Not according to the consensus of Bank Insurance and Securities Association members who attended its Third Party Marketer Forum this month.
Not only are they not adapting well, but the banks seem to have cooled to going after the wirehouse reps. This is a big turnaround from a year ago when they were in the midst of financial straits and mergers and doing all they could to bring reps on board from the big wirehouse firms.
According to several participants at the forum, the wirehouse reps were having trouble adjusting to the “team culture” of banks. One member contended that “wirehouse reps could not adjust to the fact that bringing in clients is a group effort”. Not really sure this should be a generalized statement, though we have seen trainee numbers increasing in the banks.
More significant, I think, is the increase in the number of banks getting help from recruiters to grow their wealth management departments by hiring the “right” rep, not just any rep. Quality, not quantity seems to be the trend…