What You Have to Know
- The ultimate transition of TD Ameritrade accounts to Schwab was broadly profitable however not with out hiccups.
- RIAs complained of undertrained name middle employees and lengthy wait instances.
- Schwab helps corporations navigate the adjustments, Tom Bradley mentioned.
Mark Wolter’s shopper, newly recognized with Stage 3 lung most cancers, wanted cash to pay his payments. However, after the transition of TD Ameritrade accounts to the Schwab custodial platform over Labor Day weekend, a long-standing authorization to switch funds from his retirement account to his checking account was not in place.
“Unexpectedly,” after the conversion, “they’re like, ‘you don’t have the right authorizations to switch funds for this shopper,’” mentioned Wolter, a accomplice at RIA agency Beacon Wealth Advisors in McHenry, Illinois. “Now I’ve bought to place him via the ringer of, ‘OK, now you’re going to have to go surfing and fill out these kinds in order that we are able to do that.’”
Because of this and different issues he skilled since his agency made the transfer from TD Ameritrade, Wolter mentioned: “I can let you know the corporate line from Schwab could be very deceptive.”
Schwab executives not too long ago declared the ultimate TD Ameritrade integration weekend — through which 7,000 advisors with 3.6 million shopper accounts, plus 3.6 million retail shopper accounts, with a complete of $1.3 trillion in property — successful. Certainly, trade observers mentioned the transfer went easily general.
However the transition shouldn’t be with out its frustrations, advisors mentioned.
“The service staff members are very undertrained and primarily learn scripts,” Wolter mentioned.
Wolter mentioned he realized that the variety of service middle calls had possible “exploded” after the transition and that the service middle individuals his agency’s 4 advisors spoke to appeared to have “nice personalities” and had been “making an attempt to be useful.”
“Nonetheless,” he mentioned, “if you name them, it looks as if all they’re doing is basically, I’ll use the time period Googling … by looking the Schwab system for info as a result of they don’t know what to present you [as an answer].”
One other drawback was his agency was advised it didn’t have the authority to entry its charge account, “which has cash in it that we use for our operations … paying our employees and whatnot … [But] we maintain cash in a financial institution domestically, too, thankfully.”
It ended up taking two weeks to get entry to these funds, he advised ThinkAdvisor.
