If you are looking for a full-service about brokerage firm, you must try Charles Schwab. In my Charles Schwab Review, I will write everything you need to know before you join this platform. You will be able to make your decision once you read it to the end.
First of all, I am not referring you to become one of Charles Schwab clients, so I can get some commissions or waive some managed fee for my investments. What I am sharing today is to reveal all my findings on this platform to evaluate whether it suits me or not, then consider trying Charles Schwab.
Secondly, I can see you do your researches well, that’s probably the reason why you came across my website to know more. You deserve a big run of applause! Doing your researches online is the first step to filter out all scammy programs and find a legitimate way to make money or whatever you want. So, you are on the right track.
Let’s dive deep and get started.
Disclaimer: As the owner of Smileaffiliatesuccess.com, I have tracked down special deals for products, tools, and services mentioned herein. When you click my affiliate links on this page to make a purchase, I may get a small commission, and you will definitely get a great bargain. This is a win-win advantage for both of us.
What is Charles Schwab?
-Summary of Charles Schwab-
Product Name: Charles Schwab
Founders: founded by Charles Schwab in 1975
Product Type: financial services
Price: $0 to open checking and saving account
Rating: 9 / 10
Recommend: Yes, if you like to invest and manage your money.
Charles Schwab is an American multinational financial services company, which is found in 1975. In 2019, it was the 14th largest bank in the U.S.A. with over US$3.3 trillion in client assets. It is also the third largest asset manager in the country, behind BlackRock and Vanguard.
On its investing platform, both beginners and experienced investors can find the products to invest. With sophisticated tools, zero commissions, and the best customer service, Charles Schwab is hard to beat and attract active investors.
What’s inside Charles Schwab?
High-Yield Checking Account
There is no minimum to open your high-yield checking account on Schwab. The best part is no monthly fees, service fees, foreign transaction fees, and unlimited ATM fee rebates worldwide. You could link to Schwab One brokerage account for more investments, and easily transfer funds between accounts for free.
High-Yield Saving Account
There is also no minimum requirement when you open a Schwab high-yield saving account with no monthly fees, service fees, and unlimited ATM fee rebates worldwide. The APY(annual percentage yield) is 0.05% while other competitors offer 0.01%-0.04%. You money in Schwab high-yield saving account is FDIC-insured, and up to $250,000.
Brokerage and Trading Account
It takes around 10 minutes to open a Schwab One brokerage account, and you can deposit fund to place investment orders once the setup is done. Schwab knows how difficult the investments could be for beginners, so they offer 24/7 professional guidance, online tools & resources, and trading education to help you with ease.
The key steps of your online application include the below:
- Choosing the type of brokerage account (individual or joint)
- Providing your personal information(education, employment, and finance)
- Selecting specific account features
- Creating login credentials and providing contact information for your account
- Verifying your identity
- Indicating how you’ll fund the account
Retirement Accounts (IRAs)
Worry about your financial status for your retirement? Don’t worry, Schwab has multiple types of retirement accounts (IRAs) to help meet your goals, which includes Traditional IRA, Roth IRA, and Rollover IRA.
For details about these three types of IRA, feel free to check HERE.
Schwab Global Trading Account
Schwab Global Account is designed to USA investors who look for trading online in international markets with local currencies. Here come the advantages:
- No fees to open or maintain an account.
- Trade in international securities in more than 30 countries.
- Get real-time quotes during foreign market hours.
- View multi-currency statement reporting.
For all benefits of trading through Schwab Global Trading Account, you may check HERE.
College Savings
Saving for college is a smart way for yourself, your family member, or your children. But, it requires a good planning. Schwab offers three types of accounts to meet your needs.
- 529 Education Savings Plan: multiple investment options, tax advantages, and higher contribution limits.
- Education Savings Account: multiple investment options, tax-deferred, and contributions are limited to $2,000 per year.
- Custodial Account: allows you to make a financial gift to a minor and help teach the child about investing.
Automated Investing With Guidance
This is where robo-advisor comes into play on Schwab. Schwab robo-advisor can help build and manage your portfolio, so you don’t have to deal with investments.
-Schwab Intelligent Portfolios-
The minimum requirement starts from $5,000 with no advisory fee and no commissions. To open your account, Schwab will ask some quick questions to understand your risk tolerance. Then, you are able to handpick a diversified portfolio of ETFs chosen by Schwab experts. Once all done, Schwab robo-advisor will monitor your portfolio daily and automatically rebalance it as needed.
-Schwab Intelligent Portfolios Premium-
You need at least $25,000 to start a Schwab Intelligent Portfolio Premium. Besides all the benefits of Schwab Intelligent Portfolios, you will have unlimited 1:1 guidance from a certified financial planner professional at one-time planning fee of $300 & a $30/month advisory fee after that.
Charles Schwab Pricing
- No minimum requirement for high yield checking and saving account
- Stock: $0 stock trading fee, Online $50 foreign transaction fee
- Options: Online $0 base commission, $0.65 per-contract fee
- Funds: Online and Automated Phone Up to $49.95 per buy, $0 per sell
Who Is Charles Schwab For?
- Both beginner and the experienced investors.
- Investors seeking low-commission trades of stock, ETFs, bonds, and funds.
- Investors who rely on premium researches and financial planning tools
If you ask me whether I am one of the above, my answer is no. I understand Charles Schwab is a good platform for banking and investing, but I still won’t go for it before I generate many passive income streams online. You might ask “Hey, are you serious making money online?” Yeah, I will tell you my way in ONE minute!
