Trustees, family offices, custodians, and wealth managers rely on accurate information to manage complex portfolios, meet regulatory obligations, and provide beneficiaries with timely, trustworthy reporting. Yet too often, data becomes a pain point instead of a source of clarity.
Independent, advisor-friendly trust companies face this challenge most. Unlike bank-affiliated trust companies, they often support assets spread across 30-40 custodians and an increasing number of alternative investment managers. This flexibility serves client and advisor relationships well, but it creates operational friction. Fragmented data, inconsistent formats, and hours of manual reconciliation are the hidden costs that rarely appear on a balance sheet, but grow quickly, affecting service delivery and limiting growth.
1. Operational Inefficiency
Trustees carry an elevated fiduciary duty: oversight must be accurate, timely, and comprehensive. Yet many are forced to rely on monthly statements or reconcile both feeds and PDFs in parallel, both of which are manual processes that are time-consuming and error prone.
A trust officer managing multiple trusts may spend hours each day (or days each quarter) pulling statements from 20+ custodians, reformatting them, and manually checking discrepancies. What should take hours stretches into days, diverting resources away from higher-value work such as strategy and beneficiary engagement.
PCR sees this every day. Trust officers turn to us for institutional-grade reconciliation and reliable data aggregation solutions that replace fragile manual processes with consistent, automated, and complete data. Through our counterparty coordination and extensive custodian relationships, PCR takes on the heavy lifting so trust teams can focus on what matters most: fiduciary oversight and client service.
2. Risk Exposure
Even minor reporting errors like an inaccurate performance calculation, a missed capital call, or a delayed tax document can create serious legal and reputational consequences. At the same time, trustees are expected to deliver more frequent valuations, cost basis, and tax lot data, along with accurate reporting on realized and unrealized gains. This growing complexity makes timeliness and accuracy in reporting more critical than ever.
The rise of alternative investments compounds this challenge. Alternatives bring delayed reporting, inconsistent valuations, and complex gain/loss calculations. Each gap creates fiduciary risk, be it through under-reporting, over-reporting, or late reporting. PCR calls this the growing challenge of data quality and data quantity demands.
PCR addresses these risks directly. Through our Letter of Authorization (LOA) process, we collect data directly from custodians and alternative managers, track and monitor completeness, and perform multi-level quality checks. With this foundation, trustees can deliver beneficiary reports confidently, knowing that accuracy, timeliness, and completeness are built into the process.
3. Missed Opportunities
Data silos not only increase risk but also hinder growth. The operational burden of managing fragmented counterparty and custodian data makes it harder for trust companies to expand services, scale profitably, or deliver the seamless experience beneficiaries now expect.
Even the best trust accounting platforms are only as strong as the data that feeds them. Firms that deliver complete, accurate, and timely reporting differentiate themselves, strengthen relationships, and generate referrals in a competitive market. Increasingly, trust companies partner with PCR for this very reason: accurate, consistent data combined with technology that elevates client service delivery.
A Single Source of Truth
Independent, advisor-friendly trust companies are uniquely positioned to provide fiduciary administration independent of custody, offering flexibility to advisors and clients alike. But delivering that perspective requires aggregation across custodians, managers, and asset classes.
PCR's platform, with coverage across 800+ custodians and 3,000+ alternative managers, enables trust companies and family officers to deliver this holistic perspective without resource-intensive manual work. Every feed is validated through rigorous controls, creating a single, quality-checked source of truth. Beneficiaries receive clearer reporting, while firms gain scalability to serve more families without adding staff.
The Way Forward
The trust ecosystem is becoming increasingly complex every year, with more custodians, a wider range of asset classes, stricter regulations, and higher client expectations. Independent trust companies must balance fiduciary responsibility with the flexibility clients demand while still delivering top-tier service and sustainable growth.
Firms that build on a strong, automated data foundation can reduce risk, scale operations, and create a differentiated client experience. With PCR, trustees gain not just data, but a partner delivering the accuracy, completeness, and service needed to thrive in today's competitive market.
About PCR
PCR is the industry’s leading provider of institutional-grade investment data aggregation, trusted by private banks, RIAs, family offices, trust companies, and wealth-tech platforms. PCR aggregates custodial data from more than 800 financial institutions and investment data from over 3,000 alternative mangers. Our reputation is built on accuracy, completeness, and service—delivering not just data, but the operational support required to make that data truly usable. Learn more at www.pcrinsights.com.
