Osaic Institutions, the company’s broker/dealer entity that focuses on advisors at banks and credit unions, is bringing Navy Federal Investment Services, the broker/dealer subsidiary of the Navy Federal Credit Union, onto its platform.
Navy Federal works with more than 14 million members, and its investment services arm has $6.06 billion in assets under administration. The partnership brings 69 Navy Federal advisors to the Osaic Institutions platform, which serves banks and credit unions.
“This partnership highlights our extensive expertise in supporting bank and credit union clients and underscores our commitment to delivering tailored solutions that address the distinct needs of their organizations,” said Greg Cornick, an Osaic executive vice president of advice and wealth management, in a statement.
Navy Federal’s wealth team is undergoing a growth plan to add advisors and boost its assets under management. The team will use Osaic’s resources to help with recruitment, tech and lead generation, among other needs. They’ll join 230 other institutions currently working with Osaic.
Navy Federal was founded in 1933 and is geared toward military service members, including all Department of Defense and Coast Guard Active Duty members, veterans, civilian and contractor personnel and their families.
The credit union established its financial group in 1999 to offer more financial services to members, operating through its subsidiary NFIS. The firm provides financial planning, insurance coverage, as well as trust planning and services.
F2 Strategy Founder and CEO Doug Fritz called Osaic’s deal with Navy Federal “a bit of a coup,” saying he couldn’t recall if Osaic had put another large credit union on its platform. Fritz said it indicated that Osaic was “open for business” for the credit union industry.
According to Fritz, the most significant wealth management player in the space has been LPL.
“LPL has made a massive play in institutional investment management for banks,” Fritz said. “It’ll be interesting to see, and I would love to know why they didn’t pick LPL, to be honest.”
In June 2023, Osaic rebranded from Advisor Group, with plans to merge its 11,000 affiliated advisors and eight b/ds into a single entity.
In a previous interview with WealthManagement.com, CEO Jamie Price estimated the firm was “about 80% done” integrating all its affiliated advisors onto a single tech stack. However, Osaic Institutions (which was purchased in 2022 and later rebranded from Infinex) will not be converting onto the Osaic platform, as the subsidiary has “unique technology tools” it uses with institutions, according to Price.
The Osaic CEO previously told WealthManagement.com that banks and “particularly savings and loans and credit unions” were areas of interest for the firm.
“Credit unions have been a big growth area because they’ve been doing mainly automobile loans and home loans, and they want to get into deeper wealth management to actually bring sticky and valuable capabilities to their end users,” Price said.
