Officials at RCS Capital said Monday the company has developed a new pricing arrangement with its main clearing firm, Pershing LLC.

In an investor presentation, chief operating officer Brian Nygaard said the economics of the deal would equate to a self-clearing arrangement.

“We have developed a new …  relationship type pricing model” with Pershing, said Nygaard. Under the new arrangement, “you could arguably say our economics are consistent with what they would be had we been self-clearing.”

Nygaard did not get into details on the moderated webcast, which took written questions from listeners. But he hinted that the deal had built-in protections to ensure RCAP would benefit from the deal.

More importantly, he said, maintaining the relationship with Pershing rather than shifting to a self-clearing model would let RCAP focus on its wealth management business.

“If you look at what it takes in this industry to support self-clearing … a lot of the investment goes into establishing a core operating platform that is basically a commodity,” Nygaard said. “We would rather take those available investment dollars and use them to build [capabilities] that actually add value at the advisor level as opposed to” commoditized services.

Observers have speculated that RCAP might decide to self-clear as a cost-saving measure. Self-clearing also gives a broker-dealer more control over its service platform.

But the new arrangement appears to keep Pershing onboard as RCAP’s major strategic partner, at least for now.

Nygaard did not say whether the Pershing deal has been finalized, or when it will take effect. Officials at RCAP were not immediately available for further comment. 

From its end, Pershing seems satisfied with the deal. "We're very pleased to continue our relationship with RCS Capital [and] to work together with RCS Capital to achieve future goals," said Jim Crowly, chief relationship officer for Pershing, in an emailed statement.

RCAP has targeted a total of $57 million to $65 million in cost savings following its acquisition of Cetera Financial Group this year. Some $4.3 million to $6 million in savings is expected to come from a better clearing deal. Officials said Monday they were on track to meet that goal by the beginning of 2015.

Including its pending acquisitions of VSR Group and Girard Securities, RCAP has 9,700 advisors with $236 billion under administration.

RCAP executives are still on the hunt for more broker-dealers. Larry Roth, CEO of Cetera Financial Group, said the company is targeting smaller firms that can be tucked into RCAP’s infrastructure.

Small firms can be integrated quickly with attractive profit margins, Roth said on the webcast Monday. “Especially if they’re clearing through Pershing with the new [clearing arrangement], it’s even better.”