Bank of America Chief Executive Brian Moynihan is looking to squeeze Merrill Lynch’s “Thundering Herd” for more revenue and profit through cross-selling.

In the banking business when you try to sell customers additional products it’s called “cross selling”.  Banks like BB&T and Wells Fargo have strong cross-selling reputations.  For example, Wells Fargo says it sells an average of 6 products to its retail-banking customers.

Things get messy when this cross selling breaches the boundary between bankers and brokers.  For example, Merrill Lynch brokers’ yearly bonus partially depends on how much money brokerage clients have in checking and savings accounts at parent Bank of America.

Merrill Lynch brokers and managers complain that this compensation structure essentially puts Bank of America’s own interests ahead of clients since Merrill employees have a disincentive to advise customers to withdraw money from bank accounts.  Other Merrill brokers say customer service at BofA isn’t reliable enough for them to feel good about encouraging clients to do business there.

Source: Merrill Staff Sees Red Over BofA Cross Selling (Wall Street Journal)