Ugly Truth About Charles Schwab
TOP#1 The Minimum Deposit
Compared to Betterment, which is another robo-advisor platform, Charles Schwab has requirements for the same type of service. For Schwab Intelligent Portfolios account, the minimum starts from $5,000. For Schwab Intelligent Portfolios Premium, it starts from $25,000. I believe this might push the beginners away, and they will choose other similar platforms.
TOP#2 Commissions on Transaction-Fee Fund
If you like to purchase a transaction fund but it’s not in Schwab’s no-load list, you might need to pay as much as $49.95. For me, it’s a lot of commissions while you have other platforms that charge only 1/10.
What I Liked About Charles Schwab
TOP#1 The Best Customer Service
For a banking company that exists for 45 years, they must know how to do things right and have the best customer services. You can expect a 24/7 phone support, live chat and email support, and 300+ local branches to help you with any questions you have for the investments.
For Schwab Intelligent Portfolios premium plan, you will get unlimited 1:1 customized financial guidance at a low cost. For a banking company like this, it’s hard to beat.
TOP#2 Extensive Research
For every beginner of investment, you need to do as many as online researches to evaluate and monitor the market. On Schwab’s platform, you can check tons of researches for any investments in the market.
It includes screeners and tools, plus commentary and insights from Schwab experts and independent sources. You are able to make a more informed decision for the investment once you spend time doing your researches HERE.
Alternatives To Charles Schwab
If you don’t feel like go one step further for Charles Schwab, that’s fine. I’ve reviewed other fintech platforms to manage your money. You are more than welcome to check the below options:
- Acorns App: Invest spare changes to earn profits
- Stash: Build habits and hit your financial goals with Stash app.
- Betterment: Manage your money through cash management, investing, and retirement planning.
- Ally Invest: Banking, investing, home loans or auto finance
- Wealthfront: An all-in-one solution that helps you earn more interest on your cash
Is Charles Schwab A Scam?
No, Charles Schwab is not a scam. It’s a legitimate American multinational financial services company that offers its clients many kinds of options for investments. The beginners and the experienced could find the products they like to invest on the platform, so it suits everyone’s need.
For me, just like I mentioned in the previous paragraph, I am not looking for a banking or investing service at the moment, so I will not try to invest money with Charles Schwab. I will love to invest my money after I generate many passive income streams online.
To be honest, there are so many ways to make money online by using different methods and techniques to achieve your financial goals. And, I see there are three essential elements to make your online business work for you, which are hard-works, persistence, and patience. I know it’s cliche, but it’s also true for my alternative way to make money online. Check below!
My Way to Make Money Online
My alternative way to make money online is through Affiliate Marketing because it has the below advantages that I LOVE:
- You don’t even need to buy any physical or digital products and sell to someone face to face.
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- You are not restricted to only promote the products from a specific company. You can promote anything you like!
What you need to do is to create a website, YouTube channel, or Facebook/Instagram with quality content that makes your target audience trust you then purchase through your affiliate links. If they do purchase, you earn commissions. Simple as that!
The platform I am using is Wealthy Affiliate. The reasons for “Why Wealthy Affiliate?” are for all the WA training courses, LIVE training sessions every Friday night, 24/7 SiteSupport, and the world-famous/awards winning WA community!
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I hope you enjoy this review and you are more than welcome to share ideas or leave your comments below. I will reply as soon as I can, thanks.
Hi,
It is good to read about an honest online banking company. I have never heard of Charles Schwab. Is it only for US customers?
I find the minimum money deposit you need for an intelligent portfolio account a little high, but I suppose that it all depends on everyone’s economical situation. The person who wants an intelligent portfolio account is probably already well off and for him or her a $5000 US deposit is absolutely no problem.
It is great that the simple account types – like a savings account – require no minimum amount and that they can be opened for free.
It looks like a good, solid bank. Good customer service is something I always pay much attention to, because let’s face it, bad or annoying or sanctimonious customer service is really a pain in the butt and can be extremely frustrating. That is why I always value good and caring customer service representatives.
You can do investment on Charles Schwab International, but the minimum requirement to open an account is $25,000. I guess you might feel it’s a high requirement based on your honest feedback.
For the overall banking service, I agree with you that customer service plays an important role. When every bank provides the similar services, it’s easy to handpick the ones with the best customer services.
Matt
Hi Matt,
Charles Schwab is a well-known name and I would definitely look at its services very closely if I lived in the US and was looking for an investment platform.
As I’ve said before, though, I had financial markets investments for 18 years and after 2007 they did not grow in real value at all. The longer time went on the more volatile the financial markets seemed to become.
The fact that the markets could move one way or the other simply because of what some politician said, rather than because of the underlying value of the company, meant that the value of my investments bore no relation to the underlying value of the companies in which I was invested.
So I exited the financial markets – and I’m very happy that I did..!
Cheers,
Martin.
Hi Martin,
Thanks for the feedback, I think there are still some chances to invest stably with reasonable returns if we consider the robo-advisor services from Charles Schwab. I believe it’s the investment for the future, so I wrote this review.
As you said, you are happy that you exited the financial markets. It’s also a way to earn APY between 0.01% to 0.05% by a saving account, right? It’s the basic investing if you only put money in the bank.
Matt