Review of Financial Studies Vol. 31 No. 11 2018

Financial Advice and Bank Profits

Daniel Hoechle¹; Stefan Ruenzi²; Nic Schaub³; Markus Schmid³

¹ University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland · ² University of Mannheim · ³ University of St.Gallen

Abstract

We use a unique data set from a large retail bank containing internal managerial Accounting data on revenues and costs per client to analyze how banks and their financial advisors generate profits with customers. We find that advised transactions are associated with higher profits than independently executed trades of the same client. The bank’s own mutual funds and structured products are most profitable for the bank, and profits increase with trade size. We show that advisors recommend exactly those transactions. Furthermore, we find that advised clients achieve a worse performance than independent clients, suggesting that advisors put their employer’s interest first.

DOI

10.1093/rfs/hhy046

Volume

31

Issue

11

Pages

4447-4492

Language

en

Sources

bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

Cite

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