Assessment
Fidelity Institutional is used by registered investment advisers, banks, broker-dealers, and family offices that need a firm to hold client assets and clear trades. Its clearing and custody business serves more than 3,300 clients and administers $5.1T of assets, and its best use cases are adviser custody, clearing for broker-dealers, and access to Fidelity funds, ETFs, and model portfolios. Prices are set by contract and not published, and its main competitors are Schwab Advisor Services, Pershing, Altruist, and Apex Fintech Solutions.
Fidelity Investments was founded in Boston in 1946 and is still privately owned. It reported $37.7B of revenue in 2025 and has about 80,000 employees. In January 2026 Stephen Richard took charge of Fidelity Institutional Wealth Management Services, the clearing and custody arm, reporting to Vadim Zlotnikov, who heads Fidelity Institutional. Advisers run accounts on Wealthscape, Fidelity’s platform for opening accounts, moving money, and trading.
It fits an adviser or broker-dealer that wants a large, private custodian with its own funds and research and is happy to add outside portfolio software. It is a weaker fit for a small new firm that wants custody and day-to-day software from one company, which Altruist offers, and for a buyer that needs posted custody prices. Fidelity is raising its custody minimum to $100 million in client assets for every RIA, and firms below it have until June 30, 2027, to reach it or start moving to another custodian.
Rating by criterion
We score each of the eight criteria out of 100.
Sector criteria
Use it for a wide product shelf. Advisers get Fidelity funds, active ETFs, model portfolios, and alternatives from the same firm that holds the accounts.
Run daily operations in Wealthscape. It handles account opening, money movement, and trading for advisers and broker-dealers.
Plan to connect outside portfolio software. Fidelity describes a setup that pairs Wealthscape with tools from other companies, not one in-house stack.
Choose it when scale matters. Its clearing and custody arm administers $5.1T for more than 3,300 clients, with separate teams for advisers and broker-dealers.
Vendor criteria
Expect continued investment. Fidelity gave adviser custody and broker-dealer clearing their own leaders in January 2026.
Work through a relationship team. Advisers, banks, and broker-dealers are onboarded by Fidelity’s institutional staff, not through a self-serve sign-up.
Request the full fee schedule. Custody and clearing prices are set by contract and are not posted on the institutional site.
Negotiate terms by asset size. A larger firm has more room to set fees and service levels with a provider of this scale.
Against its peers
These are the other companies in wealth and brokerage platforms, with their ratings.
User comments
We read Fidelity’s institutional site and a January 2026 report on its clearing and custody unit to see what buyers value, and set them against the main limit a buyer meets.
- Upside
- Downside
Where customer reviews couldn't be found, our analysts attempted to give a voice to buyer sentiment, drawing on real information from review sites, forums and product documentation.
Based on: Financial Advisor, January 2026; Fidelity Institutional home page.
Fact file
| Parent | Fidelity Investments |
|---|---|
| Head of Fidelity Institutional | Vadim Zlotnikov |
| Clearing and custody head | Stephen Richard, since January 2026 |
| Assets under administration | $5.1T in clearing and custody |
| Clearing and custody clients | More than 3,300 |
| Fidelity 2025 revenue | $37.7B |
Competitive landscape
Custodians and clearing firms an advisory firm or broker-dealer would compare with Fidelity Institutional.
Fidelity Institutional: 78
- Fidelity Institutional78
- Interactive Brokers83
- Altruist82
- Schwab Advisor Services80
- Apex Fintech Solutions76
- PershingNot reviewed
Comparisons
Key leadership
Vadim Zlotnikov heads Fidelity Institutional. He joined Fidelity in May 2018 after 25 years at AllianceBernstein, where he was chief market strategist.
How this review was created
This profile gives our own assessment of Fidelity Institutional to companies selecting a Wealth & brokerage platforms provider. The Fintech Index receives nothing for featuring a firm, for sponsorship, or for advertising, and Fidelity Institutional gave us no payment for the profile.
The rating equals the average of eight criteria, with every criterion running from 0 to 100. Four address buyer needs in this sector, and four address the company together with its commercial terms.
Ratings are our editorial judgment, made from public information: pricing and legal pages, product documentation, compliance disclosures, public reviews and filings. Fact-checking took place on November 4, 2026.
Source pages
- Fidelity Institutional home page: https://institutional.fidelity.com/ (As of November 4, 2026)
- Wikipedia, Fidelity Investments: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fidelity_Investments (As of November 4, 2026)
- Financial Advisor, January 23, 2026: https://www.fa-mag.com/news/fidelity-taps-insider-to-head--5-1t-clearing-and-custody-unit-85604.html?print= (As of November 4, 2026)
- Fidelity, Vadim Zlotnikov: https://institutional.fidelity.com/institutions/why-fidelity/vadim-zlotnikov (As of November 4, 2026)
- WealthManagement.com: Fidelity to raise RIA custody asset minimum to $100M (October 1, 2026): https://www.wealthmanagement.com/ria-news/fidelity-to-raise-custody-asset-minimum-to-100m (As of November 9, 2026)