Glossary
Custodian
A financial institution that holds client assets in custody and executes trades on behalf of an advisory firm.
A custodian (or custodial bank/broker) is the institution that holds client investment assets in safekeeping, executes securities transactions, and provides account statements. Major custodians for RIAs include Schwab Advisor Services, Fidelity Institutional, and Pershing. Custodians do not provide investment advice — that is the RIA's role. For advisors, the custodian relationship determines what data integrations are available for portfolio reporting. Many enterprise advisor platforms integrate directly with custodian data feeds; Infnits connects via SnapTrade's OAuth-based brokerage aggregation, which works alongside existing custodian relationships.