Victor, NY Office

Citizens Securities serves a broad retail client base, including individual and high-net-worth investors and individual retirement plans, and offers both investment advisory programs and brokerage and insurance services. Its advisory offerings include a digital advisory program (managed in partnership with SigFig) and a separate Managed Account program, while the firm also operates as a broker-dealer and insurance agency.

The Digital Advisory Program recommends ETF-based portfolios using the Manager’s proprietary algorithms and a client risk-tolerance questionnaire (age, time horizon, income, liquid assets and savings rate) and can implement portfolios on a discretionary basis with optional tax-loss harvesting. That digital platform represents a small portion of the firm’s advisory activity (Digital Advisory Program assets were $29,651,864 as of December 31, 2024) while the firm also conducts commission-based brokerage and other non-discretionary business, which helps explain why much of the firm’s overall activity is not limited to discretionary advisory assets.

Distinctive aspects disclosed in the brochure include that Citizens Securities is 100% owned by Citizens Bank, N.A., and uses a proprietary Bank Deposit Sweep Program (BDSP) that generates credits and revenue sharing with the program custodian; the firm also discloses referral and affiliate arrangements and a small indirect ownership stake (less than 1%) in the Manager through Citizens Ventures/Nvest. The brochure further notes the firm is no longer accepting new Digital Advisory Program accounts as of December 8, 2024, and describes the potential conflicts and supervisory safeguards that arise from its combined bank, broker-dealer, and advisory roles.