Schwab CEO praises fast 'robo advisor' start, laments low trading

23/04/2015 - 18:06

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Charles Schwab Corp's automated investment product has attracted $1.5 billion of assets in over 23,000 accounts in its first six weeks, about 20 percent of whom are new clients, Chief Executive Officer Walt Bettinger told analysts on Thursday.

The pace of sign-ups for the Schwab Intelligent Portfolios, a so-called "robo advisor" that allocates cash among exchange-traded funds according to formulas based on client questionnaires, has slowed after an initial burst, but the percentage of clients that are new to Schwab is growing, Bettinger said in a business update.

The volume of traditional client stock trading remains low, he cautioned, while profit from investing client cash is weak because of low interest rates that Schwab had expected would be higher by now. The San Francisco-based company last week reported a 7 percent decline in its first-quarter net income.

(Reporting by Jed Horowitz; Editing by Paul Simao)