This Broker Monitor Report provides an update of brokerage account fees. We list current account fees, minimums and various common service fees for basic brokerage and retirement accounts.
Since our last Account Fees report, published a year ago, we noted an overall increase in the number of fees. This year we included six additional fees that are frequently assessed by brokerage firms, but that were not included in last year’s report. We also included the brokerage account minimum balance. The six new fees are: Incoming/Outgoing Int’l Wire Transfers, Voluntary Corporate Action, Returned ACH Payment, Returned Deposit, Expedited Delivery Requests and Research & Legal Fees.
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This report reviews online ACH and wire transfer capabilities provided by e-Monitor firms. We reviewed the types of transfers clients can perform between their internal brokerage accounts and linked external bank accounts. We examined the transfer interfaces for usability and highlighted the transfer process by initiating and completing a transfer.
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This Broker Monitor Report reviews managed accounts – a topic we last covered in March 2010. For this report, we looked at managed accounts for retail investors offered by Broker Monitor firms. We reviewed the different in-house managed account programs offered by each firm, as well as separately and unified managed accounts, and discretionary portfolios programs, which were not covered in the 2010 report.
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This e-Monitor Report reviews online tax centers offered by our coverage firms. We evaluated and graded centralized tax centers offered on public and client sites based on three important areas. First, we graded firms based on how easy it is to access the tax center, as well as the overall organization and access to tax documents. Second, we reviewed the quality and content of tax center resources, favoring comprehensive materials that highlight important tax planning issues and cost basis information. Lastly, this month’s report looked at any available tax planning tools and calculators.
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This Broker Monitor Report looks at advisor branding – the ways that brokerage firms are putting their financial advisors’ “mark” on client communications. We looked at the online and offline experience, including the website, statements, confirmations and other firm mailings. In addition, we offer our recommendations for firms to consider.
One of our primary focuses in this report was financial advisor information on statements and confirmations, as these are generally the two most frequently mailed documents. We found that all firms highlighted in this report print financial advisor contact information on statements. Every firm in the report also prints advisor contact information on trade confirmations, but one firm limits the information to an address, and leaves off the advisor name.
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In this e-Monitor Report, we looked at retirement centers offered by brokerage firms. We noted whether firms offer retirement planning content on the public or private site or both. We examined the topics covered in retirement centers and whether firms organize them by life stage. We also covered planning tools such as retirement savings calculators.
In our research, we found that the majority of e-Monitor firms – 90% – offer an online retirement center. Firms also make retirement content easy to find; 76% organize their materials within a main tab or sub-tab that is accessible from a main navigation menu. Four firms place retirement content as a main tab on both the public and private sites.
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