Fee-based Revenue Continues To Grow

Fees have long been heralded as the preferred way to dispense financial advice ever since the Tully Commission recommended it as a “best practice” in a report to the SEC in 1995. As the chart below shows, charging fees on assets continues to grow in popularity, according to the 358 FAs who completed our survey in the fourth quarter of last year. Interestingly, wirehouse-based advisor respondents said they did as much fee-based business as financial planning firms, but significantly less than RIAs, who did the most.