BofA has 5 million wealthy customers outside Merrill. Can it win their assets?
Processing Content
- Key insight: Like many wealth managers, Bank of America gauges its success largely on its ability to bring in new client assets. In an ambitious plan, its CEO is setting his sights on doubling those NNA inflows in the next few years.
- Expert quote: “We’ve had one of our best recruiting years ever, recruiting experienced [financial advisors] and our attrition is at sort of a decade low. So we’re doing really well there and building and retaining and growing our financial advisor force.” — Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan
A year after setting a goal of bringing in as much as $150 billion in new fee-generating client assets a year, the head of Bank of America is acknowledging “we’ve got our work to do.”
Speaking last week at the BancAnalysts Association of Boston Conference, Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan said his firm has brought in roughly $65 billion in new assets this year into fee-generating accounts at Merrill and its other wealth management businesses and is on track for $80 billion by the end of the year. Getting to the $135 billion to $150 billion by 2028 to 2030, a goal
“Obviously, we’ve got our work to do here,” Moynihan said.
READ MORE:
BofA has a lot of ground to gain with at least one Wall Street rival
As AI and other technology enable advisors to serve more clients, wealth managers have come to gauge their success less by their advisor headcounts and more on their asset totals. With $5.1 trillion in client assets — including investments, deposits and loans — Merrill and Bank of America’s private bank are easily among the biggest firms in the industry.
Yet their asset gathering ability lags behind at least one key rival. Morgan Stanley, with just over $8.4 trillion under management, brought in $280 billion in net new assets in the third quarter alone, much of it coming from employees of
To boost its asset inflows, Moynihan said Bank of America is seeking to add to its advisor headcount with a
“
Louis Diamond, the CEO of the recruiting firm Diamond Consultants, said Merrill’s advisor losses do indeed seem to be back to normal levels and “not as elevated as they were a couple of years ago.” Diamond also credited Merrill for some significant recruiting wins. They include an advisor duo that had been managing $1.2 billion for UBS in Santa Fe, New Mexico; and a four-person team
Like many wealth managers, one of Merrill’s biggest difficulties is the sheer array of choices advisors now have when they’re seeking to change firms. It’s not only competing against wirehouses like Wells Fargo, which is seeing its own recruiting resurgence, but also any number of independent broker-dealers and RIAs offering a greater degree of independence along with often quite-generous transition deals.
“There’s a lot of good with Merrill that advisors appreciate,” Diamond said. “If someone really prioritizes lending and a firm with a great reputation, they certainly could be it. But there’s also a number of other firms that can check that box, too.”
READ MORE:
Merrill, BofA private bank mine firm’s other business for assets
Bank of America is also looking to bolster its wealth management units with assets brought in from its other lines of business. Moynihan estimated Bank of America has 5 million high net worth customers of its retail and other banks who don’t also use the firm’s wealth services. The same is true, he said, for roughly 1 million clients whose workplace benefits are administered by the firm.
So far this year, Moynihan said, 130,000 customers have been referred to the wealth management unit either from other businesses at the firm or those businesses from wealth management. Roughly 45% of the private bank’s new clients have come from these introductions, he said.
“All we have to do is keep referring those clients into the private bank, into Merrill Lynch, and we will grow our assets overall,” Moynihan said.
Dean Athanasia, Bank of America co-president, said that if Bank of America brought in just 1.5% to 2% of its high net worth clients’ assets into its wealth business, it would add $100 billion.
“It’s a big number … but referrals are up 25% year over year,” Athanasia said. “So when we’re looking at where we’re going, we’re progressing, more clients are coming in, more referrals coming in, but those assets are coming in with them.”
READ MORE:
Higher margins, lending balances and alts investments
Meanwhile, Moynihan noted progress toward another goal for the firm’s Global Wealth & Investment Management business: attaining a pretax margin of 30% in the 2028-to-2030 timeframe. This margin — the percentage of revenue left over after expenses other than taxes — now stands at roughly 28%.
Moynihan called wealth management “our least efficient business.” Even so, net income for Global Wealth & Investment Management has risen by 31% year over year so far in 2026 to hit $4 billion.
In other signs of progress, Moynihan said 25,000 wealth professionals at the firm are now using AI to automate routine tasks and are, as a result, “spending more time with clients, accessing more clients, building those relationships, doing more with them.”
He noted that the total for loans arranged through Bank of America’s wealth management business have risen by 12% year over year to $283 billion, although 42% of Merrill clients still don’t hold bank deposits with the firm. Many wealth managers view banking products and services as a particularly good way to make wealth management clients “sticky,” or unlikely to move their assets to a rival firm.
Moynihan also said Bank of America’s wealth units saw a steep increase in helping clients move money into private equity, private credit and other alternative assets. He said such flows have increased by 16% year over year so far in 2026 — without providing a total number — and the firm estimates private bank customers could eventually hold $260 billion in alternatives.
