HilltopSecurities

HilltopSecurities is a Dallas broker-dealer and clearing firm that, among its other businesses, provides clearing, custody and trading services to other broker-dealers and to RIAs. Its clearing clients include full-service retail brokerages, hybrid and wealth management firms, institutional fixed-income and equity execution firms that connect through APIs and FIX, and omnibus firms. The company describes itself as the third-largest US clearing firm.

For advisors and middle-office staff, the firm offers MOmentum Advisor, a web platform for order entry, account views at the book, household and individual level, and on-demand reports drawn from one data source. RIA clients receive custody and service support. Advisors who want to affiliate rather than only clear can join either its Private Client Group or Momentum Independent Network, an independent broker-dealer that traces back to a unit launched in 1986 to serve independent advisors. In 2026 Momentum added a program for community banks and credit unions. The wealth division also offers securities lending.

Hilltop Securities formed in 2016 from the merger of First Southwest Company, founded in 1946, and SWS Group, whose Southwest Securities was an early entrant to fully disclosed clearing in 1972. It belongs to Hilltop Holdings, a publicly traded company whose other units include PlainsCapital Bank and PrimeLending. Its remaining divisions handle public finance, fixed income capital markets and structured finance.