Name: Brainstorm Finance 2019: Charles Schwab's Keys to Staying Competitive
Uploaded: 2019-12-26
Duration: 18 min 38 s
Description: CEO Walt Betting explains how the company stays relevant in the new world of banking.

Brainstorm Finance 2019: Charles Schwab's Keys to Staying Competitive

Finance

CEO Walt Betting explains how the company stays relevant in the new world of banking.

I fit in really well, in my time, you should have come barefoot. We're right on the beach. I like that. I like the idea. I would feel more comfortable. Feel free to take him off. So you took over as CEO at Schwab October 1st, 2008. So this is right in the thick of the financial crisis. What? Looking back between then and now, what strikes you as some of the biggest difference is what's different about today versus then? Well, one thing that's different is, uh, I was able to successfully have the stock price my 1st 90 days, and yet I survived. So that's probably but, uh, no, the consumer has changed. Understandably, um, coming out of the financial crisis, there was a real loss of trust, and, uh, as a result, we see, we see trends across all of the investing industry that air still manifesting today, the the movement into passive investing in other words, the consumer saying, I want to understand what I'm putting my money into and what the likely outcomes will be. Ah, much greater awareness of costs and the importance of costs in the drag that they create on investment performance. Even even consumers diversifying away or believing that diversifying by putting money with a number of different providers is a form of diversification. At the core of really all of it is just trust and the impact that the financial crisis created in terms of lack of trust. One change that happened in the past few years. You've been in a bit of a price war with some of the other brokerages on the market. You've now cut Schwab's Trading Commission fee to $4.95. Some people think that you could cut it further is in the sea of Robin Hood, which charges zero trading commissions, have said that all commission fees might eventually just go away. Um, actually, we have a video, so let's take a look. There's a couple of things that are gonna happen when, uh, when the brokerages start lowering their prices, one is that they're gonna have to get more efficient, Um, which is is going to be challenging because they've been sort of operating under this principle that they can charge exorbitant fees for decades now, and that's just lead to not the same focus on efficiency that a tech company would start out with. What do you think? Is more likely? Will you go below 4 95? Or maybe Robin Hood will have to start charging commissions. Well, let's not kid ourselves. Everybody's paying. Nothing is free. Whether it's trading a stock or staying at this wonderful resort, nothing is free. It's just a matter of how you pay. Uh, and certainly if you are an account holder at a at a firm that is charging a zero explicit commission, you're just paying in other ways, whether it's in yields on cash, whether it's in the quality of the execution, we're all paying nothing free now. Granted, if you are operating under a model with venture capital subsidizing your operations, you can drag that out for a longer period of time in which you may be charged less. Uh, then then you need to be a profitable organization. But everybody's paying. I think the real question is, is the question of subsidization and you know, where will consumers go and where will innovation go in? The financial service is an investment space in terms of rooting out subsidization, and, uh, in many ways I think I think it would be healthy for subsidization to go away across our industry, and so the consumer would be in a better position to know exactly what they're paying, what they're getting in return for it. But today, the whole industry is rife with that. You know one thing I would just come in on you. There's certainly some validity to some of the comments from the gentleman from Robin Hood, but, uh, but ultimately, scale and efficiency do matter. And, uh, I'm assuming he's not necessarily referring to Schwab. When he talks about inefficiency, way run our firm in about 16 basis points of cost relative decline assets. That's about half our next closest, publicly traded competitors and about 1/3 of most of our more traditional competitors. So scale matters cost matter because ultimately it puts you in a position to have to subsidize less and leave in leaves more money back in the pocket of the of the consumer. But I think the real question is, where do we go? Subsidization, which is has always been a big part of our industry. One of that looked like a Schwab subsidization were to go away. Well, you just you just moved to a world where everything that the consumer does in every activity, every transaction, advice, counsel, financial planning, all of that is, is priced appropriately for the service they're receiving and nothing is overpriced, unnecessarily underpriced. Um, we're a long way from that in the industry. Overall, you know, I'd hazard to guess that that there might only be one firm who can do a trade at a lower cost than we could in the industry. Just based on our scale in size. Uh, and and even as large as we are, with almost $3.7 trillion in client assets, it's not a cost of zero to do a trade. I mean, there is a cost. So it's just a matter of house being paid. Which firm is the one that can do it cheaper? Well, TD Ameritrade has the highest volume of trade count, so I don't know their math, but I'm assuming that that they would have some very minor advantage of us in terms of the cost of trades. But again, we're caught. We're talking about very, very low numbers in terms of costs. We do, of course, tens of 1,000,000 to those of trades every year. So you're kind of at the floor then, where, you know, in terms of how much you can lower your cost, can you lower them further? Well, I don't think pricing is necessarily done explicitly on cost. Pricing is done based on market right. I like to say the