Focus Financial Partners adds Nevis for account opening

Focus Financial Partners added Nevis, an AI platform for account opening and client onboarding, nine months after it added Jump. Jump is testing AI account opening through a limited beta at Schwab and Fidelity, and Nevis starts on the same two jobs: open the account, onboard the client.

Separately, Modera Wealth Management launched Mira, an AI platform built with OnTrade.

The Westwood, N.J., fee-only firm had about $20 billion in assets under administration at Sept. 30. Mira has been available to advisors since July, and the firm says it will help advisors at acquired firms consolidate data on one platform.

Read together, the two launches aim at the same target: the work that grows with acquisitions. One opens accounts for clients who arrive with a deal; the other merges the data of firms that just joined. Neither is described as touching portfolio construction or advice. That work scales with deal count, which suggests operations, not investment process, is the nearer target for AI at firms of this size.

The adoption figures suggest why firms start there. AI use stands at 63% of RIAs, with one in ten having fully integrated it into strategy, according to figures PWD reported from RIA Edge Orange County. A platform that opens accounts counts toward use long before it changes how a firm allocates capital, which makes a launch like Nevis or Mira easier to announce than to measure.

Whether Focus built Nevis in-house or licensed it, what either platform costs, and how many Modera advisors have used Mira since July have not been disclosed. It gives no launch date for Nevis beyond the nine-month gap after Jump. Jump's beta at Schwab and Fidelity is the nearer test, since an onboarding tool that cannot clear custodian requirements does not save an advisor time.