Commission-based compensation

Our industry is one of the few that’s barely experienced pricing pressure ... so far. Here's how to assure you keep providing value to clients.

In the 1960s, iconoclastic reformers started a campaign to kill fixed brokerage fees. Today, we’re witnessing the logical culmination of that effort.

The firm commission-free platform already included all Vanguard mutual funds and ETFs as well as thousands of third-party funds.

While advisors have embraced cheaper trades, the move may have long term effects on strategies for client portfolios.

Money clients don’t currently have in stocks will automatically go into a separate account paying 1.8% interest.

Competitors such as Merrill Edge have taken similar measures on commissions.

The “vast majority” of retail clients already qualified as of October but certain customers were still paying $2.95 a trade.

After acquiring TD Ameritrade, Schwab’s custodial division would grow to about twice the size of its closest competitor.

While the acquisition still needs regulatory approval, combining the two companies could be considered “anti-trust” in a different way.

The potential acquisition would unite two firms that custody assets for more 7,000 independent advisory firms.

he potential acquisition would unite two firms that custody assets for more 7,000 independent advisory firms.

As Bob Dylan once sang, “the times they are a-changin.”

Clients opened 142,000 new accounts last month after Schwab escalated the brokerage industry's price war.

Advisors will be able to offer “different types of lending,” CEO Walt Bettinger tells planners at the company’s Impact conference.

With tens of thousands of certificants affiliated with giant BDs, the documents required by the new standards are making their conflicts of interest plain as day.

Strategies may include building out RIA channels and cash sweep programs in efforts to make up for revenue declines.

By slashing fees, custodians are also eliminating special ETF platforms they had spent the past five years building out.

The move follows similar offers from other major brokerages in the last two weeks, as firms race to woo clients with the lowest-priced products possible.

Advisors are not "non-for-profits,” CEO James Gorman said.