Wells Fargo Advisors notified its Private Client Group and bank-based brokers that the firm has simplified compensation hurdles for 2022 while enhancing the bonus opportunities that the financial advisors can receive, the company announced Tuesday.
In PCG, brokers will each have one monthly hurdle of $13,500 starting next month. Under the new plan, they will each get the below-grid rate of 22% on the first $13,500 per month they make and then 50% "on everything over and above that," according to Wes Egan, head of partnerships, teams, and succession planning.
That is much simpler than the current three hurdles of $12,500, $13,500, and $14,250 where "there's a series of complex metrics that you need to achieve to qualify for one of those three hurdles," Egan told ThinkAdvisor in a phone interview.
As of Sept. 30, Wells Fargo's total number of financial and wealth advisors (including those in its independent channel) was 12,552, down 1,241 from a year earlier.
Wells Fargo expects the decrease to one hurdle "will be extremely well received" by brokers at the firm, Egan said.
There is also going to be an opportunity to have no hurdle at all in 2022. "For FAs who are doing $2 million and up who are growing at at least $150,000 per year or if they're on a team sharing 75% of revenue, those FAs can now qualify for no hurdle at all," he explained.
Brokers qualifying as members of a team will be eligible for an additional $5,000 per broker on the team, according to the firm. The $5,000 will be credited to the 2022 Deferred Compensation Award Opportunity and subject to applicable plan provisions including vesting requirements, it said.
"We think that gives us an extremely competitive cash compensation plan in our Private Client Group channel," according to Egan.
The wirehouse's bank-based brokers, meanwhile, will be "on a more traditional grid arrangement" that will be unchanged for 2022, he said.
But "we're getting rid of the additional client-level adjustments that FAs in the bank channel receive," he told ThinkAdvisor. Now, "when an advisor in the bank channel gets a referral from the bank, they have a 12-and-a-half-point deduction from their payout on that client for the first 12 months," he explained.
In 2022, brokers will just be compensated under the grid plan, and "we're not going to penalize advisors anymore when they get a referral from the consumer bank because we want them to get referrals from the consumer bank," he explained, noting that's the whole point of having brokers in that division.
There will also be a team comp opportunity for those on teams in which $1 million teams growing at a rate of at least $150,000 and sharing 75% of revenue would get paid at the rate of the highest-producing member of the team, he said, calling the new bank-based comp plan competitive, like the new PCG plan.
The deferred compensation plan will be the same for PCG and bank branch brokers, he went on to say. The revenue-based component rate maxes out at 7.5%. There is also up to a 50-basis-point loyalty award for brokers with Wells Fargo 15 years or more and doing over $500,000 in revenue per year, Egan noted, adding the combined plan will provide brokers with as much as 8% in deferred comp.
