Published by Jeffrey Latzer on 11 Mar 2010

A Light at the End of the Wachovia-Wells Fargo Merger Tunnel

For nearly a year and half, most Wachovia customers have been waiting patiently to see when and how the merger with Wells Fargo would affect them. For some customers, this process has been too slow, as seen in the comments sections of the Wells Fargo – Wachovia Blog. That said, it appears that there’s finally a light at the end of the tunnel.

Last week, Wachovia removed all its branded credit cards on the public site, and replaced them with Wells Fargo cards. As for existing card customers, on April 10, 2010, all Wachovia credit card accounts will officially be integrated into Wells Fargo, and aside from a site outage from April 9-11, service should be uninterrupted, as card numbers and rates will stay the same. It’s currently unclear if Wells Fargo will mail clients newly branded cards after the conversion, but clients can still use their old cards in the interim.  Continue Reading »

Published by Ben Pousty on 05 Mar 2010

Firms Back Variable Annuity Product Launches With Aggressive Online Marketing Campaigns

Retirement Income Journal Article Written By Ben Pousty, Senior Analyst - Annuity Monitor

Published in the February 24th Issue of RIJ

With variable annuity sales down, firms are intensifying online product marketing campaigns to reach more prospective investors.

Published by Ian Lundahl on 04 Mar 2010

Decreased Commissions and CARD Regulations - February Trends and Highlights

Following several months of new product releases, tools, and web promotions, the pace slowed across the industry this February. A few firms revamped their sites this month, and as the athletes took to the slopes in Vancouver, one firm promoted its 2010 Winter Olympics sponsorship online.

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Published by Doug Miller on 26 Feb 2010

The CARD Act and Online Card Payments

Earlier this week, the bulk of the 2009 Credit CARD Act came into force. The new law includes regulations covering many aspects of the card business, including APRs, Fees and statement design. As a part of a drive for fairness in payment processing, the CARD Act includes a number of provisions relating to card account payments. For instance, clients now must be given at least 21 days between the date a bill is mailed and it become due, payments received by 5 pm ET on the due date must be considered timely and the Payment Due Date must fall on the same calendar date each month. While these may seem like common sense provisions, they represent a break from the way billing and payments processing has been done by many firms in the past.

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Published by Michael Ellison on 19 Feb 2010

Sour Year for VA Sales

annuity_couple.bmpAccording to Limra (via a story in this morning’s Ignites), total US VA sales were down 18% from 2008, though it seems most of the loss ocurred in the first half of the year. Given the shambles that was the financial market in general last year, this statistic is not too surprising, but it will certainly be on the minds of attendees at the upcoming IRI conference in New York starting Sunday.

If you are planning to attend, please drop by and see us at our booth. During the conference, we’ll be unveiling a new paper that looks at the state of annuity advisor websites. Using our website audit methodology, this paper will provide readers with the top five firms and best practices in the following categories:

  • Advisor WEbsite Design & Usability
  • Advisor Product Information & Marketing
  • Advisor Sales Resources
  • Advisor Sales Tools
  • Advisor Literature Order Systems
  • Advisor Services

I will also be leading a panel discussion Social Media and what place it has within the annuity industry. Joining me on the panel will be Jon Caddell, Digital Advertising Director at ING Financial Services; Stephen Johnson, Director Participant Services Marketing at TIAA-CREF; and Don Montenaro Chairman & CEO of TradeKing. I hope to see you there!

Published by Doug Miller on 09 Feb 2010

Discover Picks Up E*TRADE Bank’s Online Saving Accounts

E*TRADE announced to many of its banking customers today that the firm has sold some of its existing savings accounts to Discover Bank.

According to an email from E*TRADE, clients who currently have a Complete Savings Account from E*TRADE Bank will have their accounts converted into a Discover Online Savings Account as of March 7th, 2010. E*TRADE’s email points out that other banking and brokerage accounts at the firm will be unaffected by the transfer to Discover Bank. While neither firm has yet released much information about the account conversions, a link within the E*TRADE client email leads to a welcome page from Discover Bank. Continue Reading »

Published by Ian Lundahl on 05 Feb 2010

January Brings New Products and Advertising Campaigns

January was an interesting month with firms wasting no time introducing new products and advertising campaigns. There was a new contest from Fidelity, new products from American Express and AXA Equitable, a new statement design from Vanguard and upcoming statement changes announced from Barclays and Discover.

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Published by Michael Ellison on 28 Jan 2010

FINRA Clarifies Stance on Social Media

FINRA this week published guidelines around social media in Regulatory Notice 10-06. While I’m no lawyer, there appears to be a few things that were clarified with this notice:

  • Records of social media communications will need to be retained as required by Rules 17a-3 and 17a-4 under the 34 Act. This alone might scare firms away from using social media tools – especially smaller firms. But, rest assured technology providers will find a solution that will make it easy for firms to do this. Continue Reading »

Published by Michael Ellison on 15 Jan 2010

Wholesalers: Be a Good Business Partner

InvestmentNews posted an interesting piece yesterday covering 8 ways that wholesalers get blacklisted by advisors. There are some good things here, but they are probably best summed up by one comment: “Be a good business partner.”
 
Really, this is professional services selling 101 and the examples posted here should be obvious to anyone who has been in sales. The fact that InvestmentNews posted this shows people are still violating the fundamentals. Some might argue that this is a reason to rely on e-wholesaling. My take is that while there are many reasons to pursue an e-wholesaling strategy, it should not be the only distribution method of your wholesaling team. People are still important, but if your people cannot add value to the relationship they have with advisers, they are wasting your clients’ time and your money.

What do you think? What is the right balance between e-wholesaling and live reps?

Report: Practice Management Tools for Advisors

This report examines the sales topics and practice management materials available behind login on advisor sites. While firms frequently release sales ideas and find ways for advisors to sell their products, back-office issues frequently go ignored. Since practice management skills are essential for building a business, firms should take the time to provide advisors with tips for gaining and retaining clients, in addition to standard product-selling information.

 

 

To read more information, please visit our website.

Published by Michael Ellison on 13 Jan 2010

CI Analyst Video Cast: Annuity Website Security

After months of discussing social media here on our blog and in our research, we thought we’d kick off 2010 by expanding our own efforts in this realm by enhancing our commentary with video. So, welcome to our first of what we hope will be an ongoing series of video interviews and comments with our analysts.

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