New B/D IFP Is Swimming Against the Current; Will More Firms Follow?
May 23, 2019 By Diana Britton, WealthManagement.com At a time when smaller broker/dealers are closing down, IFP is on a reverse course, registering its own brokerage with only a couple hundred advisors so far. But the economics are beginning to make more sense, and the move represents a viable option for nimble, entrepreneurial advisors who want to control their own destiny. Over the last several years, we’ve seen a number of small independent broker/dealers close and withdraw their registrations, often due to what they say are growing administrative and regulatory burdens. Conventional wisdom says that in the wealth management space, scale increasingly matters, and smaller players find it hard to compete. In many cases, the principals of those small shops moved on to larger firms, bringing their advisors with them and often joining as offices of supervisory jurisdiction (OSJ). But Independent...