market sets price. Whether we're talking about the cost of a trade, the cost of advice, you know your salary, I mean market sets price. And as competitors in the marketplace, we all have to respect and recognize that if we want to be successful businesses that we operate within that market. So I don't think a 4 95 price point, uh, is going to be driven purely off our cost of doing business. But it's going to be based on market forces thinking of some of the new fin tech companies that have come into the space. There's also robo advisers. Actually, in the next session will have the sea of well front row advisor that now competes with you. But you also have your own okay, but we also have your own. You have a robo adviser, Schwab intelligent portfolios. I think it's still about 1% of your overall assets and half about half of your assets or managed by human advisors. So in the end, who wins? The robots are the human. Yeah, So just just for clarity. Probably about half your assets under some former adviser relationship with all those are a mix of technology and people. None of it is pure people. Um, you know, I think the consumer probably wins a T. The end, uh, models like a well front or a betterment do better for consumers than many consumers could get from an investment advisory model in years past. Uh, so So I think the consumer wins there. I think programs like are intelligent portfolios do better than consumers could typically get in years past. It's amazing for me to think about the idea that somebody with just a couple $1000 could get a fully diversified portfolio, re balancing tax lost harvesting and have, you know, an all in cost, at least under our program. That's probably measured in, you know, a couple of 10 of a percent. That's amazing. Maybe it's just because I'm old and been in the business 37 years, but you couldn't even get that 25 years ago and 10 or 15 years ago, it probably cost you 75 basis points or maybe 1%. So So I think the consumer is the ultimate winner, you know, in terms of in terms of smaller firms starting up in the digital advisory space. This issue all just comes down to time frame. What is the time frame you're playing? It's not a matter of, I think, within the companies who wins and who loses. We're playing a long time frame. We bring in more money, more net new assets every month than those firms have in total. So it's just a different time. Frame it. If your if your business is is financed by BC, there's an exit strategy, and so the time stream might be until their acquired or and I'm not saying any of these firms are for sale. But until their acquired or until some other transaction takes place, that's not our time frame. We're playing a multi decade timeframe and investing and trying to build our business under that, but the ultimate winner and all this is a consumer, and frankly, that's great. That's how it should be in a moment. I'm gonna open it up for questions. So if you have questions, raise your hand, we'll get him like to you. But first, I mean, in terms of all the new assets that are coming in to give the Wealthfront CEO, he said. Before that, Schwab doesn't have any millennial customers. I don't think that's true anymore. But can you talk about how you're trying to win over millennials? Yeah, So about 53% of our new firm households are millennials. Uh uh, and we bring in a course close to 1/2 a 1,000,004 to 500,000 new households every year, adding to a base of that's measured in many 1,000,000. So the idea that we're not winning with Millennials, of course, is just factually inaccurate. But what's really important is it's not just any millennial. The average millennial that we're winning has a level of affluence that matches our existing client base. So our average retail household today has in the vicinity of $350,000 so the average millennial were winning has that level of affluent today already so in terms of winning with millennials specifically to your question. Our philosophy has always been that the winning strategy is one that works for all investors, that it's not a matter of saying we're going to just do this for millennials we have. We have many clients in all different ages utilizing our mobile app or mobile technology. Don't ever call in any of our service centers, but you do have to recognize that the world is changing. And if you're not changing your model, you will probably be in some challenge for growth out into the future. One last comment. The economics of our business are driven by Gen X and boomers, and we shouldn't forget that certainly for the next 30 years. That's where the economics will come from. Now, if you're over rotated to a shorter term time horizon, you could make a mistake. Which is why again, we're focused on multi decade. We need to win millennials. But the economics are driven by accident boomers. But I I think our successful millennials speaks, you know? I guess it just speaks for itself. I share with you. Metric. Did we have a question back here? There's one here. Could bring the paddle, please. Please tell us who you are. I'm sure gotem investor venture capitalists that investing in tech Do you see the products basically having serving a consumer that's going to evolve as in the customers are being served by some of the fin tex as being, um, less sophisticated if you made because of Lord Asset Sizes and that they would actually need different products as the graduate become more affluent as the girl. Yeah. You know, when I went to my first job interview that, um, that polyester leisure suit I wars really cool. It's probably not the same suit I wear today in the four door Ford Maverick. I drove his different car people. People's life changes. Needs evolved. That's not to say that that a company that works with a consumer as a millennial, uh, won't consider that company in the future. But I think that we're always constantly as consumers evaluating the range of options available to us. We're not just saying Well, I've always driven, you know, before I drove a Ford Maverick when I was 21. So I'm always gonna