Tuesday, April 07, 2009

Not A Warm And Fuzzy Feeling

I once had a Quick & Reilly account that somehow managed to morph into Banc of America Investment Services, Inc (BAI). One of those mysteries of life, I guess. Anyway, this month, along with my statement, I received an insert titled Important Information about Revenue Sharing Arrangements. Now this is the type of thing that probably 90% of the people receiving it throw away. For some reason I decided to look through it.

Basically, the whole insert describes conflicts of interest "Because BAI receives revenue sharing payments based on the amount of sales of, and assets invested in, annuities of Branch Access Annuity Companies and mutual funds of Branch Access Fund Families, BAI has a financial incentive to promote sales of those annuities and mutual funds, in particular annuities of Branch Access Fund Families that pay the highest revenue sharing rates to BAI."

And here I thought my friendly BAI broker had my best interests at heart. How naive an investor can be.

No comments: