Archive for the 'Statement Benchmarking' Category

Published by David Rosenberg on 14 Jun 2010

Merrill Lynch’s Statement is Still the Best

Broker Monitor’s 2010 Annual Statement Analysis is hot off the press! As in past years, we reviewed the statements from a wide variety of brokerage firms, ranked them and recognized the best in a number of different areas. Overall, Merrill Lynch continues to offer the best client statement in the industry – beating out all other competitors for the fourth year in a row. Both the design and content of Merrill Lynch’s statement remain strong, with excellent account summary details and good use of graphics.

The top five brokerage statements in our analysis belong to Merrill Lynch, UBS, Wells Fargo Advisors, Morgan Stanley Smith Barney (legacy Smith Barney statement) and Charles Schwab. But what exactly makes these statements better than those of their peers? Continue Reading »

Brokerage, Client Communications, Statement Benchmarking

Published by Michael Ellison on 06 Feb 2008

Statement Communications

Last week in Broker Monitor, we published our annual Statement Analysis, which benchmarks the brokerage statement we receive. In the review, we provide some recommendations around best practices in statement design such as:

  • Be attuned to consistency and flow of information
  • Keep related information together
  • Pay attention to clarity and simplicity

Clearly, volumes can be written on the design challenges financial firms face when it comes to their statement communications. In determining some of the most important factors, Elizabeth Gooding at Art Plus Technology was very helpful and provided some insights that her firm has learned over the years of statement design and development. Elizabeth was also kind enough to provide us with an article she wrote about reducing noise within client statements, which we provide here. It’s a good read.

Download ReadingRightSignals_2-06.pdf

Brokerage, Client Communications, Statement Benchmarking