Even though Mr. Hart and Ms. Kamstra may make less money in their new jobs, they both say they expect the industry will eventually follow suit, and they want to be ahead of the pack. But we're also never going to have the very poor month either. The resistance to a new compensation model for paying investment advisors is powerful at the traditional brokerages. Professionals like myself, we are there to serve people who are busy doing something else. There is not a conflict with commission-based pay, he adds.
Branches are still a bank's main channel of distribution.
We also now are starting to sell our products through brokers and planners. Until recently, the bank-owned brokerages have operated quite independently from their bank owners, but that too is changing, as the banks are pulling their retail brokerage operations in under the wealth management umbrella. Already there are the mutual fund salespeople, the bank-owned discount brokerages and many of the bank branch staff, formerly known as tellers, who now sell all sorts of investment products. RBC Dominion Securities, owned by Royal Bank of Canada, is one of the oldest and most powerful brokerage firms in the country. But that doesn't mean changing the traditional brokerage system, Mr. Mantle said.