This profile is based on an interview with the bank’s retail banking leader, who didn’t receive advance access to the research in preparation for the call. All six banks were offered interviews where they could share their strategies and insights with Investment Executive.
After several years of seeing its retail-branch advisor and planner satisfaction decline within Investment Executive’s Report Card on Banks, Scotiabank is seeing a reversal.
The bank’s overall grade (IE rating) for its branch-level advisor support has risen to 8.1 out of 10 from 6.7 a year ago, based on significant year-over-year increases (by half a point in more) in 17 of the 22 categories in which its advisor support systems were assessed.
Between 2021 and 2024 the bank’s IE rating by its retail branch advisors had consistently dipped, going from 8.0 to last year’s 6.7 — with respondents frustrated a year ago by gaps they felt in their training and managerial support. (An IE rating is the average of all of a bank’s category ratings in the Report Card, excluding Net Promoter Score.)
For this year, the bank’s overall result remains below the collective IE rating of 8.5 (if you look across all six banks). However, its improved results reflect efforts by Scotiabank’s retail banking leaders to take a fresh look at what’s been ailing branch advisors and planners.
More frequent, available training
The bank’s largest increases in advisor satisfaction were in the advisor pay categories, both of which were rated higher by more than two full points compared with 2024. A common theme in comments on its “compensation structure” for 2025, rated 8.9 from 6.7, was that it’s easy to understand. (Read Retail bank advisors identified pay as a key motivator.)
However, enhancing pay isn’t the bank’s focus when it comes to its priorities for the retail branch business. According to Brent Currie, senior vice-president, Scotia Financial Planning and investment distribution, it should be all about the client and whether an advisor sees an all-around future with the bank in terms of skills development.
For him, if advisors start at the bank and progress, and if they’re happy to stay for decades, that’s a big win. Retaining advisors by keeping them satisfied means clients don’t have to keep changing advisors, which can be a major pain point, Currie said.
In the 2025 Report Card, the bank’s branch advisors indeed reported improvement in the business and skills development categories. Within the “advisor education & development” area, which advisors rated at 6.2 a year ago, the 2025 rating also improved by more than two full points to 8.3.
One reason is Scotiabank has expanded its advisor-coaching teams. These teams can meet in-person in the branches, offering one-on-one or team-based sessions, but they also can chat virtually and that’s bumped up support availability, Currie said.
These coaches help the retail advisors understand everything from market dynamics and products to the best ways to use the bank’s digital tools.
In times of market volatility, like we’ve seen this year, Currie said these coaches can help the bank’s advisors be proactive in anchoring clients back to their core investing principles.
“There’s been market volatility in the past,” he said, referring to the dot-com bubble, the global financial crisis in 2008 and then the pandemic. People will say “it’s different this time,” Currie added, but “Your goal as an advisor is to make sure that clients understand that short-term emotional decisions have a risk of derailing long-term success.”
The advisors polled shared that there are many conferences, courses and resources available for their career-long learning. Still, some advisors asked for even more support when it came to obtaining enough continuing education (CE) credits. Some also feel overwhelmed at times by the amount of learning required.
“We have a lot of compliance courses and continuing education credits, and it’s a bit of a mess to figure out what qualifies and doesn’t,” said one of the bank’s retail advisors in Ontario. “This may be the regulators’ fault,” they added, but they’d appreciate help from the bank in sorting the requirements out.
Others adopted that task willingly. “To do well in this business, you have to be self-motivated,” said a different advisor in Ontario. “You want to do your own continued education and read articles. … It’s our responsibility.”
Scotiabank has done its own research internally, and Currie has also found this variance in thinking. “The person [advisor] that’s been in the chair for six months has a very different view of what they need [versus] someone who’s been in the chair for 16 years,” he said. To support advisors with knowledge-building at any level, he added, there are “tailored resources to meet the unique needs of both newer and experienced advisors,” plus a national team of field consultants.
Tools for conversations
Unsurprisingly, it was on the technology front where most of Scotiabank’s branch advisors asked for improvement — this theme carries across all of the Big Six and the entire 2025 Report Card series.
The bank’s lowest category rating for 2025 was for its “general technology training & internal IT support” (rated 7.2 from 5.2), and there were a range of advisor opinions. While some advisors felt it was tough to get technical support when needed, others felt improvements had been made through added chat and message systems, for example.
In the bank’s own outreach, one of the topics was technology support. And, said Currie, “There has been a pretty consistent, concerted effort to drive automation where we can,” reducing friction, “nuisance work” and technology issues for advisors.
Generally, for 2025, the bank’s in-branch digital support garnered better ratings.
Among Scotiabank’s technology suite, its advisors were most satisfied this year with their “client relationship tools” (rated 8.3 from 6.3). The bank improved the most compared with 2024 when it came to its back-office support; it was rated 8.1 from 6.0 for “advisor’s experience with back-office tools & services.”
Also related to technology but under the wealth management tools category, advisors gave the bank a much higher rating of 8.7 from 6.7 for their in-branch “financial planning support & technology.”
Part of this growth was Scotiabank’s adoption of financial-planning software from Conquest Planning Inc. Specifically for the 300+ planners with Scotia Financial Planning, Currie said, the bank wanted a “really good, intuitive user interface” to help with their more complex client planning and reporting. The addition of this software “has really helped them [the planners] engage in those planning conversations, having more of them.”
Many of the advisors called by IE, throughout May, were in the midst of training and had been optimistic about the change at that time.
In addition, digital signature software has helped reduce advisors’ administrative workload, Currie said. “It shrinks the administrative part of the [job]. [It] allows the advisor to meet with more clients over the course of their work week, so more clients are actually getting the advice that we want to give.”
When asked whether their bank had been adding time-saving tools to help them automate processes, the vast majority (85%) said it had. This matters because, “What we do really depends on tech; if we have systems down or if they’re slow, it creates [a] less-than-ideal customer experience,” said one of the bank’s advisors in Ontario.