As big clients' interest in traditional broking services wanes and the cost of insurance plummets, the brokers are doing their best to collect advisory fees along with sales commissions.

ECONOMIST: Insurance broking

Douglas Ferrans, author of a report on equity underwriting for the Institutional Investors Council, says the bundling of charges for corporate-broking services with underwriting fees raises the suspicion that shareholders are paying over the odds.

ECONOMIST: Investment-banking fees

It is now making much more of an effort to sell services like credit cards, broking and asset management to its well-heeled clients.

ECONOMIST: A Titan or a Titanic price? | The

But, after studying a high-tech corporate-services provider, a French grocery group, a German broking house and an American mail-order company, the authors found little correlation between loyalty and profitability.

ECONOMIST: Not all loyal customers are profitable��or vice versa