Charles Schwab Corp. may be interested in more deals like its investment in Dynasty Financial Partners, company leaders suggested Thursday, citing the partnership’s focus on supporting the RIA industry.
Schwab President Rick Wurster, who becomes CEO on Jan. 1, and Jonathan Beatty, recently named advisor services head, discussed the firm’s priorities in an interview Thursday with ThinkAdvisor, before the company’s Impact conference this week.
They noted that “invested” is the conference theme and cited Schwab’s multimillion-dollar investments in technology, education and advertising campaigns to support the RIA industry, among other efforts to support what Beatty called financial services’ fastest-growing segment.
“There's been a number of corporate initiatives that have supported our advisor community, whether it's the Ameritrade acquisition, the acquisition we did of Family Wealth Alliance or the investment we have in Dynasty,” Wurster said.
The 2022 Dynasty investment folds into Schwab’s desire to help registered investment advisors grow, compete and succeed, and to help advisors move from more traditional channels in the industry into the RIA space, Beatty added.
“We will continue to look at opportunities across the space to fuel the success of advisors," he said. "That's our mission and purpose. As we do that, we fulfill our other mission and purpose … to help more American investors reach their financial dreams. And that's, again, the alignment that we have with fiduciary advisors across the industry.”
A 'Bull Market for Advice'
“There is a bull market for advice in our country. More and more clients want to sit across from the table from someone and get the benefit of their expertise in navigating their financial life,” Wurster said.
“As a result of that,” he added, “our challenge is to make sure we can do everything we can to help our advisors scale their business and be efficient and work with clients in an efficient way. And to help end-clients navigate their journey with us in a very easy and seamless way, given the growth we collectively see. That's a real priority for us.”
Advisors are adding new services, such as tax strategy, as they work to distinguish themselves in a competitive marketplace, Beatty noted.
“We've seen the evolution from investment management to financial planning, estate planning, family governance. We do see tax now as a place that more advisors are focusing on, whether they're bringing it in-house or finding partnerships to create alpha in the client portfolio, not through just the investments, but through tax strategy,” the advisor services head said.
“So I think we're on the cutting edge right now of actually evolving wealth advice and including tax as a more core element of that,” he added.
AI Projects
Schwab, meanwhile, is embracing artificial intelligence and has lined up outside speakers to discuss it at the upcoming conference, Wurster said.
“AI, I think, is the real deal. … Unquestionably AI will have a big impact in our industry" and already has, he said. “We've got about 40 different projects across the firm that are AI-related that are up and going today. It's a significant focus of ours.”
