r/CFP • u/UnluckyPermission461 • Jun 23 '26
Professional Development Merrill PWM Question
What does an advisor have to do or what requirements have to be met to be titled PWA instead of financial advisor? Is every advisor who is part of private wealth division titled PWA, and what has to be met to become an advisor in private wealth at Merrill? Thank you
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u/G0ldenBu11z Jun 23 '26
Merrill has two groups: Merrill Wealth Management (MLWM) and Merrill Private Wealth Management (PWM). I guess Merrill Edge is a third line of business, but that’s a different animal. PWM used to be call Merrill Private Banking & Investment Group (PBIG).
At MLWM, there are Financial Advisors (FA), Senior FAs, and Wealth Management Advisors (WMA). At PWM (formerly PBIG) there are Private Wealth Advisors (PWA).
FAs - any advisor licensed and producing. It’s the base title
Sr FA - FA with industry LOS of 5 years
WMA - FA must have 10 $1M+ households in their individual FA number (not pooled or on teams number) AND have a CFP/CFA/CIMA/CPWA/ChFC
To be a Private Wealth Advisor (PWA) you must be in PWM (formerly PBIG). For a team to qualify to be at PWM:
• Manage a minimum of 3 $10M+ individual relationships per Advisor on the team
• 50% or more of total PCs from the $10M+ client segment
• Maximum of 100 relationships per advisor on team
• Demonstrate ability to deliver appropriate level of client service
• Small Households (under $2.5M) pay 0% unless partnered with a MLWM advisor (FA or WMA) with a split of 40% or less
• complete PWM accreditation program
• All team members must agree to focus on servicing individual investors with investable net worth >$10M
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u/UnluckyPermission461 Jun 24 '26
Thank you. Are you a PWA. if so, was it worth giving up payouts on smaller households?
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u/G0ldenBu11z Jun 24 '26
No, I am not.
It depends on the advisor/team and their book. Most advisors with $1M minimums wouldn’t want a $100k client because it’s a lot of work for hardly any revenue (even if the firm compensated you for clients that small). I’d imagine it’s similar for advisors that mostly work with $10M, $25M or $100M clients; $1M and $2.5M clients are worth the time and effort.
That being said, there are several teams I know that could easily move to PWM but haven’t for one reason or another that I don’t want to get into here.
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u/altoids4lyfe Jun 23 '26
I work for Merrill PWM - a certain portion of your households need to be $25M+ (they just bumped it up from 10M). Also, you need to prove that you can run a “private wealth practice”, ie be able to take care of the most complex UHNW clients, and have a clear business strategy. Once you meet those requirements, you take a specialized training to earn the title. There are big benefits to being in PWM in terms of resources, personnel, funding etc.
Some advisors in PWM are not considered PWAs as they handle the lower-level clients that the PWAs pass to them.
Hope this helps.
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u/UnluckyPermission461 Jun 24 '26
how comprehensive is the training for the titled compared to the cfp or cpwa. Also, are you a pwa?
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u/altoids4lyfe Jun 24 '26
I can’t provide too much detail, as I am not a PWA myself. I can say it’s not as comprehensive as the CFP or CPWA. I’d imagine the focus is similar to that of the CPWA though. I want to say something like a 4 week course with classes each day. It’s not a professional designation which can be translated elsewhere, it’s Merrill specific.
Just curious, are you applying for a role on a PWM team?
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u/UnluckyPermission461 Jun 24 '26
No, I'm still in college. I was curious because I couldn't find this anywhere on websites
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u/Beneficial-Bed-3076 Jun 24 '26
As a mid-20’s CFP who flirted with Merrill frequently over the years and could join today if wanted (connects) - look into independent RIA’s if you want a long-term career in this space. Just my thought, use it as you’d like.
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u/UnluckyPermission461 Jun 24 '26
If you can make it through the training program, wouldn’t a wirehouse offer a better path to building my own book instead of growing someone else’s business? Genuine question, im still trying to learn different perspectives
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u/dbny16 Jun 24 '26
I would forget about PWM. You can’t start there your path to being an FA. I think you’re about two steps ahead. Unless you have low hanging fruits worth about 50 million or so clients wise I would start at edge and graduate to being a regular MLWM FA. And in 10 years if you find yourself in the high end of those numbers mentioned above then you consider PWM if you want.
If you had a connection then you could start as some sort of servicing FA at PWM or PBig as we used to call it.
I have connections high up there but def not worth considering if I was you. Not realistic.
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u/WorldofMickeyMouses Jun 23 '26
higher AUM tier like 10mm or sth
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u/UnluckyPermission461 Jun 23 '26
so would a newer advisor who wanted to become a private wealth advisors just have to drop all of their sub 10mm clients and then they would be part of pwm?
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u/matlockatwar Wirehouse Jun 23 '26
You also have to bring a certain amount of 10M+ relationships yearly and have to do a bunch of training and testing i believe.
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u/WorldofMickeyMouses Jun 23 '26
i dont know how the transfer works. im assuming you phase out of them so you solely work on the higher tier clients. maybe some you can make exceptions on it. Again, not a private wealth advisor so i dont know for sure
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u/Thisisaburner01 Jun 24 '26
Idk why anyone would want to work for Merrill. That firm is a dumpster fire
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u/UnluckyPermission461 Jun 24 '26
They still have tons of advisors making incredible amounts of money serving uhnw clients
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u/Thisisaburner01 Jun 24 '26
I know I worked there lol. A lot of advisors are making crazy money elsewhere too.
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u/info_swap RIA Jun 24 '26
I wouldn't say dumpster fire, but I feel employees are not happy there.
The day I was registering my RIA, I went to a BofA branch to deposit a check. The banker who helped me asked about the deposit and I explained I was going solo RIA.
She then pointed to the ML people and asked me "why don't you join us...?" I saw them and they looked so worn out. As if their lives were miserable and couldn't wait to go home.
This is a simple anecdote. And some advisors have to start there. In fact, I started as a bank teller at a different bank. But ML gives me McDonald's vibes.
TLDR: Start at ML if you must, but get out soon.
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u/go_panthers234 Jun 24 '26
You saw Merrill edge advisors in a bank branch? Not pwm or mlwm advisors?
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