October 13, 2021
wolterke | inventory.adobe.com
Merrill Lynch this week underscored its push to cross-sell rich prospects on Financial institution of America merchandise with a brand new rewards program for purchasers with $1 million or extra of their accounts.
Financial institution of America is including two new “most well-liked rewards” tiers: “Diamond” for people with belongings of at the very least $1 million and “Diamond Honors” for accounts with $10 million or extra of their financial institution or brokerage accounts.
The adjustments have been rolled out to Merrill brokers on Tuesday as a part of its seventh week of its “Challenge Thunder” marketing campaign aimed toward addressing their suggestions at a time when Merrill executives have mentioned they’re seeing elevated attrition to the competitors.
The weekly replace didn’t embody particulars of the brand new advantages for the Diamond-tier prospects. The best tier of the rewards program had beforehand began at $100,000 and provided higher charges on banking merchandise resembling curiosity “boosters” on financial savings accounts, decrease mortgage charges and no-fee ATM transactions, in keeping with an organization web site.
A brand new “Premium Rewards Elite” bank card would even be rolling out on November 22, in keeping with the memo, which didn’t tackle whether or not Merrill brokers could be incentivized to promote the product. Some brokers have chafed at pitching their funding purchasers on financial institution merchandise, however Merrill has beforehand provided money bonuses to consumer associates who enroll brokerage prospects in bank cards.
In one other shift, the agency mentioned it has “simplified” the method for approvals for internet hosting seminars and occasions by streamlining the overview course of and “decreasing factors of contact.”
Brokers can have extra choices for sending customized invites and may also pull extra content material “off the shelf” to construct displays and can now not must flow into Chief Funding Workplace analysis studies pre- or post-seminar, in keeping with the memo.
The third focus of this week’s replace was new tax planning instruments. Merrill has added a “tax environment friendly administration” service to purchasers in Merrill’s Funding Advisory Program that permits prospects to select and select tax administration methods for his or her accounts.
The Challenge Thunder updates correspond with wide-ranging adjustments introduced in earlier weeks, lots of which had equally targeted on extra easily integrating banking and brokerage. Merrill additionally added quite a few belief specialists, lending specialists and made it simpler for brokers to entry data on consumer mortgages.
Different tweaks embody making it simpler for brokers to tackle prospects who had marijuana-related companies and permitting brokers to ship non-branded greeting playing cards.