Product specific topic: Advisory Fee 529 plans for RIA Only Firms

Team - Thanks in advance for any feedback on this topic. This is something I have been working to research for sometime and have been unable to find a really great solution. Here is our problem...

We are currently a hybrid RIA-BD firm with Cambridge Investment Research. We have historically had direct commission mutual fund business at AMF/others and although it was still always more cumbersome to open 529s vs other account types, we were able to use these CollegeAmerica/Bright Directions types to facilitate.

Our goal by the end of 2023 is to transition to RIA only to streamline our operations and become more in alignment with regulatory initiatives moving forward. We have made considerable progress on this front but we are running into the same hang-up with many of our households, their 529 accounts. The primary challenges we are running into are that A) It doesn't seem like there are many fee-based 529 providers out there and B) It is a challenge to debit fee's from 529 accounts because of regulations/legislation/tax code issues.

Questions for you:

Does your firm use a fee based 529 approach with clients? If not, what approach do you take?

What firms/platforms do you use?

What additional challenges have you ran into with 529 plans? Am I alone with this being a challenge to others?

Thanks again for all of your insight!

3 comments