Sallie Krawcheck, president of Global Wealth and Investment Management at Bank of America, would like to set the record straight when it comes to Merrill Lynch, perhaps the Big Daddy of all wirehouses. The brokerage is not hemorrhaging top producers to independents, like LPL.

In fact, she underscored in a speech last week that Merrill Lynch only lost 36 of its advisers to independent firms last year, reports Securities Technology Monitor. In the same period, it picked up 25 advisers from independents. So the net loss was just 11 advisers--out of a total of 15,500 advisers. As for assets, it gained more than it lost.

Krawcheck also sought to dispel a few moth myths. She noted that her bank doesn't set goals for the amount of products they hope to "cross-sell." She doesn't even like the term. At Merrill Lynch, "customer satisfaction is the measure of success for advisers, not how many products can be sold. And the firm sold off its proprietary asset management business, as a proof point."

That said, it's fair to say the idea of cross-selling has been a big one at Bank of America, where the top brass no doubt want to do more. Krawcheck would surely like to do more of this too. But it's also fair to say that the whole idea makes brokers nervous.

We'll point you back to a quote by one advisor who left for an independent recently. "In the last six months, we'd become bankers as well as advisers, and it just took up too much time. I have no problem looking at banking products on behalf of clients, but I don't want to spend my time on late credit card payments or checking fees. I want to focus strictly on financial planning."

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