 accounts. Account Bridge allows advisors to serve more families while also relieving clients of the burden of asset allocation and rebalancing–especially across retirement and college savings plans that were historically outside of advisors’ purview.

“For too long, our industry has ignored qualified accounts because of systemic barriers within the technology, account structure and workflows. For many families, retirement and college saving accounts represent the largest portion of their assets, which means it was hard to access and benefit from holistic fiduciary advice,” said Daniel Gourvitch, President at Mercer Advisors. “The addition of Account Bridge to our core advisor platform has streamlined the process of managing held-away accounts, combining innovative technology, simplified workflows and specialized teams to help create a seamless experience for advisors and clients alike.”

Mercer Advisors’ integration of Account Bridge into its platform reflects a steadfast commitment to continuously reinvesting the benefits of growth to deliver more value to clients. Last year, Mercer Advisors, through strategic collaborations, expanded the drafting of foundational estate plans at no additional fee (trust, will, power of attorney, health directive) as part of its core services to all clients. The firm also launched Aspen Partners last June, providing institutional-grade private markets access to its clients, with no additional advisory fees.

“Our clients hire us to support them as a family office for their family and to remove the friction in their financial lives. That means they are looking for us to support them on their total balance sheet and all of their assets,” said Dave Welling, CEO at Mercer Advisors. “Many RIAs also recognize the need for a streamlined way to manage held-away accounts, yet the industry has long lacked an integrated solution.”

Mercer Advisors developed Account Bridge in partnership with fintech company Pontera, as well as working directly with custodial platforms and other technologies. Account Bridge is an integrated solution within the company’s advisory portal, combining Pontera tools, proprietary technology, and custodial interfaces. Pontera has created a secure, purpose-built platform enabling savers to receive 401(k), 403(b) and 529 account management from their trusted advisor.

“Like Mercer Advisors, Pontera believes in building solutions that put the client’s interests first. We are seeing firsthand the direct benefits that can accrue to thousands of Mercer Advisors’ families through highly personalized management of their qualified accounts that aligns with their unique financial objectives,” said Yoav Zurel, Founder and CEO at Pontera. “Perhaps most important, by incorporating workplace plan assets, Mercer Advisors is making family-office services accessible to more American families, including clients whose other investment balances weren’t enough to form an advisory relationship.”

About Mercer Advisors

Mercer Advisors, the #1 ranked RIA firm in the nation according to the Barron’s 2024 Top 100 Registered Investment Advisor Firms, was founded in 1985. For 40 years, Mercer Advisors has been trusted to help families amplify and simplify their financial lives. The company offers comprehensive, fee-based family office services, including financial planning, estate and tax planning, insurance solutions, and corporate trustee and trust administration services. Mercer Advisors Inc. is a parent company of Mercer Global Advisors Inc. and is majority owned by Oak Hill Capital, Genstar Capital, and Altas Partners. Mercer Global Advisors, Inc. is headquartered in Denver, Colorado, is privately held, has 1,220+ employees, and operates nationally through more than 100 locations. Mercer Advisors has $71 billion in client assets. For more information, visit merceradvisors.com and merceradvisors.com/partnerwithus.

Important Information

Company statistics as of January 31,2025. Client assets refer to client assets under management (AUM) and client assets under advisement (AUA) as well as assets gained from recent acquisitions where the advisory agreements have been properly assigned to Mercer Global Advisors, but the custodial accounts have yet to be transferred and/or the accounts have yet to be migrated to Mercer Global Advisors’ portfolio management system.

Aspen Partners is a series of private markets funds managed by Mercer Advisors Private Asset Management, Inc. a SEC registered investment adviser and affiliate of Mercer Global Advisors, Inc. No fund management fee is incurred for Mercer Advisors clients, non-clients would incur a fund management fee. Aspen Partners operating expenses are capped at 0.19% of aggregate capital commitments.

Mercer Advisors is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice to clients. All estate planning documentation preparation and other legal advice is provided through select third parties unaffiliated to Mercer Advisors, depending on the complexity of the estate, additional fees may apply. Tax preparation and tax filing are a separate fee from Mercer Advisors’ investment management and planning services. Trustee services are offered through select third parties with which a client would engage directly, as such additional fees may apply. Mercer Global Advisors has a related insurance agency. Mercer Global Advisors has a related insurance agency. Mercer Advisors Insurance Services, LLC (MAIS) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Mercer Advisors Inc. MAIS provides individual life, disability, long term care coverage, and property and casualty coverage through various insurance companies. For Mercer Global Advisors clients who wish to purchase insurance products, MAIS has entered into a non-exclusive referral agreement with Strategic Partner(s), where the Strategic Partner will provide necessary services relative to the marketing, placement, and servicing of the insurance products, including without limitation preparing and presenting illustrations, supporting the underwriting process, assisting with the completion and execution of applications, delivering policies, and servicing in-force business. MAIS and the Strategic Partner will be listed as either "agents" or “co-agents” on the policies. While Mercer Global Advisors does not receive a referral fee, Strategic Partner receives a percentage of the commission revenue. MAIS and Strategic Partner do have a revenue sharing agreement.

2024 - Barron’s Top 100 RIA methodology: Mercer Advisors was ranked number 1 for firms with fewer than $70 billion in client assets. In 2024 Barron’s ranked the largest registered investment advisor firms separately from its broader RIA ranking. For Barron’s Mega RIAs list, they selected firms that manage 2% or more of the total assets of all ranking applicants. This year, that created a threshold of $70 billion in assets. Advisers who wish to be ranked fill out a 100+ question survey about their practice. Barron’s verifies that data with regulatory databases and then Barron’s applies their rankings formula to the data to generate a ranking. The formula features three major categories of calculations: (1) Assets (2) Revenue (3) Quality of practice. In each of those categories Barron’s does multiple sub calculations including asset type, growth, client retention, technology spending, succession planning, diversity of their teams, charitable and philanthropic work and compliance records. No fee was paid for participation in the ranking, however, Mercer Advisors has paid a fee to Barron’s to use the ranking in marketing.

Neither rankings and/or recognitions by unaffiliated rating services, publications, media, or other organizations, should be construed by a client or prospective client as a guarantee that he/she will experience a certain level of results if Mercer Advisors is engaged, or continues to be engaged, to provide investment advisory services. Rankings published by magazines, and others, generally base their selections exclusively on information prepared and/or submitted by the recognized adviser. Rankings are generally limited to participating advisers (see participation criteria/methodology). Unless expressly indicated to the contrary, Mercer Advisors did not pay a fee to be included on any such ranking. No ranking or recognition should be construed as a current or past endorsement of Mercer Advisors by any of its clients.

About Pontera

Pontera is a fintech company on a mission to help millions of Americans retire better by enabling financial advisors to manage, rebalance and report on assets in their clients’ held-away workplace retirement plan accounts, including 401(k)s and 403(b)s. The platform is designed to work across many account types, seamlessly integrated with existing portfolio management tools, to help advisors improve their clients' financial outcomes. Founded in 2012, Pontera is headquartered in New York City. Learn more at pontera.com.

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