Visitor's Tour - Meeting the Latest Challenge from Full-Commission Brokers



Investing Technology Practice Management Custody Services Who We Are Becoming an RIA Client Testimonials Contact Us	Meeting the Latest Challenge from Full-Commission Brokers A Schwab Institutional White Paper The financial services marketplace is being reinvented almost daily. The latest example: new fee-based pricing programs from full-commission brokers. With the launch of these new fee-based pricing programs, full-commission firms are beginning to look a lot like fee-compensated advisors. The bewildering array of new product and pricing bundles from these firms may confuse investors as to what services they are paying for and what services they are actually receiving. This confusion can also lead to a blurring of the competitive differences that independent advisors have traditionally enjoyed vs. commission-based brokers. To help cut through some of the misperceptions and provide you information to do your own analysis, Schwab Institutional is excited to introduce the latest in the MKT — Market Knowledge Tools ™ series, a white paper entitled: Fee-Based Pricing and Online Trading From Full-Commission Brokers: What It Means to Independent Advisors. This white paper gives you information you can use to position yourself with clients and prospects as you communicate the benefits of working with an independent, fee-compensated advisor. The paper analyzes Merrill Lynch's Unlimited Advantage^SM and Prudential Securities' Prudential Advisor^SM. programs. It includes detailed pricing and service benchmarks to give you an understanding of how these new programs compare vs. the services that independent advisors typically provide. It also presents the best practices of Investment Advisors who've formulated detailed competitive responses: "What this will do for us is make it easier to explain how we do business. By emulating our fee-based model, full-commission brokers have essentially endorsed our approach, and it will be easier to highlight the benefits of our total wealth management services versus the bundled product offerings that they are promoting." Grant Rawdin, CEO, Wescott Financial Advisory Group, LLC Fee-Based Pricing and Online Trading From Full-Commission Brokers: What It Means to Independent Advisors was mailed to Schwab Institutional clients in late January as part of MKT™—Schwab Institutional's Market Knowledge Tools program. If you would like a copy please call Schwab Institutional National Sales Hotline 1-800-648-6021