Financial advisors now have another place to turn to for online client recruitment.
   The Paladin Registry, at www.paladinregistry.com, recently launched a newly designed service designed to match qualified clients with screened and rated financial advisors.
   Paladin is joining a crowded field of more than 15 players trying to provide either a directory or a matchmaking service to investors.
   The field includes FAMatch, which is jointly owned by Discovery and CFPN, publisher of Financial Advisor and FANews.
   The site currently has a database of about 400 advisors, who go through a background check and screening process that includes an explanation of how they're compensated, whether they regard themselves as fiduciaries and any potential conflicts of interest.
   "What we're trying to do is keep investors from the bad guys and route them to the good guys," says Jack Waymire, founder and president of Paladin Registry LLC in Sacramento, Calif.
   Waymire spent 20 years as the president of an RIA and, while in semi-retirement, authored the book, "Who's Watching Your Money?: The 17 Paladin Principles for Selecting a Financial Advisor," which was published in December 2003.
   The Paladin Registry, he says, grew out of feedback he received from readers of his book who were looking for tools that would help them use the screening principals contained in the book.
   "They wanted solutions as opposed to doing the work themselves," he says.
   The registry started late last year with the launch of what Waymire describes as a crude database and search engine. The site was then redesigned and relaunched two weeks ago.
   The site can be used free of charge by investors, who can use the site to search for advisors by region. They are then presented with an advisor's profile, disclosures and educational and professional backgrounds. The site derives all its revenues from advisors, but Waymire stresses that advisors do not pay for a listing.
   Instead, he says, advisors submit an application and, after a screening, will only be listed if they attain a rating of three stars or more in a rating system of one to five stars.
   Once listed, advisors pay a fee of between $24 and $48 each time they are contacted by a qualified client through the site, Waymire says. Under a second classs of membership, advisors are excluded from the regional search engine and pay an annual subscription fee to only have their credentials listed on the site.
   Waymire feels the most important service the site provides to advisors is an objective verification of their credentials, which he feels is vital to independent advisors competing with advisors working under brand-name companies.
   He notes that most of the advisors listed at the site are independent operators.
   "What we really want to do is get advisors to focus on the fact that they compete with credentials," he says. "We want to position Paladin as a resource for advisors, where we will come in and document their credentials."
   Waymire says he wants to limit the number of advisors listed in the search engine to about 800 advisors to avoid situations where investors are overwhelmed by too many choices. After reaching that total, advisors can still use the site to verify their credentials, he adds.