The Charles Schwab Corporation (SCHW) 2024 Winter Business Update Conference (Transcript)

For the period ending December 31, 2023

January 17, 2024 8:30 a.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Jeff Edwards

Hello, everyone, and Happy New Year. Welcome to the Schwab 2024 Winter Business Update. This is Jeff Edwards, Head of Investor Relations, and I hope everyone is still on track for their respective resolutions. While it is the New Year, we are joined by the same Venable panel of presenters, our Co-Chairman and CEO, Walt Bettinger; President, Rick Wurster, and CFO, Peter Crawford.

Obviously, a bit of a different structure to Winter Business Update this time around to be 100% virtual, but you'll still get the same in-depth perspectives from the team regarding client trends and behavior, continued progress on strategic initiatives, and the tremendous opportunity we see on the horizon.

Before diving in, let's quickly review the rules of the road for today. Q&A remains one question, no follow-up, though we certainly encourage you to jump back into the queue if additional questions come to mind. As always, please don't hesitate to contact the Schwab IR team to work through any clarifying or some of your more tactical questions. And the slides for today's update will be posted to the IR website following peers' remarks.

And certainly, last but not least, the forward-looking statements page reminding us all that the future is uncertain, so please stay up-to-date with our disclosures.

And with that, Walt.

Walt Bettinger

Thanks, Jeff, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us for our January Business Update. We're here in Frigid Westlake, Texas, where I think it was 15 degrees when I hopped in the vehicle this morning to come to the office. But Happy New Year and again, thank you all for joining us.

So as we close the book on 2023 and begin thinking about 2024, it seems like a natural time to reflect on the year that just closed. It was certainly a challenging year for our clients, for our stockholders, and for us. Perhaps it was the most challenging in my time at Schwab, certainly the most challenging since the bursting of the Internet bubble in 2000. And yet at the same time, I couldn't be more excited about the opportunities before us.

In 2024, you're going to see an emphasis on execution, but with consistency around our strong client fundamentals and strategy. I recognize that 2024 is going to be a transition year from a financial standpoint, albeit one with steadily improving financial results throughout the year and a very strong exit into 2025. It's unrealistic to think that the challenges of 2023 simply disappear, because the calendar flips over. But when I look ahead to 2025, 2026, and 2027, I'm quite confident that the power of our client franchise is going to shine in terms of financial results.