President and CEO Rick Wurster on Yahoo! Finance

Charles Schwab President & CEO Rick Wurster on Yahoo Finance - March 12, 2025

Madison Mills: Joining us now, we've got Rick Wurster: Worcester, Charles Schwab president and CEO, and Yahoo Finance Executive Editor Brian Sozzi is still with us, bringing us the conversation. Rick Wurster, thank you for making time for us. We really appreciate you coming in. 

Rick Wurster: Thanks so much for having me on. It's my pleasure. 

Madison Mills: So I know that you have seen a lot of activity from the brokerage and that that activity has increased this year. But talk to me about what you're seeing in terms of investor positioning amid the market volatility.

Rick Wurster: Well, I think investors are taking a range of activity based on what their financial plan is, what they're trying to accomplish. In general, we see a range of emotions among our clients, from nervousness to a focus on the long term. If we look specifically at what our clients are doing, we look at things like margin activity is a good pulse for what our more active traders are doing. And our margin, our level of margin, has stayed roughly the same over the last month, and our margin clients have actually bought equities in the last week. So I think clients are generally hanging in there at the moment. And the benefit of being a part of Charles Schwab is that we have the opportunity to talk with them and help them understand where they are with their plan and what they're trying to accomplish. 

Brian Sozzi: What are some of their biggest concerns at this moment? 

Rick Wurster: I think there's a variety of concerns. I think you've seen the market turn or worry about growth. You've seen in bond yields. You see it in break evens, you see it in the sectors that are outperforming. So when you look at investors broadly, I think the biggest concern on their mind is just a softer growth picture. And I think that's that's part of what's weighing on weighing on investors. 

Brian Sozzi: You just took over. Did you pass the 100-day mark? You just took over as CEO? 

Rick Wurster: I don't think I'm at 100 days yet. I still have a little ways to go. 

Brian Sozzi: Right. Okay. Is it hard to obviously your CEO? Is it hard to plan your business in this environment where one moment we have tariffs, next we don't? Then they're back on, then they're back off and then something else is coming. Like, what has this meant for your job? 

Rick Wurster: It's not hard at all to plan our business because we focus on the long run. We focus on our clients' outcomes and making sure we can get them to where they need to be in their financial life. We've been in business for 50 years, and for 50 years, we have relentlessly stood by our clients and helped them get to where they need to be. And over that time, we've seen up markets, we've seen down markets, we've seen good economic times and bad economic times. But through it all, we stand there with the client and work with them in a variety of ways. And that's what we're doing today. And this year, I call it a liftoff year for us because we're coming out of the integration we did with Ameritrade. And it's all systems go for us. And we're growing faster than we were last year. And off to a really strong start. 

Brian Sozzi: Have you stemmed the I guess, you know last time we talked to you. You know those customers were a little upset on that integration process with with Ameritrade. Has that stopped. Are you keeping customers on the platform now. That's over and done with. 

Rick Wurster: Our Ameritrade clients are as happy with us as they've ever been. Every quarter that goes by, their satisfaction scores go up. The net flows that they're bringing us, in terms of new money that they're bringing us keep rising every month. So we're in a really good a really good path with our legacy Ameritrade clients. And we're so delighted to be able to serve them. And I was in five branches yesterday in North Carolina. And what I keep hearing from those clients and our professionals who serve them is how much they value the breadth of what we can bring to the former Ameritrade client. We still have the same thinkorswim platform that we think is the best platform in the industry. 

Brian Sozzi: The first place I bought a stock, full disclosure and I know thats no BS.

Rick Wurster: That’s great, I know, and hopefully the last place you buy a stock too. And in addition to that at Schwab, they get access to all of our wealth management capabilities, all of our research, a lot more capabilities to help them get to where they need to be in their life. 

Madison Mills: It sounds like a pretty picture, given the uncertainty that is obviously taking place in the market. But also, so many CEOs have talked with us about just in terms of the policy backdrop. I know that you have spoken with and worked with the president specifically on the launch of their DFJ fintech brand, TruthFi. Have you had any conversations with him about getting policy clarity from the White House moving forward? 

Rick Wurster: You know, we for 50 years have tried to work with administrators with with regulators to help them get to a place that's the best possible environment for retail investors and advisors that serve them. So we're always in active discussions with regulators and politicians, and that that won't change. 

Brian Sozzi: We've gotten a big uhh, I was actually talking to one of your competitors this morning on my on my podcast, and I asked them their view on cryptocurrency. And that particular CEO said, we don't view it as an asset, and they may not be getting bigger into the crypto space. What is your crypto operations look like? We've got ETFs. We've clearly passed a moment with the Bitcoin Reserve. It's been validated. How are you going to play in that space? 

Rick Wurster: Well, we're active in the cryptocurrency space today. We had a 400% increase in the number of visits to our cryptocurrency site in the fourth quarter of 2024, and 70% of those visits were from prospects. So what that says to us is that investors that are interested in investing in crypto they want to do it at a place that they trust, a place where they feel like their assets are going to be safe. So they're coming to Schwab, and they're investing in ETFs and getting access. At some point, we'll be in spot cryptocurrencies, and we'll make that available. Today, we're not, we have ETFs. And that's where we're seeing the most of the volume. But we are in cryptocurrencies, and our clients are interested in it. 

