U.S. Bancorp Advisors LLC, member FINRA and SIPC (sipc.org), is registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission as both a broker-dealer and an investment adviser. Brokerage and investment advisory services and fees differ, and it is important for you to understand these differences.

Additional free and simple tools are available to research firms and financial professionals like ours at investor.gov/crs, which provides educational materials about broker-dealers, investment advisers and investing. If you have questions, please feel free to talk with your financial advisor.

 

What investment services and advice can you provide me?

We offer both brokerage and investment advisory services to retail investors. Here are the primary differences you would see:

Brokerage services

Our brokerage services include buying and selling mutual funds, stocks, bonds and other types of individual securities in our Full Service or Self Directed brokerage account types. More investment products are available in a Full Service account compared to a Self Directed account.

Our Full Service accounts allow you to work with a financial advisor who will provide recommendations from time to time or at your request. With our Self Directed brokerage accounts, you place trades on your own, either online or by phone (for an additional fee) through the U.S. Bancorp Advisors Client Service Center. Online tools and resources are available at no additional cost, but financial advisor recommendations are not provided on Self Directed brokerage accounts. Recommendations are provided by financial advisors for Full Service accounts serviced by both in field advisors and our Wealth Connect Team, available exclusively by phone.

We do not monitor your account or investments for you, or provide ongoing advice, unless we state otherwise in writing, so you should ensure you are reviewing the investments in your accounts.

You make the ultimate decision regarding the purchase or sale of your investments. At U.S. Bancorp Advisors, we do not offer discretionary brokerage accounts, in which your financial advisor manages your account.

We have an established evaluation process to determine which products and resources we make available to our brokerage clients.

There is no account minimum for any of our brokerage accounts, although certain investment products have minimum investment amounts.

Investment advisory services

Our advisory services include investment advisory managed accounts (in the form of wrap accounts through the Personal Portfolios Wrap Program), and financial planning which is a part of our common services. Your financial advisor will provide ongoing monitoring and advice for your investments in advisory managed accounts; however financial planning is not monitored by a financial advisor.

Investment advisory managed accounts are available on both a non-discretionary and discretionary basis. In non-discretionary accounts, you make the ultimate decision regarding the purchase or sale of your investments. In discretionary accounts, we have the authority to make investment decisions on your behalf without discussing them with you. In certain circumstances, you may limit our discretionary authority; such as, limiting purchases to certain types of securities for your account. Accounts with restrictions will perform differently than accounts without restrictions. We also offer discretionary accounts managed by an affiliated and/or unaffiliated third-party manager. We have an established evaluation process to determine which products and resources we make available to our investment advisory clients.

Our advisory accounts do have minimum amount requirements; please see the Personal Portfolios Wrap Program Brochure found below under the additional information section.

Whether you invest through a brokerage or an advisory account, we do not limit our platform to particular asset classes, proprietary investments or to investments that result in our receipt of third-party compensation. However, certain investment categories are limited to proprietary investments and we expect to receive third-party compensation with respect to most of the investments we sell. When we recommend that you open a brokerage account and provide recommendations and other services for your brokerage account, we will be acting as a broker-dealer. When we recommend that you open an advisory account and provide recommendations and advice for your advisory accounts, we will be acting as an investment adviser. When we provide financial planning services, we will be acting as an investment adviser.

 

For additional information, see:

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Here are questions to ask your financial advisor to help you understand the services you’ll receive:

  • Given my financial situation, should I choose an investment advisory service? Should I choose a brokerage service? Should I choose both types of services? Why or why not?
  • How will you choose investments to recommend to me?
  • What is your relevant experience, including your licenses, education and other qualifications? What do these qualifications mean?

What fees will I pay?

Brokerage accounts

In a brokerage account, you generally pay a commission for stock transactions (an amount charged to execute your trade), a markup/markdown for bond transactions (the difference between the market price and the amount you pay) and a sales charge for mutual fund transactions (an amount added to the market value of the shares). With annuities, we are paid by a direct payment from the insurance company. Because we earn revenue each time you trade in a brokerage account, we have a financial incentive when you trade more frequently and in larger amounts.

Some types of investments, such as mutual funds and annuities, charge ongoing fees that will affect the money you make on your investment over time. We receive certain ongoing fees from mutual fund companies, such as 12b-1 fees in connection with your investments.