drive before you're gonna constantly look at your options available to you now I might have a particular affinity to the brand or something that I started with, and they might start from an advantage place. But I don't think it a sure success now. I will say the experience is something totally different when you move into the experience. If I have the experience of working, maybe with up with 100% digital model, I'm not going to probably consider another model that doesn't offer me comparable capabilities. But if they offer me comparable capabilities and then something in addition, that I think is going to be very appealing, and I think again the math proves that out, keep raising your hands if you have questions and we'll get the paddles to you. But, uh um, I have a follow up question in terms of the millennials who are coming in and this younger generation, Are they going into the robot advising product or they self directed or they actually often for human advice. So our research indicates when it comes to digital advisory that it's less an issue of age, then it is their prior form of investing that self direct investors who were previously self directed are much more likely to consider a digital advisory program then then it being defined based on age millennials. What they do with their money as they come into Schwab. If you were to map out and lay beside Millennials and Gen Y and Gen X and boomers, they don't look very different. Boomers are a little more dependent on a form of discretionary advice. But the behavior of millennials bear in mind we're attracting fairly affluent millennials is actually quite consistent with with other generations. They're not behaving in some dramatically different manner. Just question over here. Please, Please introduce yourself. Well, Scott Rattle with Accenture. So I'm curious what you talked about all these different trends and how your business has really evolved in terms of how you service clients. Have you thought about the Schwab brand and kind of both maintaining that and appropriately evolving it to some degree? Yeah, well, it's interesting. I mean, I think our view is that although brands are important on a relative basis, they probably never been less important. Um, and this probably all plays into the trust issue that we started off with thinking back to the financial crisis. Um, what you what we say about ourselves is not very important. What really matters is what others say about us, and the great thing about that is it means that if you're saying one thing in your business and doing something else, the marketplace will call that out, whether it's a combination of press, social media on and that's a good thing. So from a brand standpoint, I think what's most important for us the way we view it is we just need to ensure that we act in a very consistent manner in what's in the best interest of our clients. We have to make money. We all know that. But within the constraints of being appropriately profitable and able to re invest in our business, we just have to always make sure you do the right thing by clients. I think our viewers, if we do that, the brand will continue. Thio grow and be successful. And again, I hate to keep going back to it. But the math backs it up, bringing in hundreds of thousands of affluent millennial clients every year. One more question Over here. You got cut out, Adam. Yeah, by Brian two Main fortune. Are there any non traditional competitors that you worry about been globally. I think about Allie pay and they've got a money market fund. The small compared to yours. 200 billion or so. But is there anyone gonna come out of left field that might keep you up at night? I think I think we're paranoid. We worry about everybody. Uh, we try to pay attention, everyone. You know, certainly the regulatory environment here domestically creates a fair number of barriers for folks who want to go fully into our space. And, of course, I think we see that going on even in the moves today or they move. Announced yesterday with our friends and Facebook me, the the efforts today are largely to figure out ways to make the space more efficient without running headlong into the regulatory world that we live in. The U. S. Heard some of the comments in the last session about lending and how crazy it is that takes 60 days to a mortgage. All that well, so much of that is regulatory, uh, related, But But I think we pay attention to everyone, whether folks who want to go fully into our space, I'm not so sure, but they'll look to pick off places and that place back to the comments that made it the outset around. Subsidization, right? Technology, innovation, disruption, ultimately, attack subsidization. And so that's where we believe ultimately will head in our industry is that you just won't be able to subsidize one product or service with another. I mean, you were asked to join Facebook product liberal, but neither you or any other bank is doing it. Why not? Um, let's answer that question out in the future a little bit. Can you talk a little bit about, you know, just your view on crypto currency? I know there's been rumors that even TD Ameritrade might search rating it. Is that something you? Well, sure. I mean, I mean, you just You just want to make sure that if you're going to offer the trading capability to the retail investor, which is the majority of our clients retail end investors that you're doing something that will be consistent with your brand and not just about making money. Uh, could we make money doing that? Of course we could. But then again, I probably get four ideas a week of ways we could make more money, but that doesn't necessarily. We're going to do them. They have to be consistent with our strategy and consistent with what we want to stand for a company. And then that is an attempt to criticize crypto currency. It's just, uh it's just the philosophy that we have around, whether it's the right thing for us to be offering to our clients and in our business. Um Well, well, thank you so much for joining us, Jen. Thank you. Thank you.