Wealth management

Bisys Alternative Investment Services announced Thursday that it has hired Patrick Prill as an executive vice president.

State Street Global Advisors of Boston has made Nicholas T. Stanojev the director of U.S. public fund sales.

Concerned about high prices and questionable returns on investment, some banks have cooled toward the idea of buying independent insurance agencies.

Vanguard Group Inc. launched a high-dividend-yield index fund Thursday.

Money Management Executive

E-Trade Financial Corp. said the daily average number of commission-generating trades its customers made last month rose 8.2% from September, to 151,665.

In Brief: Regions Sells Advisory Arm to Circle Peak

The Vancouver asset manager AGF Management Ltd. plans to buy an 80% stake in Highstreet Partners Ltd. of London, Ontario.

Axa Partners, the Hartford, Conn., wholesale life insurance division of Axa Financial Inc., hired Mark Teitelbaum, a MetLife Investors executive, as the vice president in charge of its advanced markets group.

UMB Scout Funds, a unit of UMB Financial Corp. of Kansas City, Mo., introduced a midcap fund that will benchmark against the Russell Midcap Index.

State Street Global Advisors, the investment management arm of State Street Corp. of Boston, launched a pair of Japan-focused exchange-traded funds.

National Planning Holdings Inc., a Santa Monica, Calif., broker-dealer unit of Prudential PLC of London, said its third-quarter earnings rose 9.6% from a year earlier, to $117 million.

John Hancock Retirement Plan Services has launched a family of nine asset-allocation funds.

Now that Sun Life Financial Inc. has decided not to sell MFS Investment Management, the Boston fund unit's chief executive said, it will add products and increase international distribution.

ING announced Monday it has introduced a marketing and sales program aimed at making it easier for life insurance producers to better serve their business clients.

Robert P. Kelly, Mellon Financial Corp.'s chief executive officer, said Monday that the Pittsburgh banking company plans to launch a branding strategy next year that will include consolidating into a single retail brand.

American International Group Inc., whose earnings more than doubled in the latest quarter in part because of a much calmer hurricane season, is looking to expand globally, particularly in Asia.