Schwab Sets Date for TD Ameritrade Platform Conversion

5. Schwab continues to invest heavily in its platform.

Schwab continues to invest millions of dollars in platform enhancements, and every day there are new releases on the Schwab system, Bradley said. “We’re looking forward to the Ameritrade advisor being able to take advantage of that,” he added.

6. Schwab is hiring more staff ahead of the conversion.

Schwab is hiring people “in preparation of what we anticipate will be more calls around these conversions,” Bradley said, adding: “We usually just get more calls, more questions, especially after that conversion weekend.”

Therefore, “we’re hiring staff actually now because we want people to have some experience and be well trained and have some experience prior to that weekend,” he added.

7. Schwab stepped up its talks with advisors about the conversion over the summer.

At the start of summer, Schwab kicked off conversion discussions with advisors, Heffron said.

“As part of that, we released a roadmap that just kind of talked at a high level what advisors could expect on this journey, and we kind of painted a picture of five key phases on that kind of road to conversion weekend” coming up, she noted.

The first phase was to “get grounded” and there was a “kickoff webcast where we had over 11,000 attendees,” she said, adding: “We had two subsequent webcasts as well.” Schwab also released a transition planning guide, she noted.

That phase was to be followed by: get ready, complete setup, explore/train and conversion, she noted.

8. The Jump Start program is getting less use than expected.

Schwab launched a program called Jump Start in the first quarter of 2022 letting TD Ameritrade advisors choose to open new accounts on the Schwab platform.

“I would say Jump Start’s going pretty well,” Bradley said Thursday. “We got a great response from advisors who are interested in coming over and opening more accounts on the Schwab platform to get to know it.”

But he said: “One observation, though, frankly, is that we’re not seeing heavy [usage]. It’s tough for advisors to break out of their inertia and I thought that we would see more.”

However, “it seems like they’re coming on” to the Schwab platform, he noted. “They’re opening some, some accounts poking around the systems but I wouldn’t say that they’ve actually jumped in.

Bradley would “like personally to see more advisors jump in head first,” he told reporters.

9. Third-party technology vendors are getting up to speed.

The third-party technology vendor community is in much the same place as the TD Ameritrade advisors.

Schwab was “already in touch with all the vendors” that are being integrated into the merged platform, according to Heffron. “We’ve reached out to them. We’ve invited nearly all of them,” she said.

Many vendors were already active and engaged, she said, adding the firm was “strongly encouraging our advisors to talk directly to the vendors.”

10. What’s left now is to execute.

“Most of the planning is done” now for the conversion, Bradley said. “It’s all about execution now.” But he conceded: “There’s still a lot of work before this actually happens.”