Rick Wurster, soon to assume the role of CEO at Charles Schwab, shared the company's ambitions to enable spot cryptocurrency trading when US regulations permit.
During an interview with Bloomberg Radio on November 21, Wurster expressed regret over his lack of investment in digital assets, calling it a missed opportunity.
"Crypto has certainly caught many’s attention, and they’ve made a lot of money doing it", he noted. Reflecting on his own experience, he admitted, "I haven’t bought crypto, and now I feel silly".
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However, he emphasized that his hesitation to invest personally hasn’t diminished the company's commitment to serving clients interested in this asset class.
While Wurster himself has no immediate plans to venture into cryptocurrency, he expressed the firm's readiness to expand its offerings as the regulatory sector evolves.
The company is optimistic about the likelihood of clearer guidelines soon, enabling them to facilitate direct cryptocurrency transactions for their customers. Wurster told Yahoo Finance:
We also would like to directly offer crypto <...> . We've been waiting on a change in the regulatory environment in order to do that, and we’re confident that we think that will come in short order.
Currently, Schwab's clients actively engage with cryptocurrency through indirect means, such as exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and futures. These investment vehicles have performed strongly and reflect the growing demand for exposure to digital assets.
Beyond cryptocurrency, Wurster expressed enthusiasm about artificial intelligence (AI) in reshaping the wealth management industry. "It used to be that 60,000 times a month, we would have a phone rep spend more than three minutes searching for a piece of information to answer a client question. Now we have built an AI capability that finds that information in seconds", he explained.
As Charles Schwab prepares to dive deeper into crypto and AI, other industry leaders are also embracing crypto-related strategies. Michael Saylor announced plans to advocate for Bitcoin adoption within Microsoft's board. How could this reshape the tech giant's approach to digital assets? Read the full story.
