In the battle for business from wealth advisors, BNY Mellon is investing more into its Pershing business.

BNY Mellon is pumping more than $50 million into its Pershing business to boost growth in the wealth management and financial advisory industry that it serves.

The investment will focus on three core areas: human capital, client experience and growth within the RIA industry, according to a statement on its website.

“Positive forces of change in the industry, fueled by shifting investor preferences and a growing desire for transparency, are driving the growth of the advisory business,” Lisa Dolly, chief executive of Pershing, said. “In an effort to continue to anticipate clients’ needs and industry changes, today we are announcing an additional multi-year investment of more than $50 million in our business, which will help us further accelerate our growth in the wealth and advisory market segments.”

With more RIAs being set up by breakaway teams from large firms such as broker-dealers, the need for organisations that can offer custody and other support is also rising, playing into the business models of Pershing and rivals such as SEI, among others.

The firm will be hiring new technology professionals to “deepen its integration and digital client experience capabilities” and it has created a new position, the head of advisor solutions platform strategy, and appointed Christina Townsend to take on that function, the report said.

It will be offering two new platforms to enhance the client experience: NetX360-Wealth, a wealth management platform for brokerage, bank custody and advisory businesses covering services from prospecting to client onboarding and investment management, and ManagedConnect, a dual contract management account offering (for clients contracting with RIAs and money managers) that allows RIAs to design customized portfolios connecting investors with a wide array of money managers.

BNY said Pershing’s fiduciary assets under custody on the Pershing platform have reached $615 billion as of March 31, 2018, an 11 per cent increase over the trailing 12 months. Fiduciary assets on the Pershing platform have grown from $53 billion on the platform in 2010, to over $600 billion today.

The total number of RIA firms on the Pershing platform as of March 2018 was 752. From March 2017 to March 2018, fiduciary assets on the Pershing platform grew by $60 billion. Roughly one-third of the growth came from net flows, while the remaining two-thirds was market related. The average size of RIA assets custodied on the Pershing platform is $813 million.