Brian Sozzi: Is the spot, Bitcoin ETF, is that is that a this year thing for your company? 

Rick Wurster: We hope it will be this year's thing. The regulatory environment has shifted as it relates to banks being able to offer crypto directly to clients. And because of the changing regulations, we do think it's possible that this year we would be able to offer that directly to clients. 

Madison Mills: And more broadly, where do you see the most growth moving forward? Obviously, you've got the Sozzi’s of the world getting ready to get into the brokerage, you know, at two years old. But beyond those initial those initial investors. Right, right. Of course, where is the most growth going to come for the business moving forward? First-time investors, retail, futures traders, options traders, crypto bros like who is the growth story? 

Brian Sozzi: Wait why do you point to me for crypto bro? What's up with that? 

Madison Mills: Because you asked. The crypto question where's where's the growth? 

Rick Wurster: That's that's funny. Well we do like to start young by the way. And we are winning with young clients. We had roughly a third of our client. New clients last year were under the age of 30. 60% were under the age of 40, which still seems young to me. So we are doing well with young investors, but we're really winning across the board. And the reason we're winning at all age levels, at all wealth levels, is because we put the client first and we bring everything that we have, whether it's our trading platform, our wealth management capabilities, the way we support our 16,000 advisors that are on our platform and in communities across our country. The way we serve all of them puts them first. And when you put clients first, I think you're going to have a successful business. And that's been the case for us for 50 years. 

Brian Sozzi: Rick, I've gotten to know Vlad and the Robinhood team really well. And, you know, over the past two years, they just seem increasingly aggressive to get into wealth management, launching new products. Their pace has picked up. Are they a nuisance to you? Are they a real competitor to what Charles Schwab has done in the past 50 years? 

Rick Wurster: We don't we don't see it that way. We're focused on our clients. We've got 44 million client accounts today that that have never been more satisfied than they are today with Schwab. We are focused on delivering wealth management capabilities to them and we don't see those clients interested in in other what others can do. And the reason we see that is because we can do so much for our clients. Clients can call us so last week it's been a volatile week. We had 600,000 clients call or chat us in the last week, and we pick up the phone in less than 30 seconds. 

Brian Sozzi: You still have humans picking up the phone?

Rick Wurster: We have humans picking up the phone. I was in five branches yesterday in North Carolina. We've got all kinds of clients walking in the door. It's hard for most companies to be able to match the breadth of what we can do for a client, so we worry less about competitors. I'm sure they're doing a great job for their clients. We're more focused on our clients and making sure we nail it for them every single day. 

Madison Mills: What's the single biggest obstacle you want to tackle in your next 100 days? 

Rick Wurster: The next 100 days? You know, it's about accelerating the growth of our business, deepening the relationships we have with clients, nailing the basics every day when we pick up the phones quickly, when we help remind clients why they're invested. Those basics, when our technology works incredibly well, those matter a lot to clients. And then scaling our business. The more efficient we can be with our clients time, the more they're going to enjoy their experience, and also the more efficient we can be so that we can free up money to invest in our growth initiatives. So those are the things we're focused on in the next 100 days, and maybe we'll get a little more peaceful markets in the next 100 days. We'll see. 

Brian Sozzi: We can hope for we can hope for that. 

Madison Mills: You’ll have to come back and talk to us when markets and when markets do finally recover. Rick, thank you so much for making time. 

Rick Wurster: Thanks for having me on,

Madison Mills: I appreciate it. 

Rick Wurster: Nice to see you both. 

Madison Mills: Thank you for bringing us the conversation. Really appreciate it. Markets action ahead right here on Yahoo Finance to stick around for more.

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Important Disclosures

This interview contains forward-looking statements relating to the company's products, growth and success with clients; investor engagement; and all-weather business model. These forward-looking statements and other comments reflect management’s expectations as of the date hereof. Achievement of these expectations and objectives is subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Important factors that may cause such differences are described in the company’s most recent reports on Form 10-K and Form 10-Q, which have been filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and are available on the company’s website (https://www.aboutschwab.com/financial-reports) and on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s website (https://www.sec.gov). The company makes no commitment to update any forward-looking statements.

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Cryptocurrency- related products carry a substantial level of risk and are not suitable for all investors. Investments in cryptocurrencies are relatively new, highly speculative, and may be subject to extreme price volatility, illiquidity, and increased risk of loss, including your entire investment in the fund. Spot markets on which cryptocurrencies trade are relatively new and largely unregulated, and therefore, may be more exposed to fraud and security breaches than established, regulated exchanges for other financial assets or instruments. Some cryptocurrency-related products use futures contracts to attempt to duplicate the performance of an investment in cryptocurrency, which may result in unpredictable pricing, higher transaction costs, and performance that fails to track the price of the reference cryptocurrency as intended. Please read more about risks of trading cryptocurrency futures here.

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