A National Bank of CanadaDeborah Baic/The Globe and Mail
National Bank of Canada has a new head for its carrying broker business, Correspondent Network, as the company sticks to a sector that others are starting to abandon.
The bank hired Patrick Primerano, who spent 18 years at TD Toronto-Dominion Bank, where he was in charge of institutional services. He fills a post that been empty since the previous head, David Burnes, left in September.
Correspondent Network is the biggest provider of back-office, serving about 70 other brokerage firms and 50 portfolio managers. National Bank handles tasks such as clearing on their behalf.
The carrying broker business is a tough one at the moment. Costs are rising as regulators demand more spending on compliance systems, and pricing has been pushed down as brokerage firms try to cut costs. National Bank's biggest rival in the business, Penson Canada, has pulled out of Canada, but National is betting it can make money because it has significant scale.
National has also historically used its Correspondent Network relationships as a farm team when looking for brokerage acquisitions. A number of the wealth-management firms that National has purchased over the years have been clients of Correspondent Network, including Wellington West.