With plans to double the number of their FSAs by year’s end, the total number of advisors in the year-old FSA program will number more than 1,000.
This group of advisors represents the “Merrill Edge” – designed to combine the banking strength of BofA and investment insights of Merrill. They are securities licensed and trained in banking and investments by Bank of America. Their focus is on serving “preferred” customers. (Defined as those with investable assets between $50,000 and $250,000.)
Basically, the recruiting focus is to expand what started as a phone center-based operation, but is now moving more and more of these recruits into the banking centers for face to face interaction with these customers.
Why the big focus in clients with relatively modest wealth? Because there are 8 million of them according to BofA’s Cary Grace, a preferred sales executive at Bank of America, with assets worth more than $5 trillion.
Now THAT’s a lucrative segment that presents a lot of opportunity for any FA!