CORONADO, Calif. - If a recent conference is any indication, banks should expect more brokerage and financial planning firms to come knocking on their doors looking to set up partnerships.
The reason? More banks are getting into the business of selling investments. And the buzz among many of the more than 300 attendees at a financial planning conference here last month was that brokers and financial planners need to hustle to get a slice of the banks' pie.
Furthermore, judging by the earnest work habits of the attendees, brokers and financial planners will be diligent in pursuit of this goal.
Although the conference was held in exotic environs - the Loews Coronado resort on an island in the San Diego Bay - most of those in attendance immersed themselves in daylong indoor seminars and discussion groups.
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The conference was sponsored by the International Association of Financial Planning. It featured five educational tracks, including a so- called financial institutions series that sought to "educate" brokers and financial planners about how banks operate.
The financial institutions track wasn't the most popular one at the conference. But it did bring in a solid core of about two dozen attendees, which one regular conferences-goer said reflected their interest in selling investments to banks' clients.
Speakers came armed with statistics, graphics, and even laptop computers to illustrate banking basics and explain why this is a great time for brokers and financial planners to try to partner with banks.
"Banks have some things we don't have," said Richard P. Woltman, chief executive officer with Sentra Securities Corp., a San Diego brokerage firm. He referred specifically to branch networks serving many potential buyers of investments.
Mr. Woltman enlisted his wife, Kaye, to help him with his speech. She displayed bullet points and graphics on an overhead projector while he spoke.
If you want to get in the business of selling to financial institutions, you have to get to know them, Mr. Woltman declared in an speech dubbed "How to Get into the Financial Institution Markets."
Mr. Woltman noted that competition among so-called third-party marketers, which sell investments through banks, is stiff.
But, he added, there are still opportunities. About 60% of about 7,000 banks with assets of less than $1 billion are basically "ignored" by the third-party marketing firm, he said.
Mr. Woltman and several other speakers also warned that banks are only slowly warming up to the idea of selling investment products.
"Bankers are slow to make decisions, and they still are inefficient marketers," he said. "This is particularly true in community banks."
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A phrase on the lips of many attendees was "assets under management."
Gary W. Lanzen, an executive with Clarke Lanzen Skalla, a brokerage firm in Omaha, expressed the comments of many attendees when he said that the hottest area for investment sales this year will be asset allocation and financial planning services, where recurring fees are charged for assets managed.
Standard brokerage services, where sales commissions are levied, will be out of vogue.
"In the mind of consumers, commission is a bad word," he said.
Indeed, asset allocation products and services were prominent on the exhibit floor.
Agreeing that asset allocation and financial planning are where the action is was Barry Vinocur, the editor-in-chief and publisher of Investment Advisor, a monthly magazine aimed at brokers. At the conference he was promoting a new magazine called Fee Advisor, which is aimed at financial planners.
