Following a historic integration, Schwab’s next chapter is continued growth

Seeing Through Clients’ Eyes is the heart of Schwab’s timeless strategy—and the foundation on which the company was built to create a better place for investors. With the successful integration of Ameritrade behind us, the question I hear most often when I meet with our stockholders or employees is, “What’s next for Schwab?” The answer is clear: we will continue to fulfill our purpose of championing our clients’ financial goals with passion and integrity. In doing so, our next chapter will be about continued growth as a combined firm. 

We’ve welcomed more than 17 million Ameritrade client accounts and $1.9 trillion in assets to Schwab through our historic integration. As I look ahead, I’m most excited about the fact that we can now offer our firms’ combined capabilities to more clients than ever before, and truly make a difference in each of their financial lives. For example, all Schwab clients now have access to what I believe is undeniably the strongest trader offer in the industry: Schwab Trading Powered by Ameritrade™. In addition, we’ll continue to introduce former Ameritrade clients to the breadth and depth of Schwab’s wealth management and lending capabilities. These clients can now conduct more of their financial life in one place where they weren’t able to do so previously. 

I shared more about how we’re approaching this exciting next chapter at our 2024 Institutional Investor Day. Our Through Clients’ Eyes approach remains oriented towards growth for the long-term. In the near-term, we’re implementing that strategy through four focus areas: Scale and Efficiency, Win-Win Monetization, Client Segmentation, and Brilliant Basics.

Scale and efficiency is about realizing economies of scale and maintaining our cost discipline. We are the low-cost leader among peers, and that’s significant for our clients for many reasons. Less money out of our clients’ pockets means more of their wealth is working towards meeting their goals. It also enables us to reinvest in our clients over time. And, it means we can continue to disrupt the industry—benefiting all investors as we have since we opened our doors more than 50 years ago.

We want to meet more of our clients’ total financial needs the Schwab way: Through Clients’ Eyes. This means we strive to provide our clients with more selection, higher quality, and better value than the competition. We do this through wealth management solutions, lending capabilities, and access to high-quality, fairly priced products. Clients get the ease and convenience of having more of their financial life in one place and the benefits of addressing their financial needs holistically. This allows us to build deeper relationships to retain clients and attract new ones while diversifying our revenue streams.

While we will always meet the needs of a wide spectrum of investors and independent advisor firms, we recognize that our clients want more personalized experiences. We’re meeting this growing demand by providing tailored education, enhanced service, evolved relationship models, and specialized capabilities to serve the unique needs of distinct client segments.

We are doing this for our Advisor Services and Retail clients alike. For example, within our Retail business, we recently introduced specialized asset-based segments for High Net Worth and Ultra-High Net Worth clients: Schwab Private Client Services™ and Schwab Private Wealth Services™. Within Advisor Services, we’re evolving our relationship infrastructure to meet the specific needs of RIAs.

Client segmentation is recognizing that personalized experiences matter. And the best experiences are those that are engaging, exceptional, and—above all—easy.

That brings us to the Brilliant Basics. It encompasses not only our commitment to making it easier for our clients to do business with us, but our belief that getting all the basics right for our clients is key to their long-term loyalty and willingness to refer others to us. With more than 35 million active brokerage accounts, the fastest way we can grow is when our clients speak positively about us within their personal networks. We want to delight our clients with exceptional experiences—in every interaction. 

If we nail the basics day-in and day-out for clients—picking up the phones, answering client questions, providing straightforward and intuitive digital experiences—our clients will remain at Schwab, working to grow their wealth over the long-term.

Our Through Clients’ Eyes approach comes to life each and every day across our teams and at every level of our firm. I’m inspired by the energy I see for serving investors in our country while making a positive impact on their financial lives, and I’m looking forward with incredible optimism to all we can achieve as a combined company.