Robinhood’s and TradePMR’s financial advisor referral network is live with a select group of registered investment advisors and clients. The announcement came during the firm’s Synergy26 conference in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday
Robinhood Advisor Network went live with a pilot in March of this year, and has been further honed by a group of about 17 advisory firms the company has been working with on the project shortly after Robinhood acquired TradeMPR at the end of 2024, according to Steve Quirk, chief brokerage officer at Robinhood.
“One of the things that they reinforced with us is to please not compete with them,” Quirk said. “They also told us not to push proprietary products on people, and, if it doesn’t work, spit out the exhaust to us.”
Quirk said firms participating brought experience from being part of the country’s largest referral networks, Charles Schwab and Fidelity Investments. Robinhood’s version is available to RIA firms with at least $500 million in assets and a relationship with TradePMR. For clients, it’s available as a phone app that lets them browse advisory firms with a swipe.
On the advisor’s side, “they are getting the people who tell us that they want help managing their money going right to them,” Quirk said.
Robinhood built its base of 27.5 million clients largely with young investors testing the waters with small accounts. But Quirk and Robb Baldwin, founder and CEO at TradePMR, made the case that many of those young investors are not only wealthier now but will also be the recipients of the great wealth transfer. The Robinhood Advisor Network targets customers with $250,000 in assets, though operational efficiencies are expected to make lower balance relationships profitable for advisors over time, Quirk said.
Baldwin said the process is intended to be more efficient and effective for both clients and advisors than legacy referral programs.
“We calculated [traditional referral handoffs involved] three different people … that’s a lot of intros for that client to go through, just to get to that advisor,” Baldwin said. “That’s just not the way the new generation does business; they want to see this on their phone.”
Many RIAs built their practices through referral programs from Schwab and Fidelity. Recently, Schwab has made the program a bit more stringent by raising both RIA asset thresholds and the threshold for clients that they will share through assets. Schwab executives have said that the program has been in place for over two decades and is now being updated to better meet market needs.
In the meantime, other players have been getting into the referral game partly to lure more RIAs to their platforms. Goldman Sachs custody channel has a program, and BNY Pershing and technology-driven custodian Betterment both have pilot programs.
Baldwin of TradePMR also said the firm has extended its contract with its custody and clearing partner, Wells Fargo, through 2032, meaning RIAs can choose to stay with Wells Fargo or move clients to Robinhood. In an interview ahead of Wednesday’s conference, Baldwin said the firm had made the move to continue providing advisors with “continuity and stability.”
“TradePMR has a long-standing relationship with Wells Fargo to support advisors who want to embrace the RIA model,” he said. “It’s the solid foundation we can leverage to innovate and advance our long-term strategy.”
At the conference, the company also introduced Robinhood Cortex for Advisors, an artificial intelligence technology designed for advisors and built into TradePMR’s Fusion technology platform to help RIAs handle administrative tasks. The tool will provide, at no additional cost, AI-generated summaries of client portfolios, including key holdings, performance and potential tax insights at both the household and individual account level, the company said.
Robinhood Cortex is rolling out soon exclusively to RIAs on TradePMR, with broader availability to follow, the company said.
The firm also announced that TradePMR has filed with FINRA to give RIAs on TradePMR and their clients access to Robinhood Ventures funds and IPOs, subject to regulatory approval.
The first closed-end fund from Robinhood Ventures, Robinhood Ventures Fund I, launched in March.
RIAs on TradePMR would also be able to access IPOs, similar to Robinhood Financial’s IPO Access product, allowing advisors and their clients to invest in companies at their IPO price as they become available to the general public.
