Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD) is rebranding its high net-worth (HNW) wealth-management business as a part of an overall multi-year growth strategy focused on providing clients with a team-based, seamless approach to advice.
Starting this week, and supported by a marketing launch slated for Feb. 1, TD’s wealth-management group for HNW clients will be known as TD Wealth Private Wealth Management (TD PWM). TD Wealth Private Investment Advice, TD Wealth Private Investment Counsel, TD Wealth Private Banking and TD Wealth Private Trust will all now fall under the TD PWM umbrella.
The transformation of the wealth-management unit’s approach involves engaging clients in a three-step approach to gain a deep understanding of their needs and values; identifying clients’ core goals; and providing clients with a team-based approach to advice and service, according to Dave Kelly, president and national sales manager with TD PWM.
“The branding is really about how do we more consistently serve clients as an integrated team,” he says.
In addition to the rebranding, TD is also in the midst of a hiring spree, with plans to bring on an additional 130 advisors at TD PWM and 275 financial planners at the branch level serving mass affluent clients.
See: Recruitment: TD hiring advisors
Included in that hiring will be individuals who will serve as “wealth advisors,” a new relationship-manager role the bank created last year. TD has hired 42 wealth advisors so far, with plans to add another 20 this year.
Wealth advisors will be charged with establishing and managing the initial relationship with clients and moving them seamlessly to the right advisor at TD.
“They will stay with that [client] family until that [long-term advisor] relationship is firmly established, the right specialists have been engaged, the right plans are in place, and the clients are ready to move forward,” Kelly says.
Wealth advisors will not formally have their own books of business, except in those cases in which they are serving clients who haven’t yet been transferred to an advisor on a permanent basis.
The wealth advisor role is attracting advisors who like meeting new people, Kelly says, and understanding what their priorities are.
“We’ve had a lot of interest from people who are in advisory functions today, [such as] accounting, consulting, and legal [professions],” he says. “They’re used to that type of model where there’s not really a long-term client relationship, but there’s much more of an advisory relationship with clients.”