In a trust industry still dominated by legacy technology, misaligned incentives, and sluggish service, Sterling Trustees is setting a new standard built on independence, technological innovation, and a laser focus on supporting financial advisors. Rather than simply offering a platform for fiduciary services, Sterling acts as a true partner to the advisor community, helping them better serve their clients while strengthening long-term retention across generations.
In an interview with The Wealth Advisor’s Scott Martin, Antony Joffe, Chairman of Sterling Trustees, discussed what makes his firm an “advisor-friendly” trust company, how its proprietary technology transforms service delivery, and why independence is not just a tagline—but the foundation of everything Sterling does.
Avoiding the Conflict Trap: Fixed Fees and Independent Thinking
The friction that often exists between bank-affiliated trust departments and independent advisors is a recurring theme among new Sterling clients. Many advisors come to Joffe frustrated by the inefficiencies, conflicts, and control issues they face when working with traditional trust companies.
“The biggest pain point I’m seeing is some of these advisors are working with bank trust companies or bank departments, and they’re nervous about the bank wealth advisor calling the client and saying, ‘Hey, why don’t you just bring everything in, and we can do it better and cheaper,’” Joffe says. “That is a risk.”
But for most advisors and their clients, the issue goes deeper. “The thing that really drives the advisor crazy is the service on the bank trust company side,” Joffe adds. “The big issue we see with clients that makes them really, really angry is time to get a distribution completed.”
Because most bank trust companies are compensated based on assets under management, they have little incentive to process distributions quickly. “Most of these guys charge based on AUM, and if they distribute money out, it lowers their AUM, which lowers their fees,” Joffe explains. “We work on a fixed fee. We don’t have that conflict of interest.”
Sterling is often able to process a distribution request on the same day, assuming the cash is available. That level of responsiveness not only sets Sterling apart but reinforces the firm’s commitment to service and transparency—two things advisors prize when putting a trust partner in front of their client.
Building the Industry’s Smartest Trust Platform
Sterling’s speed and efficiency stem from more than culture—they’re driven by technology. Joffe and his team didn’t retrofit an outdated trust platform or settle for what existed. Instead, they built a custom trust and accounting system on Salesforce.
“Our trust committee doesn’t get together on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis,” Joffe explains. “We’ve automated that through Salesforce.” That kind of automation aims to eliminate the frustrating lag that often plagues discretionary distributions—another frequent source of frustration for clients and advisors alike.
“That’s the other thing that just drives clients crazy. You call up day one and you want a discretionary distribution, and the trust committee doesn’t meet till day seven or day 30, and you’ve got to wait all that time,” he says. “It just adds more fuel to the fire.”
Also, many trust companies still rely on outdated systems and fragmented workflows, which creates unnecessary slowdowns and added conflict. The demand for modernized agile infrastructure is growing—especially among advisors who expect faster turnaround and fewer administrative hurdles.
“I think the trust industry as a whole is so far behind in technology,” he says. “We’re sort of, I like to say, the ugly redheaded stepchild of the financial services industry when it comes to technology.”
By building on Salesforce, Sterling creates customized workflows quickly, without massive consulting budgets or long deployment cycles. More than 80 other trust companies now run on the same platform, but Sterling remains the original architect.
The platform is fully integrated, improving everything from compliance to sales reporting. “You really can see a client start from a lead to an opportunity to a trust and be able to monitor that, measure that, see how long it’s taking, see where the holdups are,” Joffe says.
For trust officers, it means everything is in one place—and that, in turn, reduces error risk and streamlines client response times. “It just makes life much easier for the trust officer,” Joffe notes. “They’ve got all their data right in front of them versus having to have seven windows open.”
Serving Clients Profitably Without Sacrificing Quality
The economics of trust administration are tight. Margins in the business are often thinner than RIAs might expect—especially on directed trusts, which dominate the independent side of the market. Efficiency is not optional; it’s essential to survival.
“You look at the margins of trust companies, they’re much thinner than say for an RIA, where they’re working on 100 basis points of revenue,” Joffe explains. “Trust companies are working anywhere from probably 10, 15 basis points on the low end to 50 basis points on the high end.”
By using automation and centralized data, Sterling allows its trust officers to serve more clients with greater accuracy and less burnout. That’s become a competitive edge in an industry where volume demands have led many firms to overload their teams and let service slide.
“Pricing has sort of gone into the gutter,” Joffe says. “That’s forced trust companies to stack their trust officers with more trust than they can handle, and that also leads to inefficiency. Callback times go up, and that’s where errors get made.”
In contrast, Sterling’s ability to deliver timely service—while avoiding unnecessary bureaucracy—helps deepen relationships and drive referrals from advisors who want consistency and clarity in every client interaction.
