Top 5 Trends at Merrill Wealth Management in Q4

The first class of the firm’s revamped training program has over 1,000 advisors enrolled in it, Sieg noted. The first advisors in that program will be graduating in the second quarter of this year, he added.

3. Financial planning discussions are on the rise.

“We continue to achieve record results by meeting the needs of clients,” Sieg said.

For example, he said: “Financial planning discussions increased significantly in 2022, up 40% over the prior year and a five-year high. And we anticipate these discussions between advisors and clients will continue to increase in 2023.”

4. The firm continues to leverage data and analytics.

Merrill, meanwhile, is “laser-focused on making it easier for advisors to help clients pursue their goals,” Sieg said.

“One way we’re doing this is by leveraging data and analytics to alert advisors of opportunities to make proactive recommendations to clients on a variety of topics,” he said. A “timely” example of that is automated tax loss harvesting, he noted.

The firm is seeing its “fiduciary offering take off,” he said, noting that, “since its introduction in 2021, 67,000 client accounts have been enrolled in our tax-efficient management strategies … representing more than $40 billion in assets.”

5. The firm continues to enhance its digital offerings for advisors and clients.

Between Merrill’s “technology capabilities and our tax-efficient overlay strategies, in aggregate, 220,000 clients took advantage of our tax harvesting solutions in Q4, representing $1.2 billion in potential tax savings,” Sieg told reporters.

“Another way we’re delivering a more modern experience to our clients and advisors is digital onboarding,” he said. The company’s Collaborative Onboarding Experience (COBE), launched in 2021, is providing a fully digitized client account opening experience.

“Nearly 40% of our eligible accounts [that] were opened using COBE in the fourth quarter,” he said. That was up from about 33% of all eligible accounts in Q3, Merrill had said.

The company also continued to see interest in its Mobile Advisor Experience (MAX), launched in late 2021, that gives advisors access to a full range of workstation features while they are on the go, according to Sieg. The app was used 1.5 million times by advisors in 2022, including 500,000 times in the fourth quarter alone,” he said. That was up from almost 1 million times at the time of the Q3 call.

The new Merrill Advisor Match digital platform that launched in Q3 is also seeing an uptick in users, the firm said, noting 6,600 advisors are now enrolled in it. That is up from the 5,500 advisors enrolled, the company said on the Q3 call.

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