Kehrer Group Highlighter
The Kehrer Group Highlighter packages some of our most important findings, insights, and commentary into bite-size, digestible articles. We make the Highlighters available for free to the entire financial advice community—a small gesture of appreciation for a community that has done so much to support our work.
The Latest Highlighters
Optimizing Bank-Based Advisors’ Books: A Work in Progress
As advisors in financial institutions built their practices, they acquired clients referred by branch staff. In retrospect, most of them acquired too many clients. Too many to serve well, and so many that they became obstacles to the advisor’s efforts to grow...
More Evidence that Advisors Shun Insurance in Financial Planning Process
Kehrer Group Examines Role of Client Engagement Households that outsource the preparation of their financial plan to a financial professional are less likely to takes steps to address their insurance and protection needs than households that prepared the plan...
What Does it Take to Be a Top Director?
The Kehrer Group Top Directors Awards recognize the leaders of the top performing investment services firms in financial institutions. We invite nominations from the entire bank and credit union financial advice community, and use a transparent, data driven...
Financial Institutions that Outsource Broker Dealer Functions Have Wider Profit Margins
The investment services unit in the typical bank or credit union contributes about 20% of revenue to the institution after operating expenses. Net income contribution margin tends to be lower in broker dealers owned by financial institutions. Kehrer Group found that...
Show Me the Money:
Trends in Advisor Compensation in Financial Institutions Even before Karl Marx laid it all out, there has been historical tension between labor and capital: who gets the larger share of the pie? The same holds for the financial advice industry: how much of...
New Kehrer Group Study Affirms that Financial Planning Is a Win-Win-Win
Drawing on the rich consumer data in RFI Global’s MacroMonitor, Kehrer Group found that engaging in financial planning is a win for banks and credit unions, a win for their advisors, and a win for their customers and members. From the standpoint of the institution,...
Consolidation of Bank-Owned Broker Dealers Accelerating
New Study Chronicles 20 Years of Mergers and Outsourcing Deals This past year has witnessed an acceleration of the shrinkage of the financial institution-owned broker dealer segment, as banks and credit unions merge or fail, or they outsource the broker dealer...
Credit Unions with Outstanding Advisor Performance Also Have Best Member Penetration
Thicker Advisor Coverage Drives Penetration Not surprisingly, the advisor productivity in credit unions that were finalists for the 2023 Kehrer Group Top Directors Awards sets them apart from their peers. Average revenue per finalist advisor is 50% higher than the...
Focus by Bank Management on Profit Margins Constrains Growth of Their Wealth Management Businesses
Banks and credit unions commonly use profit margin to assess the performance of their investment services businesses. What are the consequences of this management approach for the health of the business? By comparing the performance of firms with wider profit margins...
Investment Services in Regional and Community Banks Tread Water in Difficult Year
Annual Study Shows Mixed Performance Advisor headcount in the regional and community banks that partner with the third-party broker dealers declined for the third time in the past four years. While the slippage was small—1.8% —it was enough of a setback to...