Wells Fargo pushes checking, next-gen accounts with 2026 comp changes

After Wells Fargo turned up the heat on low-revenue generators this year, its new compensation policy avoids big changes while giving advisors a nudge to tout checking accounts and other products.

Wells Fargo became the last of the four wirehouse wealth managers on Monday to release its broker compensation policies for 2026. Like its direct Wall Street rivals Merrill, Morgan Stanley and UBS, Wells avoided the sorts of sweeping changes that often prove unpopular among an advisor workforce that tends to value consistency and predictability in its pay.

In Wells' case, there will be no tweaks to the basic compensation grid used to determine how much advisors receive every year if they generate a certain amount of revenue for the firm.

"For the fifth year in a row, Wells Fargo Advisors is maintaining the core structure of our industry-leading compensation plan—providing advisors with the stability and simplicity they value most, so they can focus on their clients," Sol Gindi, head of Wells Fargo Advisors, said in a statement.

Banking on opening more checking accounts

Rather than make large changes, Wells next year is giving a little bit more of a push to offer investors products like checking accounts, annuities and accounts opened by the younger relatives of existing clients.

Advisors whose clients open new checking accounts can receive a revenue credit of 0.15% (15 basis points) of those accounts' daily average balances. If the new accounts also include a priority credit line — allowing investments to be used as collateral for loans — the revenue credit will rise to 0.25% (25 basis points).

Speaking on an earnings call last week, Chief Financial Officer Michael Santomassimo said the firm could improve its profit margins for wealth management by encouraging advisors to arrange more loans and other banking products for their clients. Wells is among many large banks with a wealth management unit that view such "cross-selling" as a key way to boost their businesses.

Andrew Tasnady, a compensation consultant and founder of Tasnady & Associates, said increasing the pay advisors receive for opening checking accounts only makes sense if you believe it will cause clients to do something they wouldn't have done otherwise.

"If you think you are going to increase the business flow, it can work," he said. "But if you don't think it's going to move behavior, you are going to pay for something they would have done anyway."

Incentives to work with relatives of existing clients

Wells Fargo is also tweaking the payout rates for advisors who manage relatively small accounts for the children or grandchildren of existing wealthy clients. This year, Wells started paying 10% on assets held in household accounts with $250,000 or less.

The one exception to that low rate was accounts opened by the children or grandchildren of existing clients. Advisors received 30% payout on those assets, even if they fell below the $250,000 threshold.

Next year, they will be able to receive the firm's full 50% payout rate on those small accounts. But to receive the full amount, the younger-generation clients they are serving will have to be tied to an existing client with at least $5 million in investable assets.

What's staying the same

Besides its basic paygrid, Wells is leaving untouched the limits it sets on advisors' claimable business expenses. Those will remain at $1,250 in total expenses for advisors producing $550,000 a year, $9,000 for those producing $1 million and $15,000 for those producing $1.5 million.

There also will be no change to an "enhanced payout" that provides advisors who are producing at least $330,000 a year with a bump in their pay if they generate $13,500 or more in a given month. They get to keep half of what they produce above that monthly threshold, but only 22% of anything falling below it.

Before this year, Wells had required advisors to produce only $300,000 a year to qualify for the enhanced payout. Its decision to raise that threshold to $330,000 in 2025 is part of a general trend to encourage advisors to generate more revenue and work more with wealthy clients.

Wells is also offering the same "growth rewards" to advisors who bring in $2 million or more in net new assets in a year, or $4 million over two years. Advisors who hit one of those goals and also produce at least $2 million for the firm get to keep half of that revenue generation.