Gone are the days when the "
The wealth management arm of Bank of America, which owns Merrill, on Tuesday launched its "
Merrill said it's rolling out the service amid a sea change in markets and investor sentiment. "The combination of the global pandemic, coupled with the most volatile markets in decades, is accelerating the desire for affluent Americans' to find an advisor they can trust to help them achieve their goals," the company said in a statement. It cited data from a recent internal survey indicating that "affluent Americans prioritize working with an advisor who matches their communication style (90%) and personality (83%) nearly as much as one who delivers financial results (93%)."
Advisor Match's 17 questions, based on polls of its clients and advisors, prioritize these factors. Questions begin with "Personal Info," such as "Where are you in your investing journey?" with a multiple-choice answer list. They then ask how and how often the client wants to meet, and how the client prefers to communicate and structure meetings. Other queries focus on self-assessment, asking among other things if the client is an introvert or extrovert.
A potential customer can view advisors within a 20-mile radius, though it's not possible for potential clients in urban centers to filter within one or five miles. The user can then click through several pages of matched results and sign up for an initial consultation with advisors. Think of it as Merrill's retro minimalist version of online dating, minus a login to save matches.
Affluent individuals with at least $250,000 of assets are eligible for working with an advisor through the program; those with less will see a pop-up box that directs them to consider
'Demystifying the experience' for newly wealthy, people of color
When it comes to finding a financial advisor, "lots of people just don't know how to get started. They're intimidated by the process," said Jen Auerbach, the head of strategic growth markets at Merrill, in an interview. "While we know that our industry will always rely on referrals, rely on the network, have a warm introduction from somebody, the reality is that the complexion of wealth in our country continues to change rapidly."
Auerbach said the tool is also part of Merrill's process of "demystifying the experience or the process of how to even find a financial advisor in a world where many of the unadvised people are representing communities of color."
She cited Merrill's recent research that showed 32% of affluent surveyed Americans lacked a financial advisor; among these, 20% of affluent LGBTQ+, 18% of affluent Hispanic and 17% of Black individuals did not have someone to advise them on their finances. "Among those without an advisor, 62% would be the first generation to have an advisor relationship, including 76% of affluent Black/African Americans and 73% of affluent Hispanics," a report on the study said. Topics cited as most of interest to those lacking an advisor included managing investments, taxes and retirement planning, according to the study.
Financial services industry executives with competitor products say that while Merrill is the first of the wirehouses to stake growth on pairing clients and advisors with such a product, it's still in early stages — robust matching tools used by companies in other industries, like Airbnb and Uber, have raised customer expectations for user experience in every consumption area.
For Akshay Singh, a former Merrill Lynch advisor and the
"I would expect every wirehouse to come up with a version of this," Singh said, noting that rival Edward Jones, a large regional brokerage firm, had already launched a similar product — its
Singh said that wirehouse advisor matching products also reflect growing recognition of the need to become more attuned to the digital-savvy younger generations of millennial and Gen-Z clients.
Among the other "Big 4" wirehouses, advisor-sorting online interfaces are a bare-bones operation, when they exist at all. Morgan Stanley has a less touchy-feely page on its website to help potential customers "
"There is some brand recognition there which helps them get in front of clients, prospects, online. That's their biggest advantage. That's something that they can continue to build upon," Singh said of the wirehouses. However, "once people come to Merrill's website, that's when features like matchmaking are important. Reviews are important," he said.
He added that Merrill isn't quite there yet and still has "gaps" in its customer experience here, especially in three key areas where he believes Indyfin has an advantage: tailoring the presentation of advisors to more specific needs like entrepreneurship, using reviews to build customer trust and a sense of transparency around the advisor's brand and having a modern user interface.
The jury is out as to whether Merrill's new program will succeed, he said.
"Certainly a way to keep people engaged" — stopping the talent losses
It's an open question whether a matching product, by improving lead generation for advisors, can help stem the
Kittner added that similar matching tools have saturated a corner of the market, through websites like SmartAsset. "What you have is a lot of the wirehouses trying to figure out how to retain and keep their talented advisors there," he said. "And so lead generation is certainly a way to keep people engaged in your platform."
Jason Friedman, the founder of the fintech AdvisorFinder and a recent Merrill quit, said sub-par technology at wirehouses where he worked in the past contributed to his decision to leave Merrill earlier this year. "The industry as a whole, especially wirehouses, have just lacked innovation, oftentimes, when it comes to prospecting," Friedman said.
In that sense, "this is a really interesting tool that is much needed," he said of the Merrill matching product. But he thinks that Merrill still has a ways to go before it truly personalizes the match experience. "It's hard to match up a person to a person just based on a [few] questions," Friedman said.
"We don't believe people want to be matched based on just [around] 10 answers, or 10 clicks."
