The bank says the move has seen it boost volumes of investments.

RBC Wealth Management-US says it is taking “some of the mystery and difficulty” out of alternative investing with a new digital alternative investment platform for high net worth clients.

Developed in partnership with Artivest, the investment management and technology solutions provider, RBC’s cloud-based investment platform gives financial advisors and their clients access to leading private equity and hedge funds across sectors, stages and styles, it said in a statement yesterday.

Alternative investments have historically been difficult for financial advisors to offer to qualified clients for three primary reasons: high investment minimums; a tedious, paper-intensive subscription process; and non-transparent, inaccessible fund data, the firm, part of Toronto-headquartered Royal Bank of Canada, said.

Since launching the alternative investments platform, RBC Wealth Management has processed four times the number of investments compared to before the platform's launch, with no increases in their operations staff or costs, it added.