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Fidelity, TD Ameritrade, Schwab and Vanguard reported technical issues on Monday, although all said the issues were resolved within hours. Some attributed the problems to strenuous activity at the start of the day.
“What we’re seeing today are mostly authentication issues in,” said Todd Kenney, CTO of Sterling Trading Tech. “People are seeing news coming in regarding a potential Covid vaccine, futures were up this morning … What’s the first thing they want to do? They want to see how their accounts react, maybe initiate transactions, can -be buying Pfizer or sell Peloton. ”
With so many consumers trying to log in and access their financial information at the same time, the technology infrastructure supporting these platforms has likely faltered under the stress, Kenney said.
TD Ameritrade and Fidelity both attributed the problems to high levels of usage on Monday morning. Fidelity said in a statement that while customers have been able to access its systems online, some may have experienced “slower processing speeds” as the market opens due to “extremely high volumes”, but transactions have been processed.
“Earlier today, due to unprecedented volumes of business, we encountered connection issues across multiple TD Ameritrade platforms,” TD Ameritrade said in a statement, adding that the issues have been resolved. “We apologize for the inconvenience caused and take the performance and reliability of our trading platforms very seriously.”
Vanguard and Schwab declined to comment directly on the cause of their problems. Schwab said it fixed “technical issues” with some of its applications early Monday morning and is now working to answer questions from customers.
“We understand that some Vanguard customers may have had difficulty accessing their accounts on our systems earlier,” Vanguard said in a statement. “The issue has been resolved and we encourage customers to clear their internet cache and cookies, and recycle their web browser, before reconnecting.”
Customers took to Twitter on Monday to express frustration at not being able to access services on such a big day for the markets.
Another user said in a tweet to Fidelity: “Customers weren’t able to sell when markets opened … The feature returned as markets faded well above highs. statements of appreciation are no longer sufficient. ” Fidelity said he would follow up with the client.
Not being able to log into one of these platforms on such a busy trading day could have real financial implications for consumers and could damage brokers’ reputations, Kenney said.
“(For consumers,) it could be a waste of opportunity – a business idea that you can’t apply on the platform,” Kenney said. “If the market moves the other way and you can’t go into sales and protect yourself from it, there is a propensity for real money loss.”
Problems like this could be due to the huge increase in the use of online brokerage services during the pandemic – with so many people sitting at home, more people have dabbled in retail investing.
“No one has ever explained the sheer charge that goes into these platform layers,” Kenney said. “People expect all of their information to be at their fingertips, by clicking on their iPhone or logging into a website, and all of that information will be sent back in real time. When you don’t know how to handle it load or find ways to allow more people to access the (service), you are having these problems. ”
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