Citi Personal Wealth Management plans to launch its referral program to outside registered investment advisors this summer, according to Investment News.

The unit, which operates primarily from Citibank branches, is led by Deborah McWhinney, the former head of Charles Schwab's institutional brokerage division for independent investment advisors.

The pricing scheme for Citi's program will be different than the one she oversaw at Schwab, substituting a flat 20 per cent of an RIA's fee on the referred assets for the 0.25 per cent of assets that Schwab collects on accounts referred to advisors, the publication said, citing an unnamed source.

The publication said that Citi plans to initiate the program with “a handful of highly-qualified RIA firms” in New York and San Francisco within the next several months and expand the program into 2011.

RIAs will be required to use Pershing Advisor Solutions as the custodian for most assets of referred clients, Tim Williams, director of field operations for Citi Personal Wealth Management, was quoted as saying.

The referral initiative is part of a strategic shift that McWhinney announced last October after Smith Barney and its 11,000-plus financial advisors were folded into a Morgan Stanley-controlled joint venture.