October 26, 2019
Louis Diamond Quoted
By Brooke Southall
LPL Financial is going to zig to Charles Schwab & Co’s zag on zero commissions — by matching the move–but only in its RIA custody unit.
The Fort Mill, S.C., broker-dealer is “likely…doing something to address” Schwab’s price cut, said Dan Arnold, CEO of LPL Financial in response to a direct question on the matter this week from Alex Blostein, the Goldman Sachs research analyst who covers the big broker-dealer.
Independent broker-dealers like LPL face more pressure than meets the eye with the zeroing of commissions at the big RIA custodians, according to Louis Diamond, principal of Diamond Consultants in New York.
“I expect the race to zero having a fairly outsized impact on all IBDs who still have fairly expensive admin and platform fees relative to the RIA channel,” he says.
