Your Charles Schwab Account Migration Checklist

John Robinson |
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Charles Schwab
TD Ameritrade

Charles Schwab Account Migration Checklist

The 2023 Labor Day weekend consummated Charles Schwab’s 2019 acquisition of TD Ameritrade. As chronicled in the financial news media, the conversion of accounts from the TD trading and custodial platform to the Schwab platform did not go as smoothly as anticipated.  A primary source of the transition turbulence was the failure of numerous customized account settings and preferences to map over properly to Schwab.  Many of the setting changes were random rather than systemic which adds to the difficulty of detecting and correcting them.

Your team at Financial Planning Hawaii is working tirelessly to fix these mapping errors, but the task of checking the details of every client account is daunting and extremely time-consuming.  To help us make sure your individual profile information and settings preferences have been fully restored, we are asking all FPH clients who had accounts on the TD platform to log into your new Schwab accounts through the  SchwabAlliance.com website and go through the 8-point checklist below.

 

  • When you log in to the SchwabAlliance.com website, are you seeing all of the accounts you previously were able to see when you logged into TD Ameritrade?

 

  • If you assigned nicknames to your accounts at TD, have you re-entered the nicknames in SchwabAlliance.com to make it easier to recognize/distinguish between accounts?

 

  • Have you confirmed that the banking instructions you have on file for transferring funds back to your bank or credit union accounts are still in place?

 

  • If you were having dividends and interest payments from certain account mailed to you or deposited to your bank accounts are those payments still coming through as anticipated?   (Ditto for automated systematic deposits/distributions.)

 

  • Have you confirmed that your statement preferences match your request with respect to paper vs electronic document delivery (statements, trade confirmations, tax documents)?

 

  • Have you confirmed that your contact and account profile information with Schwab is accurate (mailing address, cell phone, email, etc.)?

 

  • If you take distributions from retirement accounts, have you confirmed that your tax withholding instructions are still accurate?

 

  • If you had statement copies delivered to a third party, such as your CPA, have you confirmed that those delivery instructions are still in place?

 

While we will continue to review accounts one-by-one and to put out mapping error fires as they crop up,  your assistance and diligence in reviewing your personal settings preferences will go along way toward preventing discrepancies from ever becoming a problem. 

Please report all errors you find to Alicia@fphawaii.com.  If you need assisstance navigating the SchwabAlliance.com website, please contact Sue@fphawaii.com.  All FPH clients may, of course, also reach out to me at jr@fphawaii.com.