In reading the Interagency Statement on the Retail Sales of Nondeposit...it speaks of compensating employees for the referring customers to our Investments rep. The part that puzzled me was that it said the referral should not be dependent on whether the referral resulted in a transaction. How can banks monitor that? What would stop employees from sending friends, family, etc who have no intention of purchasing anything to meet with the rep just to receive the referral fee? Seems strange to me. Does anyone abide by this guideline in paying for referrals?

Yes, but you can still condiditon it to make it a qualified referral.

For our tellers/csrs to get the credit, the referral must meet the following criteria:

- The customer must have investable funds (that can be as little as $25 a month for some systamatic investments)

- The customer must have the time horizon (can spare the money and will not needs those monies a week from now)

- The customer must agree to talk with the rep, and actually do so

- The customer must understand that the rep may have other products to talk about than just CD's (avoids the "I was just looking for a better CD rate, so they said I had to talk to you)

If the referral meets these four criteria, and we are pretty liberal with saying they do because we want the tellers to be talking and referring, they get the referral fee regardless of the outcome (sale or not) of the conversation. At this pointit is up to the Agent to make the sale.

That sounds a bit tricky, since you don't want tellers talking too much about nondeposit products in a location where deposits are taken...and I was under the impression that non-licensed employees were very limited in what they could discuss with regards to nondeposit products...I don't know about you, but I don't want our tellers asking too many questions and getting into areas that they shouldn't be discussing...

They are not allowed to talk about products.

They are encouraged to ask questions though:

- Do you have any plans for this CD? (that you keep renewing for the last 5 years!)
- Do you have plans for this inheritance check?
- Do you have immediate plans for these funds?
- Have you ever talked to so-and-so about other options besides this CD?
- Do you know so-and-so has other options for retirement besides our passbook account?
- I see you have a custodial account for your 4 year old. Is this for college savings? So-and-so may have some other options to help you save.
- Your 25... what have you done to start planning for your retirement? So-and-so may have some afordable ways to help you get started.

And then they just as quickly conclude with:

- Can I have so-and-so give you a call so you can chat further?
- I see so-and-so is alone at her desk right now... would you like me to introduce you quickly?
- If you wish, I can schedule a time for you to meet so-and-so... does Tuesday morning or Friday afternoon work better for you?

If you do not have your tellers asking question of your customers about thier money, then you will not realize any relationship, or dollar growth. You do not build trust and relationships with customers by sending mailers and cold calling. Your tellers, who you customers interact with daily and trust, are in the best position to get the customer to open their mind up to other possibilities, and can quickly identify opportunities when they happen. Utilize this tool.

Good points. We have not yet rolled out our Investments Group, but plan on doing so within the next 90 days. We would do ourselves right by using that time to train our tellers on proper interactions with their customers, and proper techniques on transitioning potential sales to our investment rep.

Thanks for the discussion.