Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to Synergize. I'm Bill Capelle, Director of Client Growth at Trade PMR by Robinhood. And I'm Ryan Neal, Editorial Manager at Trade PMR by Robinhood. And welcome to our Synergy Summer Series. We're taping these from the conference floor at Synergy 26 in Washington, DC. That's right, Ryan. We're live here in Washington, DC.
Speaker: And all summer long, we're going to be sharing plenty of insights and actionable ideas that you can use to build your business. So let's get into the episode. You're listening to the Synergize podcast. We're coming to you live from the Synergy 26 conference here in Washington, D.C. And stopping by the podcast booth now is head honcho here, Rob Baldwin, our our boss. so Rob had his keynote speech today on the on the stage and had a panel with ah with Stephen Quirk, the head of Robinhood Brokerage. So Rob, thanks for stopping by and looking forward to chatting more.
Speaker: Always like like to hanging out with you guys. This is good. It's good to have you with us, Rob. You know, one of the things you mentioned today is that, you know it's not by mistake that we're here in Washington, D.C., particularly in coinciding with the 250th anniversary of our country's independence. You know, in in your keynote speech, you actually referenced this as very important relative to the independence of the ah r RIA. Talk to us about about why that's important and why it's so purposeful for us to be here to do this particular event. Yeah, you know, when we've been all over the country with this event for you know years now, years and years and years doing our synergy.
Speaker: And, you know, when the subject came up of, hey, where are we going to do it next year? And and we were you know looking at different venues and so forth. And the ability to come to Washington, D.C., when we're celebrating our independence of 250 years, and yet we're in the independent space in the financial sector.
Speaker: So, you know, it was just kind of hand in hand and we said, boy, this is the time to do this. If there's ever going to be a time to do it in D.C., this is it. And we thought advisors would also like to take part in the Independence Celebration in the United States as well as come and hear our pitch on independence and really ah what we believe in as being the best channel in the financial services sector, the RIA business, because it is totally about independence, not a broker-dealer independence channel.
Speaker: But true independence of owning your own business being an entrepreneur growing it you know it to to the size that you choose to put in your work ethic to build something great That's true independence. That's the RA space in our sector matched up perfectly with what our country stands for so that's why we're here That's great. And you know, it's your it's a great point about independence because ultimately they're fiduciaries. Right. And they're operating in a world where it gives them the ability to serve their clients the best way they believe is effective and appropriate for that person. you You know what, because we are big advocates of being a fiduciary.
Speaker: I think it's a key important sector that still goes under the radar to the end consumer. They don't know the difference between a fiduciary and a non-fiduciary very well. It's starting to break the mold a little bit to where they're they're gravitating towards it.
Speaker: But those who have caught the vision understand that if I want somebody who's going to work in my best interest at all times, a fiduciary is the key. So, you know, we're a big believer in that model. I've been a believer of that model now for 30 years plus and really happy to be able to serve that sector of the business with what we do.
Speaker: Well, Rob, we've been a part of the Robinhood umbrella now for about a year, a little over a year. so for those that weren't able to attend the conference, what can you say about where we're at now, where we've come and where we're going?
Speaker: Well, right now, you know we're really excited that we have the stability of our current relationship with Wells Fargo. That was key component to lay that that foundation for to go forward.
Speaker: And now we have the ability to build on Robinhood and to continue to iterate Robinhood. And we've got a little ways to go yet before we're ever going to be able to custody there.
Speaker: But that's going to be a key moment that we're driving for because we want to get to that point where we're having a dual custody relationship, have Wells Fargo on one side, Robinhood on the other. And we have such demand for the Robinhood side that I know we're goingnna we're going to try our best to get it out sooner than later.
Speaker: But building a wealth channel takes time. It's not something you do overnight, as everyone who's ever been in this kind of situation understands. So we got some time to go. And in the meantime, we just want to make sure everybody understands we have a great firm foundation.
Speaker: We're going to continue to bid do business as normal. We're going to continue to service advisors. in a unique way in our industry and have SLAs that are are unfounded in our industry. All those kind of key components that make advisors feel special because we understand their business and we want to be great at servicing them.
Speaker: And then we'll continue to iterate and be able to bring products and services from Robinhood to the table as we've announced this this week. And that's the iteration starting to you know to come up and to be able to say, this is what Robinhood's bringing to the table right now.
Speaker: It's bringing you know ipo access. It's bringing Robinhood Ventures Funds. It's bringing Robinhood Cortex for Advisors. It's bringing these things together so that we have tools that we didn't have on our own to the table.
Speaker: And, you know, the major one that I think everybody's really, really excited about, those are three really key ones. But to have the growth aspect that we're, were you know, bringing up to advisors to be able to provide growth capital to them as they grow their business, I think it's going to be a game changer.
Speaker: And we've had a lot of demand already for that and a lot of meetings set up. And everyone that I'm seeing at the conference is stopping me asking me questions. You know, following along on that, one of the things I really wanted to drill down on with you is, so this combination of a very sophisticated and successful technology company with a firm that's rooted deeply for years in serving independent RIAs, independent fiduciaries, the marriage of these two companies, how does that set us up for this great wealth transfer that's on the horizon? You know, I said this in my keynote and I can't iterate it more.