There are other fees charged to your account. Some examples include annual fees for brokerage and individual retirement accounts, transfer, wire fees and termination fees. In addition, certain brokerage-related and administrative fees apply to your brokerage account, which is held in custody or “carried” at National Financial Services (“NFS”), our unaffiliated clearing broker. Please refer to the fee schedules found below under the additional information section.

Investment advisory services

In an advisory account you pay a negotiable wrap fee based on the value of the assets in your account (including cash), billed to your account quarterly. As a firm, we are compensated for our advisory services by the asset-based wrap fee you pay. An advisory wrap account incorporates most of your transaction and administrative costs into one simple, quarterly fee. We’re also compensated by revenue sharing arrangements. In addition, we receive 12b-1 fees from mutual fund companies as part of your advisory account investments, but we credit these fees back to your account.

For the Personal Portfolios Wrap Program, depending on your investment selection, your asset based wrap fee includes the advisory fee paid to us, fees paid to the third-party platform manager for their technology and administrative services, the third-party custodian for custody including clearing and execution of trades, and third-party asset manager(s) (if any). Therefore, a wrap fee is higher than a typical asset-based advisory fee that does not incorporate the fees previously described. The more assets that are in your account, the more you will pay us in fees. Therefore, we have an incentive to encourage you to increase the amount of assets in your account.

There may be other fees charged, such as exchange fees and transfer taxes, and the costs of trades executed with or through third-parties. For a list of additional fees charged, please see the Personal Portfolios Wrap Program Brochure and fee schedule found below under the additional information section.

 

Additional Information

You will pay fees and costs whether you make or lose money on your investments. Fees and costs will reduce any amount of money you make on your investments over time. Please make sure you understand what fees and costs you are paying.

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Here's a question to ask your financial advisor to help you understand the fees you’ll pay:

Help me understand how these fees and costs might affect my investments. If I give you $10,000 to invest, how much will go to fees and costs, and how much will be invested for me?

What are your legal obligations to me when providing recommendations as my broker-dealer or when acting as my investment adviser? How else does your firm make money and what conflicts of interest do you have?

When we provide you with a recommendation as your broker-dealer or act as your investment adviser, we have to act in your best interest and not put our interest ahead of yours. At the same time, the way we make money creates some conflicts with your interests. You should understand and ask us about these conflicts because they can affect the recommendations and investment advice we provide you.

Here are some examples to help you understand what this means:

  1. Proprietary products: Our financial advisors may recommend First American Money Market Funds, mutual funds that are advised by U.S. Bancorp Asset Management, Inc., our affiliate. In non-qualified investment advisory accounts, First American Money Market Funds are used as the default for our Sweep Program. Mutual funds, including First American Money Market Funds, charge their own management and other fees. If a financial advisor recommends one or more of these proprietary products, U.S. Bancorp Advisors or its affiliates will receive more compensation than if the advisor recommends non-proprietary products. This creates an incentive for us to promote the sale of proprietary products. Your financial advisor is not compensated more to sell proprietary funds. There are limitations related to using proprietary products in investment advisory accounts. For additional information, please see our Personal Portfolios Wrap Program Brochure found below under the additional information section.
  2. Third-party payments: As a broker-dealer, we receive compensation from third parties in the form of 12b-1 fees, when we recommend or sell mutual funds. A portion of the 12b-1 fees received is shared with our financial advisors. We also receive volume concessions for unit investment trusts and structured products. Our clearing firm, NFS, charges us a fee to provide transaction, execution, settlement, custody and other related services in your account. We receive expense reductions from NFS based on the assets under management on the brokerage platform. NFS reduces the asset-based clearance and execution fees charged to us as our assets under management reaches predetermined thresholds. This creates an incentive for us to recommend investments in products that pay us more third-party compensation over those that do not or that pay us lesser amounts.
  3. Revenue sharing: As a broker-dealer, we receive mutual fund and annuity support fees from the advisers or distributors of mutual funds and annuities that have access to our investment professionals. We use these to market our products and educate financial advisors about the offerings on our platform. This arrangement creates an incentive for us to offer and promote these products over others.
  4. Principal trading: In brokerage accounts (but not investment advisory accounts) for our fixed income business, we often buy or sell for our own account, earning a markup/markdown when either buying from, or selling to, retail investors.
  5. Bank Deposit Program: For brokerage accounts, our Bank Deposit Program is the default option for the uninvested cash in your account. With this option, our affiliated bank receives your otherwise uninvested cash as a deposit and can use it to generate revenue and other benefits for the bank. The bank pays us a fee based on the amount of such deposits. Because of the benefits U.S. Bancorp Advisors and U.S. Bank receive from the Bank Deposit Program, U.S. Bancorp Advisors has a financial incentive for you to allocate more of your portfolio to cash. The default Bank Deposit Program is not a recommendation and you can select something different. Other cash management options may pay you more. You can ask your financial advisor about your options.
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Ask your financial advisor:

How might your conflicts of interest affect me, and how will you address them?

