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[pullquote]The Hybrid Advisor has opened an avenue to expand their pool of potential clients[/pullquote].

Is the “Hybrid Advisor” the hottest trend on Wall Street?

With the ability to serve as both an RIA advisor and a registered rep, the Hybrid Advisor has opened an avenue to expand their pool of potential clients.

In 2010, Schwab became the first independent RIA custodian on the NFP IndeSuite platform which gives independent RIAs the ability to manage both traditional brokerage and fee-based businesses through one application, thus allowing the advisor the ability to access a central location to make client trades, manage their portfolios and receive compliance and back office billing and support.

In its latest Schwab Market Knowledge Tools report released last week, reported that headcount at firms with dual-registered advisors is expected to increase 4.2% in 2009 to 7.7% by 2014, a significant increase to say the least.

Two obvious reasons for this:

  1. The ascent of fee-based platforms at the expense of commissions over the past five years
  2. The fact that financial advisors need to expand their revenue opportunities by offering a wider range of investment products and services

This trend puts heavy pressure on the old-school firms to up the ante of their technology investments, and broaden their product portfolios in order to entice and retain experienced and client-rich advisors…an interesting trend to keep watch over.