Welcome to Biscop Cross Border Investment Services

In early 2025, I made the decision to change the name of our operating business from Stephen Bishop and Associates Wealth Management Services, which we have used as our branding since I joined the Raymond James family of companies in 2006, to Biscop Cross Border Investment Services to better reflect the unique specialized investment services we offer.

Over the past 19 years since joining Raymond James, the industry has changed as well as the focus of our business offerings and services, and the clientele we best align with has changed too. I also got older and wanted to change the name of the operating business to better reflect the services we offer, while keeping my name present with a description of the service offering.

It took a number of attempts to have the new operating name approved by the Nova Scotia, Canada and USA business name registries. One thing I discovered is that using my surname of today (Bishop) wasn’t going to work, as Bishop Cross Border Investment Services had too many similarities to Bishop Investment Services and Bishop Wealth Management Services and so on, and therefore, I could not get it approved.

Every time, I had to pick the name, run it through the business registries, through the industry regulators, hire my lawyer to submit the name to the province, etc., just to have it rejected at the end.

Then, coincidentally, I was looking at a coffee mug my mother had given me years ago that had the Bishop family crest on it and I thought, “Wait a minute... Bishop has been around for centuries and there have been multiple versions of the spelling over that time to get to today’s spelling.” So, I started the research and found the following.

The first piece of our brand name, “Biscop”, pronounced “Bee-shop” , is the Old English spelling and pronunciation of today’s Bishop. My surname.

This is from the surname database:

This interesting name is of Anglo-Saxon origin and derives from the Olde English pre-7th century "biscop, bisceop", bishop, in Middle English "biscop". The ultimate origin is from the Greek "episkopos", overseer, from "epi", on, over, with "skopein", to look. The early Christians adopted the Greek word for the overseers of their local communities, and derivatives of the term are now found in every European language, for example, "obispo" in Spanish, and "Bischof" in German. In England, the surname from "bishop" was applied for a number of reasons; for service in the household of a bishop; for some supposed resemblance to the bearing or appearance of a bishop; or from selection as the "boy bishop" on St. Nicholas's Day, the 6th of December. The surname development since 1166 (see below) includes: Thurstan le Byssop (1240, Essex), and Thomas le Byscop (1297, Cornwall), while the modern forms include Bishop, Bishopp and Bisshopp. Among the recordings of the name in London is that of the marriage of John Bishopp and Agnes Langton at St. Gregory's by St. Paul, on August 26th 1577. A Coat of Arms granted to the family is three bezants on a red bend cottised, on an ermine shield, the Crest being a silver griffin sejant resting the dexter claw on an escutcheon, also silver. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Lefwinus Bissop, which was dated 1166, in the "Pipe Rolls of Nottinghamshire", during the reign of King Henry 11, known as "The Builder of Churches", 1154-1189. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England, this was known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop", often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.

The second piece, “Cross Border Investment Services”, highlights our specialty of being dual-licensed in both Canada and the USA to provide investment services.

We offer investment solutions to both Canadian and USA resident clients, and more specifically, cross-border investment solutions to those residents of both Canada and the USA who have moved from one country to the other.

Discovering the need for an advisory service that can help them navigate the complicated rules of their residency change, our guidance allows them to maintain their current investment account structures in the country they moved from.

Only dually-licensed advisors working within dually-licensed investment firms can do this work and we are one of the only firms in Atlantic Canada who can facilitate this service.

So, there you have it. A different business name, but with the same people and no changes in our relationship with our partner parent firms, Raymond James Ltd. and Raymond James USA Ltd.

Yours truly,
Stephen B. “Biscop”