A sometimes defensive Bernie Clark makes four points pertaining to Schwab's RIA custody business in an update to Wall Street
The overseer of Schwab RIAs explains the San Francisco giant's difficult-to-do-business-with reputation and the long rollout of SII
Related Moves
TD Ameritrade's board suddenly pushes out Tim Hockey after his big misread of RIAs; Tom Bradley name-dropped as successor
The CEO broke the TD promise never to compete with RIAs, took it back and got sent packing
July 23, 2019 at 4:30 AM
Fidelity will hire 4,000 staff in first half -- a staggering number but a tapering off from 'unprecedented' rate in 2021-2022 that catapulted it to 68,000 employees
The $10.3 trillion giant explains its hiring -- in a layoff environment -- as an RIA-like goal, namely having the human bandwidth to develop 'lifetime' relationships with its 40 million investors
February 17, 2023 at 2:49 AM
Fidelity Investments' plan to hire 12,000 by October hit wall of macro-headwinds; no problem, it landed at 15,000; Schwab keeps hiring, too
The Boston giant's people grab could be derailed by indigestion -- the inability to assimilate staff -- an analyst says; but it has yet to materialize so the hiring spree rolls on.
October 29, 2022 at 12:02 AM
Apex nabs Jon Patullo from 'Schwabitrade' to 'raise the bar' and make his new firm's RIA system as 'frictionless' as the old one
The loved and admired TD Ameritrade software chief will bring his playbook -- and possibly Schwab's -- to Apex, which continues to try putting a winning front-end on its old Penson backend, a source says
October 11, 2022 at 12:40 AM
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Tiburon Strategic Advisors
Asset Manager for RIAs
Top Executive: Charles Roame
TD Ameritrade
Asset Custodian
Top Executive: Tom Nally
Stephen Winks
Bernie gets the big picture, but as an observer , not as a participant that drives innovation, but simply a reaction to it.
Schwab is defining itself here, not as a strategic collaborator but as a vendor of services separate and distinct from the core activities of the advisor.
This is neither good or bad, just agnostic.
For advisors to thrive they may need more engaged thought leadership which is actionable, which can only come from advisors who afford scale as early adopters.
Thus the shift in industry leadership from custodians to large RIAs who will leave a legacy of advancing industry redefining innovation.
Brent Broadeski, Ron Carson, Fielding Miller as large scale RIAs who are the early adopters will leave a legacy by advancing innovation and scale as practitioners. This goes far beyond the roll-up model that just focuses on the extrapolation of the brokerage business model where IARs sell advice as a product rather than treating advice as an expert prudent process that advisors manage in the client’s best interest.
This is an important distinction as the difference is professional standing and an in-depth understanding of advisory services, its processes, technology, work flow management, conflict management all of which are required for advisors to control their value proposition, cost structure, margins and professional standing.
It would be nice if Schwab were to create large scale institutionalized support for expert fiduciary standing, but it will keep its distance as that would trigger fiduciary liability by being prescriptive. Of course large scale RIAs have no fear of fiduciary duty and professional standing, thus the important leadership role they play in the industry’s evolution.
SCW
Mike Byrnes
It is interesting to see that 80% of net new assets are coming from organic growth — Mike Byrnes, President of Byrnes Consulting, LLC, www.byrnesconsulting.com