Adapting to Market Demand: Directed and Delegated Expertise
Sterling accommodates both directed and delegated trust structures, with the current client base split about evenly between the two. Flexibility here is vital, especially given the evolving legal and tax climates in certain states.
In tax-heavy states such as California, for example, delegated trusts may expose advisors and clients to unwanted scrutiny from state revenue authorities. In those cases, placing trust administration outside the state might become a prudent strategy.
More families are gravitating toward directed trusts because they allow the trustee to work alongside the client’s preferred financial advisor without disrupting that relationship. But not all firms are equipped to manage the added fiduciary complexity. Sterling is—and uses its proprietary WealthHub system to do so effectively.
“You’ve got to have the expertise and controls to handle the delegate and make sure that you obviously are taking on much more fiduciary risk when you’re doing them,” Joffe says. “That’s partly where WealthHub, which we created, helps us accomplish that.”
Advisor Alignment and Selectivity
Sterling is clear about which advisors it wants to partner with. The firm typically requires a $2 million minimum account size, both for operational efficiency and to ensure that clients understand the value of professional trust administration.
This threshold “seems to be the AUM where clients are okay maybe paying trustee fees versus maybe having a personal friend or family advisor acting in that role,” says Joffe.
Sterling avoids certain asset types—particularly special needs trusts and crypto—because of the specialized expertise and risk they require. “We don’t have expertise and wouldn’t want to practice on an advisor’s client,” he explains.
However, the platform is built to accommodate a wide range of nontraditional assets, making it an appealing choice for families with complex holdings. “We’ve got everything from boats, planes, art, racehorses, stamps, and then private equity, venture, stocks, bonds, hedge funds, you name it,” Joffe adds.
Using AI to Improve Human Connection
Sterling is already integrating AI into its processes, not as a replacement for human service but as a tool for improving it. Joffe sees potential in connecting document management systems, productivity platforms, and client files to increase responsiveness.
“You can search or ask questions across all of those products to get answers quickly and much faster and be able to write reports, draft emails, all that type of stuff,” he says. “It just increases your productivity, which gives you more time to be able to spend with your clients.”
As advisors know, that time is essential. For Joffe, the heart of trust administration is personal interaction. “There’s no substitute for face-to-face communication with beneficiaries and whatnot,” he says. “It makes them feel good and safe, that the money has been taken care of properly.”
Why Advisors Need a Trust Partner Now
The generational wealth transfer is no longer on the horizon—it’s happening. Advisors who ignore trust structures risk losing clients’ children, assets, or both. That’s why Joffe urges advisors to engage now, while they still have leverage and insight into client families.
“A lot of that [generational wealth transfer] is going to go into trust,” he says. “A lot of people have put wills together that have trusts built into them. A lot of them don’t even know how they work.”
Joffe underscores the impact trusts have on client retention, which makes them critical for long-term advisory success. “If those assets aren’t in trust when their client dies, the chances of them holding onto it for the next generation are about 20%. If they are in trust, it’s about 80%,” he says.
Sterling supports advisors in having these conversations, offering the expertise and education many lack internally. “A lot of advisors don’t feel comfortable having that conversation just because they’re not well versed on trusts and how they work—and I think that’s really where the advisor-friendly trust company comes into play,” Joffe says. “We’re having to have those conversations all day long so that advisors can make their book much more sticky.”
Defining Independence: More Than a Buzzword
Independence at Sterling means more than operating outside a bank. It requires not managing assets so you can make decisions free from associated conflicts and always acting in the client’s best interest—even when it’s uncomfortable.
For Joffe, independence is “that ability to make decisions when it comes to distributions, not be a yes man for a client, particularly when the assets are meaningful to the family and their lives going on and making sure that they save some for the next generation,” he says. “Sometimes, you have to be the bad guy. That’s really where the independence needs to lie, is that ability to make that decision. Sometimes, it’s a hard decision, but you’re making that decision for the best benefit of the client.”
Ultimately, it’s about client service—done right, done consistently, and done with integrity.
“You really have to service the hell out of your clients and be in contact with them and understand their issues,” Joffe says. “That means you’ve got to be on the phone. You’ve got to be meeting with them face to face. And you can’t provide that service if you’re shuffling papers back to the office.”
With a commitment to efficiency, transparency, and aligned interests, Sterling Trustees offers a powerful partner for any advisor serious about protecting their client relationships for the long haul.
______________________
Additional Resources
- Contact Sterling Trustees
- A Guide for Investment Advisors: 10 Essentials to Look for in a Trust Company Partner
- Meet the Team
