How Merrill Lynch changed the way people are paid on Wall Street By Business Insider

Charles Mara was just so important in Wall Street in the sense of bringing individual investors into the market when he started his firm and of the original Merrill Lynch it was very different from its approach to individual investors than the other firms the firm’s before Merrill Lynch individual investor would we call in the business retail investors often looked upon as sheep to be shorn Charles Mario instituted very ethical approach to dealing with the retail investor didn’t nobody nobody else had done that before investigate then invest that was the byword of Merrill Lynch back in those days he also did something kind of radically different John Wall Street he compensated the the sales people not on a commission basis but on a salary basis and that was done just to give confidence to the investors and well-placed confidence because the idea of the broker was it was too

be a counselor putting the best interest of the customer first that subject has has re-emerged very recently in the Obama Administration is Department of Labor now has instituted rules for how sales are made and how the decisions are made on what is appropriate for customers there’s a tougher standard there where the broker really becomes a fiduciary and guess what that that all goes back to Charles Merrill’s philosophy