Schwab execs declare RIA transition from TD a success

investmentnews.com:

Labor Day weekend this year marked more than the unofficial end of the summer. It also marked the end of TD Ameritrade’s custodial platform for independent financial advisors.

Over the weekend, 3.6 million accounts and $1.3 trillion in assets held across 7,000 registered investment advisors finally moved from TD to Schwab Advisor Services, the most significant step toward completing the integration of Charles Schwab Corp’s $22 billion acquisition. It’s one of the largest data migrations attempted in any industry, let alone in financial services, and countless hours from both Schwab and RIAs went into making the transition go off smoothly.

And throughout the first day, few advisors appear to be experiencing significant problems.

“So far, so good (for my firm),” Jack O’Connor, an advisor with O’Connor Financial Group, said on X (formerly known as Twitter). “Still plenty of time for issues, but I’m pleased so far.”

Some advisors complained on social media about long hold times for service, something that Schwab executives warned could happen despite efforts to staff up call centers. Most calls have been around “basic stuff” such as login information, password resets, questions about functionality and validating things like bank transfers, said Tom Bradley, managing director of Schwab Advisor Services.

“Mostly a lot of check-ins. That’s about it really,” Bradley said Tuesday during a call with reporters.

In all, Day One has been “kind of boring,” which is enough for Schwab execs like Bradley to declare the transition a success.

“We’ve been predicting victory, and today we can absolutely declare victory,” Bradley said. “We’re not seeing any issues of any significance.”

There have been some minor issues, such as positions