An institutional brokerage is a an investment brokerage house or brokerage firm which has institutions as its clients. An institutional brokerage always serves institutions and may or may not serve retail clients. A retail brokerage may, similar to an institutional brokerage, confine itself only to retail clients who are individual customers. Institution is any client in business to hold assets. Institutional brokerage clients may be corporations, insurance companies, and investment companies such as pension funds or mutual funds. Institutional brokerage requirements for compliance, disclosure, clearing, settlement, and other are services different than for retail brokerage. Institutional brokerage clients are all some form of fiduciary holding money for others. An institutional brokerage can offer better execution and service rates or ancillary services to their large scale institutional customers. Examples of services that an institutional brokerage might offer only to its institutional brokerage clients include software, investment research, charts, newsletters, seminars, conferences, administrative support, live quotes, and block trading services. |