Speaker: I couldn't imagine if I could go back in time to the days when everyone was building their RA channels, you know, all the majors, and if any one of them would have had the head start of having 27 million customers,
Speaker: that were the average age of 36 at that time. They had a huge head start, and that's the head start that I believe Robinhood has. Very excited to be a part of this team. It's why this combination of Trepiumar and Robinhood worked so well when we thought about it initially, and and here we see and are bearing the fruit of it.
Speaker: Right. It is likely that that generation that wealth transfer is going to take place is not really going to be accepting the ways we've always done it. So this kind of positions the organization uniquely.
Speaker: And spend a moment just talking a little bit about how that that integrated experience is going to change the dynamic of the industry. Yeah. You know, past referral programs that have introduced...
Speaker: the next generation to advisors, or any generation to advisors, has always been a manual process of involving three or four human beings that the couple gets introduced to or the client gets introduced to as they're transitioning to find their advisor.
Speaker: They go through the branch office, they go through the branch office manager, they go through the the person who handles the referrals, they get passed off to the firm, and then the firm decides which advisor they should choose. You know, the generation of tomorrow, they want things done right here on a device at their choice. They don't want to have to go through four or five introductions to reach an advisor that somebody else selected for them.
Speaker: They want to be able to go on see interviews, meet the advisors on their device, and choose that end advisor. and That can be done in moments instead of days or in human meetings.
Speaker: And that's the that's the next generation that we all need to look and say, that's how this is going to work in the future. It's not going to work in like it did in the past. This is going to be so fast moving compared to the old you know system.
Speaker: And we're going to be able to generate so many more leads to advisors and really help them grow their businesses and really introduce them to their next future clients like never before. And we've got 20 plus years of this ahead of us. So this is going to grow and grow and grow. That's right. And secure their future. Absolutely. Right.
Speaker: You know, one thing that you talked about on stage was the the math problem that you see in our industry. right And we've seen some of the data I think, from McKinsey, just sort of predicting a a shortage of advisors as the workforce ages and fewer coming in. And and that you know one of the things you believe is that advisors will have to serve more class more clients and take on large business. And you mentioned Robinhood Cortex for advisors. How do you see that and AI playing a role in helping advisors serve more clients?
Speaker: It's going to play ah such a large role, more than anyone, I think, even estimates at this point. This is where AI is going to come into play. Sure. It's going to help advisors run their practice.
Speaker: I just have to give you a visual. Can you imagine we have social media people who have built a million followers, and they reach out to them routinely, they touch base with them. They do all the things necessary to grow that business.
Speaker: Financial advisors are not going to be far away from that the future. They're going to grow their business via social media or through introductions like we're talking about with our RAND program. And they're going to have to communicate very efficiently via AI and other tools and lots of videos and so forth to get their messaging out. and And as they do that, they'll be able to scale and be able to take on more and more clients.
Speaker: Well, you can't take on a lot a lot of clients unless you have incredible automation on onboarding, right? I mean, you can't just expect somebody to wait on a package to come in the mail, fill out paperwork, and send it back to the advisor. That's not really scalable. So you're going to see everything automated, to where a client can open an account, hire an advisor within minutes.
Speaker: send their money to them within minutes, and get an asset allocated according to the risk tolerance of that client. It's gonna be so incredibly seamless, it's it's it's just gonna happen.
Speaker: So we're gonna see small firms in the long run that are created that are created to managing billions of dollars in assets with a very few people because they put the automated process in place.
Speaker: And at Robinhood, that's exactly what we're trying to create right now, is to build that infrastructure to where every firm that does business with us in the long term can have that kind of automated process in place and be able to scale their business. Right, and when you said RAN, you're referring to the Robinhood Advisor Network, is correct? That's correct, the referral program that we've created, yes. Great, giving a shout out to our our compliance professionals over there. want to make sure i threw that note in, but I'll take it away.
Speaker: So Rob, you know one of the things you've mentioned over and over again here is how technology, and particularly artificial intelligence, the work we're doing at Robinhood to build out these very integrated capabilities How does that play against the value of advice being delivered by an actual human being? you know Humans are always going to play a key important role in so many facets of ah of an individual's life.
Speaker: There's always times, and we recognize this just from our business, and we've seen it over and over again, And even Robinhood has recognized it with their concierge program that they rolled out.
Speaker: They realize there's always that human advice that people want to talk to, to do the complicated, complex things. It doesn't really matter what the question is.
Speaker: um we had We had a real-life client, right, appear on video today in front of our whole audience. you know And they stated some very important facts. They said, you know, it doesn't really matter whether I want to talk to him about You know, what I should do for my children, what kind of educational fund I should try to create, what kind of money should I try to leave my clients? How should I do that?
Speaker: All of those are questions that you want a human who's done this over and over again and let them talk you through the nuances. You're not going to do that by, you know, asking ChatGPT. That's just not going to be something you do.
Speaker: The same thing with, you know, medical, financial are the two areas we really feel like you're going to get a lot of assistance with AI. But you know, you're not going to go into surgery with AI.
