Bank of America Corp (NYSE: BAC)’s network of legacy financial advisors will be making a switch to Merrill Lynch’s better developed platform for brokerages. One-half of the advisors were moved over the weekend and the other half will be moved over during the middle of September, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.
BAI (Bank of America Investment Services), was the Charlotte-based bank’s advisor group with about 2000 brokers before it had acquired Merrill Lynch in December 2008, boosting its force of advisors to 15,140.
Merrill Lynch has been well known for its expansive retail brokerage platform, which has a number of financial planning tools, investment products, transaction alerts and reporting capabilities. Former BAI advisors will have to be trained in the new platform, but the company believes it is worth the effort. The platform gives advisors an integrated view of their clients’ account balances at Merrill Lynch and Bank of America. The software also provides the ability to transfer money between their brokerage and banking accounts.
BAI advisors began moving into Merrill Lynch’s offices during the fourth quarter of 2009. The company has been integrating the two adviser groups along with efforts to cross-sell banking and brokerage products to its clients. The company also moved bankers over to Merrill Lynch branches to facilitate the banking needs and client referrals from the banks.
Bank of America Corporation is a bank holding company, and a financial holding company. The Company is a financial institution, serving individual consumers, small and middle market businesses, large corporations and governments with a range of banking, investing, asset management and other financial and risk management products and services. Through its banking subsidiaries (the Banks) and various nonbanking subsidiaries throughout the United States and in selected international markets, it provides a range of banking and nonbanking financial services and products through six business segments: Deposits, Global Card Services, Home Loans & Insurance, Global Banking, Global Markets, Global Wealth & Investment Management (GWIM), with the remaining operations recorded in All Other. On January 1, 2009, the Company completed the acquisition of Merrill Lynch.
Shares of Bank of America Corp (NYSE: BAC) traded up 0.99% on Thursday hitting $12.78 during mid-day trading.
