The integration of TD Ameritrade's technology into the Schwab Advisor Center platform remains on track to be completed by mid-fall 2023, according to an executive. That's within the 36-month merger timeline cited by Charles Schwab when it finalized the $26 billion deal in October 2020,
Meanwhile, what Schwab is "starting to see right now is a real engagement from Ameritrade advisors to really want to understand the platform that they will be moving toward," said Alison Dooher, managing director of Digital Advisor Solutions at Schwab Advisor Services, in an interview Tuesday.
Schwab also launched a program called Jump Start in the first quarter of 2022 that lets TD Ameritrade advisors to "choose to open new accounts on the Schwab platform," Dooher explained.
Jump Start is "not for converting existing clients but it can be used for that next new client that they're growing into their practice and to onboard them directly out to the Schwab platform, giving their practice an advance view and more time to really get used to the Schwab platform that they'll be moving to," she said.
Schwab is "starting to see an uptick of [TD] advisors really wanting to take advantage of this," the executive explained. "The summertime has probably provided a little space for folks to consider making this move" if they hadn't done so already, she pointed out.
"We expect that that is likely going to accelerate with more interest as time passes" and the integration is finalized, Dooher said.
Schwab also offers a technology adoption dashboard to advisors that she said "gives them a pretty granular view into their practice about how, across the users at their firm, they're actually getting work done with Schwab in the most efficient way."
