Banks that offer customers an investment service would be hard-pressed to lose money on it, according to researcher Richard Ayotte.

“Virtually all banks that are in the investment services area make money from it. Very few don’t,” said Ayotte, CEO of American Brokerage Consultants, a Florida-based researcher that sells studies examining banks of all sizes.

For the most part, banks simply use third-party investment services’ employees in and let them do the work. It’s the easy – and common – way for banks to simply pocket the fees without hiring anybody. Minus administrative and promotion costs, “it’s found money,” Ayotte said.

But that doesn’t mean banks will find it worth the trouble, Ayotte acknowledged. And other analysts were less enthusiastic, saying banks that execute investment services plans wisely can start to bring in healthy amounts of cash – but for others, investment services is a useless appendage to the bank’s business.

These considerations are important for an increasing number of banks. One in four U.S. community banks has some sort of investment offering, said Bill Reid, president of Independent Community Bankers’ Financial Services, an ICBA subsidiary.

And the past few years have brought more fee-hungry banks looking to adopt investment services, or graduate onto a more ambitious wealth management offering.

Those that actively sell the idea to customers and integrate the investment piece into the bank’s activities, he said, tend to get more profit out of it. Others merely put investment services into place because they feel they should and want to be able to tell customers they have it.

“Some banks are in the business purely on a defensive posture, frankly,” Reid said, and consequently don’t make much money off it.

Analysts cite a host of reasons as to why more bankers are interested in having the services, including consumers’ post-recession desire to work with smaller financial institutions, as well as to get trusted advice on their investments.

But that lends itself less to investment brokerage and more to the costlier “wealth management” side. At its simplest, banks can do as Ayotte described and contract with a third party that puts an employee in the bank to broker investment transactions, such as transferring money to a mutual fund. The broker takes a fee for every transaction, and the bank takes a fee of its own.

Wealth management fees, however, are based upon the amount of money invested. It’s more lucrative in the long rum, Ayotte said, but it requires bigger start-up costs and patience to build up a base of business.

Intriguing Prospects

But more banks are intrigued about the prospect, particularly since all those aging Baby Boomers will soon need to transfer their wealth to younger generations. Banks such as the Dedham Institution for Savings want to aid that transition, said Gerard Lavoie, spokesman for Dedham.

So, about two years ago, the bank pondered its options and decided to contract with Plimoth Investment Advisors, a private management company. The bank refers customers to Plimoth, whose advisors meet right in the bank. A flat fee is split between the two entities, Lavoie said.

That meant far lower start-up costs, he said, and the partnership has worked well. But, he acknowledged, the bank was looking to increase the number of customers using the service: “It takes a while to get traction.”

Sean Cunniff, brokerage and wealth management research director with Needham-based TowerGroup, said banks have to overcome customers’ assumptions that banking and wealth management are things that happen separately.

“You just don’t think, intuitively, that [community banks] are the best place to get investments,” he said.

More Massachusetts banks work to overcome that mindset, and have found a number of ways try to circumvent it. DanversBank, which has a long-established practice, partners with a third-party services provider, but keeps the individual advisor – who works in the bank — on the bank’s payroll.

That keeps the advisor integrated more fully into the bank’s operations, and that advisor is tasked with comprehensive wealth management for customers, said Don Fournier, executive vice president.

Reading Co-Operative Bank established its wealth management practice several years ago and opted to have its advisor on the payroll of a third-party provider, Boston-based Baystate Financial.

Julieanne Thurlow, CEO, said the advisor is a Baystate employee, eliminating a lot of overhead on the project.

“Every dollar of new business ends up dropping straight to the bottom line,” she said.