Does it exist anymore or did it fold into Wells Advisors? And Abbot Downing as well? There used to be some prominent PB teams but they all seem to be gone or half gone now. They had many big relationships at one time but that didn’t seem to fit the vision of this new regime I guess.
10 replies (most recent on top)
Post ID: @1alb+1cd95iCX
Depends on Finra Requirements for your job duties. I can’t say 100% that they will only support your license when required by Finra, but that is what is happening at WFA once they move us to the bank side.
1bsh+1cd95iCX
Super strange. Series 7 has always been a requirement of my job and now even mid/level branch bankers are required to have it as of q2 this year
Confirming prior poster’s comments. I worked in Securities Research/ASG at WFA. When they formed the Investment Institute and changed the reporting line up through the bank side, they took away our licenses.
WFA is comprised, for the most part, of brokerage employees from AG Edwards and Wachovia. We were always encouraged to get all of our licenses, including our Principal Exam. The idea being that we were better positioned to give advice if we knew the rules in all areas of investment banking and the securities business.
Wells Fargo is all about the cost cutting and always goes for the minimal standard in all categories: technology, service, compliance, supervision, building maintenance, you name it.
Investment managers in the PB were briefly told they had to get licensed back in the spring..within a pretty quick time period in fact or they would be placed on unpaid leave. Some took the SIE/7 quickly and got licensed. That was then abruptly stopped after a couple months without much reason.
Post ID: @1rey+1cd95iCX
Series 7. I should have said management made that decision, not the employees. We were told that management wants to keep all employees with the same job duties or titles equal. They couldn’t have some registered and some unregistered, so they went with taking our licenses away rather than having our peers study and get registered . Same thing happened when they created the Investment Institute several years back. Wells Fargo choosing to d-mb us all down rather than raise the bar.
1quj+1cd95iCX
What licenses are you referring to out of curiosity? I work at WFB and would much rather obtain the extra licenses you have rather than you not being to use them.
They are all CRG now....under Jim Hayes
Good question. This question is an example of the confusion in the ranks after all the changes in management and reorganizations. I used to be able to easily say who I reported up through all the way to the CEO, just 5 layers. Now, I can only name 2 layers above my immediate manager, and they’ve added several more layers.
Additionally - even though I work at WFA, they’ve moved my LOB over to the bank side and are no longer supporting some of our licenses. Why no longer supporting our licenses, you ask? Because our peers on the bank side aren’t licensed and they don’t want to have to get licensed. So rather than having the bank side raise their game, they would rather d-mb it all down. From where I sit, I am not impressed with our so-called leadership.
weu+1cd95iCX
Thank you for such a thorough response.
TPB did just recently raise their threshold to $10MM in assets with WF. It was 1MM prior to 2017, where it switched to 2.5MM, and has now taken a pretty huge leap up.
WF announced in March that Abbot Downing is being moved under the Wells Fargo Private Bank brand: https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2021/03/12/wells-fargo-to-drop-abbot-downing-brand/
The WF site is admittedly a little confusing because the Wealth Management Services page still displays the Abbot Downing brand, but when you click through to the Abbot Downing page, the page indicates that Abbot Downing is now Wells Fargo Private Bank:
https://www.wellsfargo.com/wealth-management-services/
and
https://www.wellsfargo.com/abbot-downing/
The Private Bank and the Wells Fargo Advisors brands are separate and distinguished by bank vs. non-bank. Wells Fargo Private Bank offers products and services primarily through Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., which is a bank affiliate of WFC, while Wells Fargo Advisors offers brokerage services through two registered broker-dealers and non-bank affiliates of WFC.