Sun Life advisors will soon have access to expanded investment offerings

“Our advisors needed to have access to securities capabilities because they know many of their clients have securities,” says Vicken Kazazian, senior vice president of Sun Life’s career sales force. “Advisors wanted to make sure that piece was incorporated into the financial planning they do for their clients.”

Although Qtrade does not have its own team of advisors, it is licensed under the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC). Therefore, Sun Life could employ regional teams of investment advisors that would be registered through Qtrade. This means that insurance advisors whose clients have investment portfolios containing securities could be referred within the firm.

“[Sun Life will] use the Qtrade registrant structure and our platform to help facilitate that service offering for their clients,” says Bill Packham, interim CEO of Qtrade Financial Group.

Each of these investment advisors that Sun Life brings on board would be responsive to Sun Life advisors within a specific region. If a Sun Life advisor has a client who owns securities, that advisor would facilitate an introduction between the client and the investment advisor who would also work with the client, Kazazian says.

Sun Life is currently in the process of hiring licensed investment advisors to make this offering possible. The firm is also educating their advisors on this initiative so they can inform clients of the new services.

As insurance companies look to build their wealth-management offering, online brokerage services are a natural extension of that, says Packham.

“What [firms are] finding is they can partner with us to set up that arrangement, make that offering available to their clients,” Packham says, “and do so without incurring a lot of infrastructure, time and energy to build their own online platform.”

The partnership, which will be in effect this autumn, will also allow Sun Life clients to access Qtrade’s online brokerage platform, Qtrade Investor, to execute their own trades.

Information about online investing will be made available to clients through the Sun Life website. If they wish to read more, they can access a joint Sun Life and Qtrade website, which will provide further details and from there, clients can continue onto the Qtrade site to open an account.

Sun Life clients who choose to use the discount brokerage provider will have access to products that include Canadian and U.S. stocks, bonds and T-bills; mutual funds; exchange-traded funds and commercial paper. Their fees will be the same as any other Qtrade client. For example, an equity trade will cost $8.75.

Qtrade has already partnered with approximately 110 financial services institutions to provide its online brokerage service. In 2014, Qtrade announced an agreement with Winnipeg-based Great-West Life Assurance Co. to provide its discount brokerage and investment services to clients of that firm.

Qtrade is a three-time winner of the Morningstar Award for best discount brokerage.