In August 2004 three large Wall Street firms, Smith Barney, Merrill Lynch and UBS, signed the Protocol for Broker Recruiting. A broker who moves from one signing firm to another may take a short list of facts about the clients he or she personally served: name, address, phone number, email address and account title. Nothing else may be taken.
In 2018 Paul Reilly, the CEO of Raymond James Financial, explained the idea. Clients, he said, have a right to know where their adviser is and to choose their advisers.
Morgan Stanley left the agreement in late 2017, and UBS and Citigroup left at the end of that year. In 2018 more than 1,500 smaller firms were still part of it.