BMO bolsters presence in wealth market

(July 14, 2004) One of Canada’s biggest banks is bolstering its presence in the financial advice industry, launching a new in-branch practice aimed offering a suite of services to high net worth clients.

“We believe high net worth individuals can benefit from having an individual take a central role in helping them to coordinate all their financial issues,” says Connie Stefankiewicz, senior vice-president and managing director at BMO Nesbitt Burns. “That individual is the wealth advisor. They are trained through our program on a broad range of financial issues and solutions to help clients to recognize issues and opportunities that go beyond just the traditional investment portfolio.”

BMO Nesbitt Burns’ new wealth advisory practice will offer an all-under-one-roof approach including retirement, insurance, tax and estate planning; credit and banking strategies; protection of income and assets; as well as business financial services and philanthropy.

To bring these diverse services together in a less intimidating way for clients, BMO Nesbitt Burns is training 75 new wealth advisors who will act as quarterbacks for the team and serve as a single point of contact for the client. The firm says it plans to deploy 200 wealth advisors by the end of 2005.

The wealth advisors are trained to identify the resources needed to address a given need. Arrangements have been made with third-party experts in fields the firm is not able to handle in-house — for example, calling on PricewaterhouseCoopers for tax planning.

“They don’t just bring in the expert, they work with the client through the process to ensure the execution of the strategy continue to be appropriate,” says Stefankiewicz.

The initial roll-out of the program will take place in Toronto, Ottawa and Calgary, with smaller and more regionally diverse centres slated to follow.

“Through BMO Nesbitt Burns’ own training and accreditation program, investment advisors will be formally designated as wealth advisors and will be able to offer additional expertise that is focused on providing integrated financial solutions,” says Stefankiewicz.

The advisors who have opted for the wealth advisor training were “hand-picked” from the field of volunteers already working at BMO Nesbitt Burns, based on criteria, which included a minimum of five years’ experience.

Stefankiewicz says there are no hard and fast rules on client qualifications, leaving it up to the individual advisor to determine which clients require this service. This allows the advisor to include young professionals in the accumulation stage of life, as well as those nearing retirement or seeking estate planning services.

According to Toronto-based consulting group Investor Economics, Canada’s big banks have been coming on strong in the advisory industry over the past few years. A decade ago they were essentially non-existent in the field, but by the end of 2003, had become “dominant” in the market, managing $187 billion.

The branch channel now makes up 11% of the wealth management market and average book sizes have grown considerably over the past year, hitting $20 million, up from $18 million.

Filed by Steven Lamb, Advisor.ca, steven.lamb@advisor.rogers.com