A worldwide IT outage that has grounded flights has also disrupted some functions at U.S. wealth management and brokerage firms, spurring investors to take to social media to vent frustrations about being unable to access their accounts.
Charles Schwab, one of the nation’s largest brokerage firms serving individual investors and independent financial advisors, notified customers this morning that some online and phone services may be disrupted. A spokeswoman for Schwab said: “Due to a third-party, global, industry-wide issue, certain online functionality may be intermittently slow or unavailable. A fix has been deployed that will now work through our systems.”
In a subsequent message this afternoon, the spokeswoman said clients are able to access trading on Schwab’s website, mobile app, and thinkorswim platform. “We are single-mindedly focused on our clients’ experience and are communicating with them directly about this unprecedented, global and industry-wide situation,” she said.
Shares of Schwab took a beating earlier this week after the company’s second-quarter earnings report disappointed on some key metrics.
Merrill Edge, the online brokerage platform of Bank of America, was also mentioned in message boards and on social media as experiencing technical issues. And at least one financial advisor at a large registered investment advisory firm complained of log-in problems. A representative of the company didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Morgan Stanley posted a notice to customers on its online account portal that its market research section for investors was temporarily unavailable. “We are working with the vendor to address the issue quickly and apologize for any inconvenience,” the company’s notice said.
Representatives for Morgan didn’t respond to a request for comment. It is possible that the company’s problem, and those reported at other companies by their customers, may not be related to the problems at Crowdstrike.
The outage appears to have affected wealth managers big and small. A spokeswoman for Commonwealth Financial Network, which has approximately 2,200 independent financial advisors and more than $296 billion in client assets, said the company has “seen” the effects of the global technology outage. She said it did not affect advisors’ ability to trade and “we have been able to effectively support our advisors in all business-critical activities.”
Other companies were apparently unaffected. A spokesman for Fidelity said the company “has not been impacted at this time.” Fidelity is one of the nation’s largest brokerage firms and retirement plan providers.
A spokesman for Vanguard, the asset manager and brokerage firm, said in an email: “After the widespread third-party outage, Vanguard’s portfolio management trading functions across all regions are operating as normal and there is no current impact to our products or pricing. We continue to monitor and assess the situation and are working diligently to ensure business continuity for our clients globally.”
The IT outage prompted some advisors to find workarounds.
Paul Fenner, a registered investment advisor, says he had no problems accessing Schwab and Fidelity’s platforms, but tech glitches at banks forced him to adjust an onboarding meeting he had with a new client this morning. “Fortunately, my new client was very understanding, allowing us to talk more in-depth about her planning needs versus what was happening in the markets,” says Fenner, who is president of Tamma Capital in Commerce Township, Mich.
