The program, which officially launched at the broker-dealer’s annual meeting in February, will provide fully licensed reps a way to handle smaller clients for bank-based advisors who need to focus on their wealthiest customers, as well as covering reps on vacation and providing interim support when an advisor changes firms.
“Primevest’s financial professionals helped us maintain a nice revenue stream throughout our transition, and that allowed us to take our time and find the right person to take over the investment services at the bank,” said Wanda Fitzgerald from Century Bank and Trust in Milledgeville, Ga., an early adopter who used the service to cover for an interim rep vacancy. “We didn’t need to rush. And the transition back to the new rep went very smoothly, too. It was a win-win situation.”
There are currently 12 Reps on Demand—with more on the way, the firm said —and those advisors have so far amassed $2 billion in assets. Around 70 of Primevest’s 550 client institutions are either currently using or have used the service. Half of those assets are in general securities and advisory accounts are “growing rapidly,” said LeAnn McCool, national sales manager at Primevest.
She wouldn’t comment on the actual revenue split between banks and the broker-dealer’s Reps on Demand, but confirmed the program would operate like a managed program—where the broker-dealer does most of the work and gets most of the revenue for its efforts—outside of whether or not the bank’s primary relationship with Primevest was through a dual-employee program, in which reps work for both entities but the bank takes on a much larger share of the business.
If that sounds a high price to pay, bear in mind that with Primevest’s help you’ll be earning revenue on business you don’t have the time or resources to capture yourself, McCool said. As soon as a bank using the service temporarily to cover an absent rep finds one, Primevest hands the accounts back to the bank, but banks can also hand off management of their smaller accounts to the program on a permanent basis.
