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 »

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.

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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Things have been quiet on the brokerage commissions war front for some time now but that may be coming to an end soon enough.

e-Monitor tracked firm Charles Schwab announced it will lower online stock and ETF trade rates from $12.95 to $8.95 for all investors, on January 19, 2010. Previously, the discounted $8.95 rate was only available to active traders, clients who maintained $1 million in household assets or executed 120+ trades per year. Charles Schwab lowed its commissions for active traders in early 2008, but has not lowered the commission for all client segments since back in 2006, when the commission dropped from $19.95 to $12.95. Continue Reading »

Franklin Templeton updated their public and private sites about two weeks ago and our Mutual Fund Monitor clients were provided with information about it in the December 28, 2009 MFM Update. I thought our non-client readers might be interested in seeing the changes too and it’s a good way to show off what’s typically found inside one of our Mutual Fund Monitor Updates.

Here’s a preview of the preview: Franklin Templeton’s recent public and private sites changes added an investor-friendly private homepage that features account information and an updated navigational menu. Usability is also improved thanks to a new “I Am Here To” menu that provides quicklinks to key tools. Despite changes to the site’s appearance, most site content remains the same. Continue Reading »

As 2010 begins, we take a look back at the changes made across the financial services industry in the last month of 2009.

Of particular note, some credit card firms started to get into the holiday spirit with charity-focused giving initiatives and new tools were introduced across several industries.

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