Yes you get access to Wachovia research along with several others, there is no additional charge (or subtractable charge if you don't use it!)

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Glad2Bindy -

I am not with FiNet, but am considering it heavily.  I have done quite a bit of due diligence on the indy platforms and consider Finet to be top candidate - for my practice, can't speak for others.

I too, wish that Finet would allow hard dollar fees for planning.  I think that the clients believe that they get what they pay for in regard to the planning.  Plus, envision is very, very impressive.  I would make it a major part of my business if with Finet.

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Wow, I can't understand why FiNet would not allow an independent advisor to charge however they see fit. I've seen Envision and although it's not as advanced/robust as Naviplan & others it would still be enough for the typical client who doesn't have complex needs and that would certainly justify paying. This is one of the key problems I had w/ FiNet. If I'm truly independent then let me decide how I charge & what financial planning (or other) tools I use to do my job. Don't just pigeon whole me into the tool the BD THINKS should work. I would at the very least fight FiNet management to modify their ADV to allow for flat or hourly planning fees with Envision. That's the wave of the future you know!

There was a question earlier about moving from WS to Finet and what the
restrictions are.   I asked Jim Hays, (President of the Private
Client Group at WS) at the road show last week and he told me that we
would have a 15% haircut for the first year we were with Finet and that
we would have to return any retention money.  He said this would
be available as soon as the merger was complete and the computer
systems were merged.  He thought this would happen around the fall
of 2008.

Joe,

We're cool.

At last year's group meet it was mentioned that Finet is "looking into" the RIA platform. Now, I can't say that this was real exciting news to me personally, but there were other attendees who had apparently agitated for this action who were audibly elated.

If that means they are going to allow brokers to charge for advisory services or not, I don't know. I assume that's the sort of thing they were looking at.

Keep in mind that Finet's target market is the wirehouse broker doing over $400M in production (with $250 being the min num) and so they want to concentrate on the services that this broker wants. That "Quasi Indy, semi Corporate" attitude of theirs is intentional in that it makes for a much less dramatic leap for a guy who has come into the bus through a structured environment like the wirehouse.

For myself, as I've said before, it was exactly the idea that I felt I needed a little more discipline to my practice than the others were showing me that helped me make my decision (I like First Allied better, but they were a little little too West Coast laid back for my business persona, right on target for my personal persona, so I had to decide...)

Bottom line, with 600 FAs in the paddocks (probably this will swell with the addition of WS guys, including those with some AGE under their belts) it's not hard for the company to be nimble, if they feel there is a need, they'll address it, and it's not hard for them to get the message that there is a need.

This isn't to say things happen overnight, they seem to be of the mind that they'll get it right the first time, and it seems to me that they do.