11.13.19
Financial Institutions Look to Rationalize Fragmented Delivery of Wealth Management
by: LeAnn Rummel, Cetera Financial Institutions, and Tim Kehrer, Kehrer Bielan Research & Consulting
Participants in the second annual meeting of Kehrer Bielan’s Wealth Management Study Group reviewed the findings from a new Kehrer Bielan survey of the many ways 102 banks and credit unions provide wealth management services. The discussion focused on the ways that many institutions are exploring to integrate the front, middle or back offices of their wealth management businesses. Almost three-fourths of the respondents are pursuing one or more integration strategies.
- The most common approach, being considered by about half of the firms, is to develop an integrated customer management system, either for all of the collective wealth management businesses or the entire banking enterprise.
- Another popular idea is to combine the investment services and trust sales forces. One-third of the firms are thinking of enlisting the two sales forces to sell each other’s products or more narrowly asking financial advisors to sell trust-advised products.
- Only one-fifth of respondents are considering integrating brokerage and trust platforms.
Many of the study group participants have already launched these initiatives, and they shared the rationale for their strategy, as well as their progress in implementation. The group discusses ways to overcome the barriers to a successful integration and debates emerging best practices in the context of the data Kehrer Bielan produces, benchmarking the performance of the different initiatives.
Cetera is a sponsor of the Kehrer Bielan Wealth Management Study Group, and Benchmarking Wealth Management in Financial Institutions, the Kehrer Bielan survey discussed at the meeting.
For more research by Kehrer Bielan Wealth Management Study Group, check out this recent Portfolio article, “Does Planning Boost Advisor Production?"