Morgan Stanley touts retail banking in new E-Trade ad

Although Morgan Stanley has been in retail banking in a big way for almost two decades, ordinary checks and deposits still aren’t commonly associated with the investment-banking and wealth-management powerhouse.

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A new commercial for the firm’s online brokerage E-Trade aims to change that. For the first time in an ad running on national airwaves, Morgan Stanley is calling attention to how E-Trade can give investors access not only to easy online trading but also savings and checking accounts, loans and other banking products and services.

“You think you know someone until one day they make an unexpected leap,” the narrator says in Morgan Stanley’s 30-second spot, which features a husband scaling walls and performing death-defying feats in his pursuit of a monkey that has stolen his wife’s ring.

“It’s like finding out that E-Trade is running with Morgan Stanley,” the narrator adds, “so you can invest and bank under one roof.”

The roots and growth of Morgan Stanley’s retail bank

Morgan Stanley became a bank holding company in 2008 amid the global financial meltdown as part of a bid to put its business on a more stable footing. The retail bank has since shown steady growth without becoming one of the top players in the U.S. banking industry. The total assets in the firm’s U.S. bank rose by 12% last year to top $487 billion.

Andrea Zaretsky, the chief marketing officer for Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, acknowledged that E-Trade and Morgan Stanley may not be top of mind for many customers when they think of banking services.

“The reality, though, is we’ve invested significant resources into our bank offering to ensure our clients have a seamless banking experience right alongside their investments,” Zaretsky said. “We have a full suite of banking products to meet client needs. E-Trade clients can enjoy savings, checking and CDs … competitive rates, low fees, easy money movement, FDIC protection.”

Merrill, Wells Fargo, Schwab likewise offer gamut of banking, investing services

Morgan Stanley’s E-Trade commercial is just the latest example of firms seeking to bind together ever more tightly their banking and wealth management offerings. With such convergence, the goal is often two-fold: To add new sources of revenue while also making it less likely that clients will ever have to go to another firm to secure a particular product.

Like Morgan Stanley, many firms are seeking to use digital systems to provide easy access to banking or investing resources using a computer or a phone. Morgan Stanley’s wirehouse rivals Merrill and Wells Fargo both have apps offering a combination of banking and services at a touch or click.

Firms like Charles Schwab and Edward Jones have both also invested heavily in ensuring clients can access a large variety of banking and investing services online. Executives at Schwab, who already run one of the largest banks in the U.S., see room to do more.

Following the release of the firm’s earnings last week, Schwab Chief Financial Officer Mike Verdeschi said one of the most common requests among the independent advisories Schwab supports in various ways is for more banking services to offer clients. Schwab’s advisor services division now works with roughly 16,000 independent firms, providing them with everything from custodying client assets for safekeeping to tech support, help with practice management and banking.

That last offering could be extended even further, Verdeschi told his audience at the firm’s Winter Business update on Wednesday.

“I speak to hundreds of advisors every single year,” he said. “The No. 1 thing I often hear about is doing more for them in banking and lending.”

Regional banks get into the online brokerage game

Regional banks are meanwhile approaching the convergence goal from the opposite direction by adding trading features to their banking apps. PNC Bank, for instance, announced last week that its customers can now use their online bank accounts to open PNC Wealth Management brokerage accounts. The offering is meant not only for self-directed traders, but also clients who work with financial advisors and want an easy means of tracking the results of investing and banking decisions.

“We are confident that the faster, more streamlined option of opening, funding and managing an account through our digital platform will appeal to many different clients, including those who want to receive expert guidance from an experienced financial advisor,” Rich Guerrini, the president of PNC Wealth Management, said in a statement.

Industry surveys suggest wealth management clients increasingly want to be able to have all their financial needs attended to by one firm. A report the research firm Cerulli Associates released in 2022 found that nearly 60% of the affluent investors would like to have all their assets held at a single institution. But only 37% now used the same firm for both investing and cash-management services.

“There is a sizeable opportunity for financial institutions to gather additional walletshare by becoming a one-stop-shop for all advice needs across the wealth spectrum of retail investors,” Scott Smith, Cerulli senior director of advice relationships, said in a statement.

E-Trade ads airing during NFL playoffs, NBA games, March Madness

As it has done in past E-Trade advertising campaigns, Morgan Stanley will disseminate its message to as wide an audience as possible by having it run during popular sporting events and at locations where it’s likely to be glimpsed by travelers during downtimes. Zaretsky said the E-Trade ad will appear on TV during airings of games during the NFL playoffs, the NBA’s regular season and the NCAA’s March Madness basketball tournament. For the first time, E-Trade is also acting as a sponsor of the longtime hit reality TV show Survivor and having the spot play on Uber rides and on the back of seats on Delta Air Lines flights.

The latest ad, called “The Pursuit,” is part of a larger advertising campaign Morgan Stanley has been running under the slogan “More to Love.” The two previous installments in the series emphasized how E-Trade is bringing Morgan Stanley’s market research to retail investors and how E-Trade lets clients invest on their own until they’re ready to work with a financial advisor.

Morgan Stanley’s wealth management ‘funnel’

The last of those ads plays directly into Morgan Stanley’s strategy of viewing its wealth management business as a giant funnel. The goal is to have clients come in either through E-Trade or the firm’s division specializing in providing workplace benefits to employees and employers and eventually move down the spout to full relationships with financial advisors.

Morgan Stanley is hoping banking services and products will give investors one more reason to enter the funnel. It’s sweetening its appeal by offering customers who open premium savings accounts cash bonuses of up to $2,000 (up from the previous maxim of $1,000 on deposits of $200,000 or more.

Zaretsky said Morgan Stanley plans to continue spreading the word.

“We want to make sure that we’re building awareness for this suite of banking products and services,” she said. “They’re award-winning. They have competitive rates. We offer low fees, easy money movement. I think you’ll continue to see all this in our advertising messages.”