By James Langton

(January 17 – 11:15 ET) – Departing from the usual platitudes, CIBC Wealth Management’s senior executive vice president, Gerry McCaughey, unveiled his firm’s innovative new strategy at the RBC Dominion Securities Wealth Management Conference today.

CIBC has received regulatory approval to license its bank account managers as registered reps, operating them within bank branches. The firm currently has a 39-member pilot program underway in Toronto, but it has received regulatory approval to adopt this model in five provinces.

“Essentially we went to the securities commissions and said, ‘if our account managers had the same accreditation as full-service brokers and we are prepared to supervise them, can they sell third-party products?'”, McCaughey told the conference.

McCaughey says there was some back and forth with the regulators before they agreed. CIBC now plans to have 400 of these advisors in place by the end of the year.

Initially they are focusing on the top 15% of the bank’s clientele, and they have been quite cautious about bracing third-party sales, but McCaughey says the response has been positive from both clients and advisors.

The power of this is a sales force of advisors within the bank that can handle both sides of the balance sheet. As this is getting up-and-running, the advisors are focusing on introducing third-party mutual funds along with the bank’s credit products, but McCaughey says that they are fully-equipped to sell stocks and bonds, too. He envisions that down the road these advisors will get more deeply involved with the full range of products.

CIBC’s strategy is based around its feeling that although investment products are commodities, advice can’t be commoditized. With that in mind, the bank will be slimming its product offerings in the GIC field, and focusing on its index funds on the mutual fund side, while it focuses on expanding the capability of its sales force.

This new bank-based sales force, known as Imperial Service, has also been well-received by its traditional full-service advisors McCaughey says because it also gives them options.

Some Wood Gundy brokers may prefer to move to the bank where these advisors are paid $50,000 in salary, with an asset-based variable component. McCaughey sys the average advisor makes another $25,000 in bonuses, but some are making up to $150,000 in bonuses.

Although the sales force is the focus on the new strategy, CIBC is also retooling its discount brokerage business, and will relaunch its Web site in the spring. The bank is also trying to increase asset management product cross-selling between CIBC and CIBC Oppenheimer in the United States.