Fidelity Clearing & Custody has seen an increase in business across the board so far this year as people struggle to deal with the pandemic, Fidelity reported Friday.
New RIA accounts, assets under administration, discretionary assets and average daily trades all increased during the third quarter of 2020 compared to the same time period in 2019, Fidelity said.
“Customers across all of our businesses have been contacting Fidelity in record numbers in 2020 to help them navigate their own situations amidst market uncertainty and economic volatility. This is driving us to expand our hiring now and into 2021,” Abby Johnson, Fidelity Investments chairman and CEO, said in a statement. The firm’s work “has taken on a new level of importance during the pandemic.”
The custodian’s new RIA customer accounts were up 164% year over year by the end of September, according to the Boston-based company. Fidelity spokeswoman Nicole Abbott declined to provide the specific number of accounts. Business also was good within the custodian’s retail channel, which offers clients robo advice and has a full-service wealth management arm. Approximately 34% more households were using Fidelity’s financial planning services than in the three-month period in 2019, according to Fidelity.
Assets under administration reached $8.8 trillion as of the end of the third quarter, a 13% increase year-over-year, Fidelity said. Discretionary assets were $3.5 trillion, up 17% at the end of the third quarter, and the average number of daily trades were up 97% to 2.2 million a day, Fidelity reported.
“More clients have been seeking out financial advice in 2020 at Fidelity to the benefit of RIAs and their custodian,” Fidelity said. “Covid-related issues such as stalled job growth since June could have helped trigger that demand. The boost in new client accounts has helped custodians ease the burden of reduced commission revenue.”