Banc of America Investment Services Reviews

Pros

paid training and you get benefits

Cons

your on your own no help

Advice to Senior Management

none

Pros

Flexible, great benefits, pension and 401k

Cons

popularity, nepotism and butt kissing seems to be the only way to advance, very lax in updating procedures and providing performance updates

Advice to Senior Management

Focus on skills and attributes of employees regardless of social status in office, do not take feed back personally, respond to inquiries and suggestions

Pros

The investment Centers are great for flexibility of scheduling and simplicity of the job. You can get a day off whenever it is necessary and the management rarely gives you a hard time when taking a personal day. The job does not need you to worry about it once you log out, so it is simple in that you can do anything you want once you are out of the office.

Cons

Lack of opportunities to move up and repetitiveness of the job. There is bad perception that if you work in the IC (investment center) then you are not worth promoting because people relate to individuals who work in an call center to be idiots. If you try to apply for positions outside of the IC you will almost never get a call back or a invitation for an interview from your internal recruiters. The job is ok in the beginning when you are learning about some trading restrictions and basic software usage but once you go over that learning curve then everything and everyday is repeating the same things, more than 95% of your calls will be the same as a call you handled before. If you are desperate for a job and need some benefits then you can consider working here but if you plan on moving up in BAC then you should stay away as far as possible (A personal banker with no security licenses could move faster than you could working in the IC) .

Advice to Senior Management

The IC is a great place for you to look for FAs, researchers, and traders. In fact many of your so called "Financial Advisers" are so poorly trained that they do not possess basic ideas of asset allocation, financial models, BAI operation procedures and portfolio hedging strategies, yet you have IC (CALL CENTER REPS) reps who are well versed in these financial services practices and some even have advanced designations, charters and MBAs. So, look into the IC for your future stock researchers, traders, and advisers, I assure you will find some hidden gems.

Pros

Benefits and bank culture, nice people to work with, perks such as childcare stipend, decent products to offer, great hours

Cons

"not my job" attitudes, technology is horrible, some co workers are lazy or should just simply retire, clueless or noncaring attitude of some of the advisors and management.

Advice to Senior Management

some of the management had a bad attitude. The branch manager was great, but dealing with the manager below was an absolute nightmare

Pros

A great institution who's branding alone can put a new Financial Advisor in front of Mass Affluent clients. Not many other firms can bring the amount of prospects to an FA that BofA can. The new ML platform will position the largest banking franchise with the best Financial Advisors out there. With 500k new high net worth client relationships coming in the door year over year. This is in addition to the approximately 8 million existing clients that qualify as Mass Affluent. For any young advisor looking to grow their practice, we all know how hard it is to market yourself to this segment. The bottom line is no other organization can put more clients in front of skilled people than BofA

Cons

At the moment there is some cumbersome processes that slow down the production for FA's without sales assistants.

Advice to Senior Management

non

Pros

There are none. Highly disfunctional. Go to a wirehouse or a better bank brokerage. Once Merrill fully integrates the company, it may be a better place to work and the name recognition of the Bank may be a positive factor.

Cons

Insane policy and procedures. Compliance is out of control. Very hard to do any business. Technology is 15 years behind the industry. Morale is at an all time lowpoint. The premier bankers where fired and now the brokers have to manage checking accounts and lending for their clients without being paid to do so. Referrals from the retail bank are non-existent.

Advice to Senior Management

Retire and let the real Merrill guys run the firm. There are some decent managers but the entire system is flawed and needs to be scrapped.

Pros

The health care benefits, and the people up to but not including management.

Cons

This is an organization that has no clue of how a full-service investment firm is supposed to operate. There is a complete lack of integrity on the part of management. They lie as to the opportunities to get you to join them, and then, once locked-into a long-term contract, change the requirements of the job, and changed the compensation plan so as to reduce my income to what I was earning 30 years ago. Please do not repeat my error. Stay away from this organization.

Advice to Senior Management

Let me out of my contract. Please!

Pros

Banc of America Investment Services, at least in my role, is a great place to work because of what you learn. Working in a call center environment you get to see a little bit of everything. I get to place trades that I would never get to place at any other firms, including advanced option trades. You also get to learn "back office" practices as well. The people are also great. Everyone wants to see you succeed so they are quick to share advice and give pointers. All of the managers and team seniors I have worked with are very competent and are great people all around.

Cons

One of the biggest downsides of working at Banc of America Investment Services would have to be the limited growth within the same division. I work in a call center, so management positions do not open up frequently, and when they do, a lot of associates are gunning for them. It makes it difficult to advance. Another downside is that the company is reluctant to sponsor you for industry tests (i.e. Series 24, Series 4) until you absolutely need it.

Advice to Senior Management

I think senior management (management not on site) needs to hold themselves more accountable for any dissatisfaction among employees. Instead, they push the responsibility to lower management who really have no power to make any changes.

Pros

I was able to advance from a sales assistant postion to a management position over the course of my career.
Initially I had a fantastic support system with the leadership. They allowed and encouraged advancement. The benefits were great, the medical, 401k and stock options. The vacation allowence was also fair and they recently implemented a fair bonus system. They had training meetings which were extremely helpful to my job and well executed. I was given the support I needed to succeed, especially as one began to take on management responsibilities. They helped to educate the leadership team on hiring and coaching. This was within the first several of my career with them. I did have a fantastic manager who was a very compentent leader andI believe that was a huge key to my success there. There were many good managers and a talented leadership team on both the investment and bank side which worked very closely together,

Cons

With the arrival of former Morgan Stanley associates in Senior upper management positions,the leadership in the individual markets also started to change. Unfortunately this was not for the better of the individual markets. The state of Florida lost every single market manager. There was a huge push to put in managers that were good recruiters but not good leaders. This shift brought on managers that were not well equipt to run the day to day business, They were out of the office recruiting and because of this the markets suffered a lack of leadership and daily support. There were some very good leaders that were forced out and this changed the markets a great deal. The compensation and goals also changed for the advisors every year and this made things very challenging. In my particular postion the workload was overbearing, and I often heard the same from my counterparts across the country. They had little or no support from their direct manager.

Advice to Senior Management

Give the Administrative Managers the support they need and are asking for. They are really the hardest and more talented group across the whole country and they believe and live those core values.

Pros

BAI is able to leverage the massive strength of Bank of America behind it, which enables its employees to take advantage of the great benefits and resources.

Cons

Limited career development and channels- you either sell (contribute to the bottom line) or you support/manage those who do. Even though this is a brokerage division of a larger bank, there are still the many bureaucratic rules and regulations and performance measurements of the Bank that other brokerage firms do not have to fulfill.

Advice to Senior Management

Enable leaders and management to empower their employees, and to help them find promotional opportunities within this department and the Bank as well. Keep up the associate feedback surveys and listening sessions, and keep making changes to satisfy your employees. Pay employees well and for the type of work you expect them to produce.