Iachello said the firm will begin implementing the changes in three phases, the first of which will begin this month and that "the introduction of the new system gave us a selling point for recruiting this year," he said.
The firm says it is also ramping up its product offerings.
With the purchase of the stock and bond mutual-fund business of Bank of America Corp.'s Columbia Management unit, which will close this spring, Ameriprise will become one of the biggest mutual fund managers in the U.S. The company already pushes its products through other subsidiaries, such as RiverSource Investments and Threadneedle, J& W Seligman & Co.
In addition, Ameriprise announced this month that it will open up its annuities platform to three additional carriers: AXA Equitable Life Insurance Co., Lincoln National Corp. and MetLife Inc. Previously the firm's advisors could only sell the firm's own proprietary investments.
The firm also created a new central annuities support desk to field phone calls from advisors about what kinds of products might suit their clients.
Despite the small opening of its annuities space, critics say Ameriprise is actually going against the larger trend of wealth-management firms moving to so-called open architecture, which allow advisors to use outside financial products and money managers instead of a firm's proprietary products.
"Ameriprise has given a lot of lip service to open architecture, but the truth is they're still pushing their proprietary products," Ellis says.
Copyright (c) 2010, Dow Jones. For more information about Dow Jones' services for advisors, please click here.