OREANDA-NEWS.  Pershing LLC, a BNY Mellon company, today announced that it has selected Mesirow Financial Investment Management, Inc. as a premier provider of fiduciary services for its open-architecture Retirement Plan Network. The addition of Mesirow Financial's fiduciary partnership services will provide plan advisors using the Retirement Plan Network access to a robust set of services to support them with the investment selection and monitoring provided to their plan sponsor clients. 

Through the Retirement Plan Network, Mesirow will provide access to both 3(21) and 3(38) ERISA fiduciary services to support plan fiduciaries. Through the 3(21) service, Mesirow makes recommendations, gives guidance, and monitors investment options selected by the plan advisor and plan fiduciary. In the 3(38) service, Mesirow maintains full discretion over investment options for a plan: selecting, monitoring, and replacing investment options based on the plans investment policy statement.

"One of the top concerns of our clients is the increasing focus on their fiduciary responsibilities and the disclosures and oversight associated with it," said Marc Caras, Director of Pershing's Retirement Plan Business. "Under the Department of Labor Conflict of Interest Rule, all registered professionals involved in retirement business—including many who aren't acting as fiduciaries today—will need to understand the role of the ERISA fiduciary and put robust controls in place. This new offering can help them fill a critical gap, giving them the oversight and controls required to meet their clients' needs."

"Mesirow was selected to collaborate with Pershing's Retirement Plan Network to provide greater scale and capabilities to the broker-dealer community and their advisors. Pershing allows us to reach a broader number of broker-dealers and retirement plan focused advisors that are seeking outsourced solutions to limit investment fiduciary risk. By leveraging Pershing's technology and robust set of client capabilities available through the Retirement Plan Network, advisors are better positioned to support their plan sponsor clients." said Michael Annin, Senior Managing Director, Mesirow Financial.  

The addition of Mesirow's fiduciary services is the latest enhancement to the Retirement Plan Network platform. In June, Pershing announced the addition of five new recordkeepers. The network offers advisors a comprehensive view of plan details across network recordkeepers for all of their retirement business custodied with Pershing. It also offers access to a variety of retirement plan tools to help advisors increase efficiency in their sales, services and operations of their retirement plan business.

"We are personally invested in making the management of retirement business as seamless as possible for our clients, and the addition of these fiduciary services to Retirement Plan Network is another example of the enhancements we're making to meet their evolving needs," added Caras. 

This fall Pershing will begin hosting regional retirement symposiums, starting with an event in September in New York City followed by a second event in October in Chicago.  Caras notes, "As part of our commitment to the retirement business, we are excited to be able to provide clients and retirement plan advisors access to an exclusive event centered on great thought leadership, practice management and networking opportunities with industry experts, leading retirement plan service providers and senior leaders across Pershing and BNY Mellon."

About Pershing

Pershing and its affiliates provide global financial business solutions to advisors, asset managers, broker-dealers, family offices, registered investment advisor firms and wealth managers. A financial services firm located in 23 offices worldwide, Pershing provides business-to-business solutions to clients representing 6 million active investor accounts on the U.S. platform. Pershing affiliates are members of every major U.S. securities exchange, and its international affiliates are members of the Deutsche Borse, Australian Stock Exchange, Irish Stock Exchange, London Stock Exchange and Toronto Stock Exchange. Pershing LLC (member FINRA/NYSE/SIPC) is a BNY Mellon company.