For additional information, see:

How do your financial professionals make money?

Brokerage accounts

Our financial advisors receive a portion of the commissions that we receive as compensation for selling you a product and/ or service. Financial advisors are paid a monthly commission based on their monthly “production level,” which is based on an internal commission payout grid.

All qualified sales revenue for the current month and the previous five months are aggregated into a rolling six-month average calculation, which is used to determine the payment to the financial advisor. The compensation our financial advisors earn is a conflict of interest because they have a financial incentive to recommend investments that pay them more compensation.

We mitigate this conflict by limiting compensation within product categories and requiring financial advisors to make recommendations that are in your best interest.

Some financial advisors are eligible for special incentive compensation in the form of recruitment and retention bonuses based on client assets brought to the firm and revenue generation.

Some financial advisors are eligible to receive compensation for referrals made to our affiliates. The referral fees paid to financial advisors do not entail an additional cost to you.

Investment advisory accounts

Our financial advisors receive a portion of the investment advisory fees we receive as compensation based on your assets under management in the Personal Portfolios Wrap Program. This compensation represents a conflict of interest, because we and our financial advisors make more money when your account balance increases, and therefore have an incentive to recommend you increase the assets in your account. Because our compensation increases as your account balance grows, we and our financial advisors have an incentive to provide advice and services intended to help your account’s investment performance.

For both broker-dealer and investment adviser services, our financial advisors occasionally receive gifts of nominal value (limited to less than $100 each calendar year) from product or service vendors, including our affiliates. Certain vendors may also invite our employees to training/ educational events or host reasonable business entertainment that is deemed necessary and/or customary industry practices. These product or service vendors may be recommended to you.

These benefits can create a conflict of interest to recommend one product over another. In addition, some financial advisors are not compensated for transactions in your account if the combined account balances in your U.S. Bank, N.A., and U.S. Bancorp Advisors relationship do not meet or exceed $100,000. This can deter the financial advisor from recommending strategies that could be beneficial to you but do not result in a qualifying relationship balance that meets the threshold for compensation or may incent financial advisors to recommend a trade that is inconsistent with your financial situation but meets the threshold for compensation.

Do you or your financial professionals have legal or disciplinary history?

Yes. Visit investor.gov/crs for a free and simple search tool to research us and our financial professionals.

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Ask your financial advisor:

As a financial professional, do you have any disciplinary history? For what type of conduct?

If you would like additional, up-to-date information or a copy of this disclosure, please visit usbank.com/crs or call the U.S. Bancorp Advisors Client Service Center at 800-888-4700.

 

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Here are questions to ask your financial advisor to help you understand who will be working with your account:

  • Who is my primary contact person? Is he or she a representative of an investment adviser or a broker-dealer?
  • Who can I talk to if I have concerns about how this person is treating me?
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Disclosures

Investment and insurance products and services including annuities are:
Not a deposit • Not FDIC insured • May lose value • Not bank guaranteed • Not insured by any federal government agency.

U.S. Wealth Management – U.S. Bancorp Advisors is a marketing logo for U.S. Bancorp Advisors.

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Please refer to our disclosures and agreements.

Brokerage and investment advisory products and services are offered by U.S. Bancorp Advisors, LLC, an SEC-registered broker-dealer, investment adviser, member FINRA / SIPC, and subsidiary of U.S. Bancorp and affiliate of U.S. Bank, N.A.

U.S. Bancorp Advisors and their representatives do not provide tax or legal advice. Your tax and financial situation are unique. You should consult your tax and/or legal advisor for advice and information concerning your particular situation.

Insurance services are offered by USBA Insurance Services, a dba of U.S. Bancorp Advisors, having a California domicile and principal place of business at 800 N. Brand Blvd., 16th Floor, Glendale, CA 91203, CA Insurance License #6011694. Products may not be available in all states.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) Rule 2267 provides for BrokerCheck to allow investors to learn about the professional background, business practices, and conduct of FINRA member firms or their brokers. To request such information, contact FINRA toll-free at 1-800‐289‐9999 or via https://brokercheck.finra.org. An investor brochure describing BrokerCheck is also available through FINRA.