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Prime brokers and custody: a buyer's guide

What we list in this category, how the field splits between long-established firms and newer ones, and the questions worth pressing on before you commit.

Every entry below was recorded from a page we opened, and each carries the source we read. Where we could not establish something it is left blank rather than guessed. Read how this site works if you want the detail.

Long-established firms

Recorded as established: in production for many years, usually with a deep reference base and broad coverage. Those are real advantages, and so is the fact that a fifteen-year horizon is easier to argue for a supplier that has already lasted one.

• Apex Fund Administration — Single-source fund and asset servicing across hedge, private equity, private debt, real assets, digital assets and UCITS. source
• BNY Pershing — Prime Brokerage — Clearing and custody firm whose prime brokerage arm serves hedge funds and liquid alternative managers, with both brokerage custody and bank custody available. source
• BNY Pershing — Prime brokerage capital introduction — Prime brokerage for hedge funds; the firm's own page cites an HFM 2024 award for capital introduction but does not describe the desk. source
• BNY — Custody (Securities Services) — Global custodian settling in over 100 markets, with securities financing, portfolio transition, cash management and FX alongside safekeeping. source
• Brown Brothers Harriman — Custody and Fund Services — Custody, fund accounting, administration, tax and transfer agency for cross-border funds domiciled in Luxembourg, Ireland, the UK, Cayman and Hong Kong. source
• Citi — Prime Services — Bank prime desk offering cross-asset financing, securities lending, listed execution and derivatives clearing. source
• CollateralONE — Buy-side collateral, financing and liquidity ecosystem inside BNY Margin Services, alongside triparty collateral management, segregation and Margin Direct. source
• Fidelity Investments — Fidelity Prime Services — Consolidated prime brokerage covering securities lending, financing and custody, aimed at managers running long and short domestic equity strategies. source

Newer firms

Recorded as modern or emerging. Newer suppliers often offer capability and pricing the incumbents do not, and they carry risks the incumbents do not: fewer references at your size, less operating history, and concentration if they are small. Both belong in the same comparison, on the same fields.

• 26 Degrees Global Markets — Prime Services for Hedge Funds — Prime brokerage aimed at emerging hedge funds, family offices and proprietary trading firms, with cash and synthetic equity access plus outsourced trading. source
• Altruist — Self-clearing custodian built on its own software, bundling custody with account opening, trading, portfolio reporting and fee billing for independent advisory firms. source
• Anchorage Digital Prime Services — Federally chartered digital asset bank combining qualified custody, trading execution, settlement and staking for asset managers, hedge funds and family offices. source
• BTIG — Outsource Trading and Prime Brokerage — States it serves both emerging and established funds, pairing prime brokerage with an outsourced trading desk and a capital introduction team. source
• BitGo Custody and Prime Services — Regulated digital asset custody paired with a prime offering that ties trading, financing, collateral management and settlement together for institutional holders. source
• Clear Street Outsourced Trading — Outsourced trading launched in May 2025, combining a global broker network with the cloud-native Clear Street Studio portfolio management system. source
• Clear Street Studio — Cloud-native prime brokerage whose client platform bundles a financing portal, portfolio management, risk and execution on one real-time ledger, sold to hedge funds and family offices. source
• Clear Street — Clearing, Financing and Prime Brokerage — Cloud-based clearing and prime brokerage platform serving hedge funds, family offices and proprietary traders, with a portfolio management system included. source

What to ask

These come from the same question bank our request-for-proposal process uses, so a guide and an RFP never drift apart. The four sections below carry the most weight in that bank.

Functional fit

Whether the system does the job for YOUR instruments, markets and volumes — not for the demonstration portfolio. The questions separate what runs in production today from what is on the roadmap, because that distinction disappears in a sales meeting and reappears during implementation. It also asks what still has to be typed in by hand, which every system has and few volunteer.

• Which asset classes does the product support in production today?
• Is there a full audit trail of who changed what and when, and can it be exported?
• Does the system enforce segregation of duties between front and back office?
• Is maker-checker approval supported on material actions, and is it configurable by action type?
• Can a valuation be sourced and approved independently of the people who trade?

Security and resilience

Whether the vendor's security is independently attested or merely asserted. The questions ask for certifications you can read, penetration tests you can see the summary of, and recovery objectives that are written down. Incident history is asked directly, because a vendor that has handled a breach well is often a safer choice than one that has never been tested.

• Which independent attestations do you hold currently?
• Will you provide the most recent report under a non-disclosure agreement?
• Is data encrypted in transit and at rest?
• Is single sign-on supported, and is multi-factor authentication enforced?
• Can your own staff see our data, and is that access logged and reviewable by us?

Commercial terms

Total cost across the whole term, and what happens if you leave. Year one is asked separately from years two to five because year one hides where the money goes. The section asks explicitly what is NOT included, since the gap between the quote and the invoice lives there, and it asks about exit terms while you still have the leverage to negotiate them.

• How is the product priced?
• What is the total first-year cost for our stated requirement, including implementation?
• What is the total annual cost in years two through five?
• What is NOT included in that figure?
• Is there a contractual cap on annual price increases?

Artificial intelligence

If a model touches your data, on what terms. This section exists because the answers differ enormously between vendors and are rarely offered unprompted. It asks whether your data trains models serving other clients, whether you can opt out and keep full function, whether a human reviews output before it affects a book or a client report, and who is liable when a model is wrong. Skip it only if you genuinely do not care.

• Does the product use machine learning or generative AI anywhere in its normal operation?
• Is client data ever used to train models that serve other clients?
• Can we opt out of AI features entirely and keep full product function?
• Does our data leave your infrastructure to reach those providers?
• Is a human review step required before an AI output affects a book, a trade or a client report?

See all 53 firms in Prime brokers and custody · Glossary