Speaker: So, you know, this is this is surgical to some degree from a financial standpoint. And you've got to have somebody who really understands where that knife's going to go because everybody cares about their health and everybody cares about their money. So you want the right knife, you know, analyzing and telling you what to do.
Speaker: that right that's great That's a fantastic metaphor. I like that. We'll have to use that in the future. Well, Rob, as you know from our podcast, we like to wrap it up with a piece of actionable advice. So we've talked about a lot of stuff at this conference. You've talked about a lot of stuff throughout your time here. But if there's one thing that you want people to take away from Synergy 26, what would you say that is? You know, I think there's so much innovation going on right now. There's so much talk about the speed of which things are happening.
Speaker: And I think we're still underestimating how fast we're transitioning. I look back at a year ago when we did Synergy, and I said some things that I think scared a few people. and We didn't even really go too far in my opinion, but I said some things that people went, really, really, that's crazy.
Speaker: And you know, within three months, it was everywhere. You know, everybody was talking the same game. It was all over all the financial industry publications. And you just start to recognize that the speed is a lot faster than we think it is.
Speaker: And we think it's fast. I think it's faster than we recognize. And if we don't take away this key component when we leave here, we're going to be left behind.
Speaker: And that is we have to figure out how to scale our businesses now. We've got to figure it out. Now, Robinhood Cortex is a key component to that. And that's what we're going to iterate on to make sure we can build that to feed that for these advisors.
Speaker: But advisors need to put on a different lens and say, if I'm going to compete in this business long term, I've got to figure scale. I've got to pick up be over figure out how to reach more clients, take on more clients, and scale my business.
Speaker: And that's going to make them incredibly value valuable in this marketplace. There you go. Well, Rob, thank you for stopping by the the podcast desk. It's always good to have you. Thank you. Thank you, Rob.
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Speaker: And welcome back to the Synergize podcast. We got a chance to snag Q here and had some time in his busy schedule to sit down in the podcast and talk with us. So Q, welcome back to the program. Thank you very much for having me. I'm pretty excited. We are we are at the very beginning of this thing.
Speaker: I'll let you throw it away here. That's great. Well, Steve, good to see you again. Welcome back. um You and Rob Baldwin are go to have a fireside chat tomorrow just after Rob opens up the conference. And as you think about this in the audience and where we are in the combination of Robinhood with Trade PMR, what's that one thing you want this audience to take away from?
Speaker: I think, ah well, we're we just eclipsed a year since the acquisition of Trade PMR and and us coming together. And I think we've taken that time to really listen to the industry, to listen to advisors, current advisors and prospective advisors.
Speaker: and put together a plan, which we've already started to act upon, and you'll see many of the results of that tomorrow, um to bring to bear um the scale, the technological ah prowess, and um the ability to deliver for customers, along with what Trade PMR does best, which is serving those customers and making sure that they are at the forefront of this industry.
Speaker: I think what customers and advisors are going to walk away from this conference with is just an understanding of how this is going to transform this space.
Speaker: That's great. So you're talking a little bit where we are now, but question we hear a lot is that vision, that five, 10 year vision down the road. I know people are really thinking about that as well. So where are your thoughts on that? What are your sharing of the visors? And can you talk about where we are? Like how much have we gone already in just a year? yeah laugh I would say if ah we always tend to, we as an industry tend to put everything in baseball terms. So I would say we're in the very early innings. However, i would also say that um if you think about where we're going to be in five and 10 years, you're going to have advisors with the
Speaker: technological advances and efficiency gains and just abilities to be able to scale businesses in a way that they've never been able to scale them before. And, you know, we talk about this quite often, the self-directed side of the business, which is where Robinhood really got its start.
Speaker: is, let's call it 1X. This side of the business is three times the number of assets and many more customers. And providing those same capabilities here, it's going to be it's going to be magical. Yeah.
Speaker: So almost like bringing in the closer for the baseball analogy? Well, I don't think we're we're not quite at the closer yet. we' You know know, in today's baseball, there's a lot of pitchers in the game. That's true. was going to say, i still think we've got our leadoff man in there. All right. All right. But we you know building on that, Steve, um we talk a lot about reimagining this business. and And I know that's been a hallmark of Robinhood up to now.
Speaker: of Spend a minute sharing with us kind of how you see us helping reimagine that sort of day-to-day life of an advisor and what the opportunity is for them to create a new kind of value for the clients they serve.
Speaker: We're really good at, at um but Vlad and Beju built this company on first principles thinking. Things have been done a certain way for a period of time, and they just question it and say, does it have to be done that way? Now, I don't want to scare advisors and say we're going to change things for the sake of changing them.
Speaker: What really we do is ask the question behind the question. Like, what do you really want? What would really be helpful? And, you know, simple example is i don't want to spend time on...
Speaker: XYZ. I want to spend time on personal interactions, growing that business, enhancing that relationship, and doing more with this customer or customers.
Speaker: How can you make that easier for me so that I can do things that really are value-add and less of the things that are not value-add? That's where we're really good. like We are very good at getting behind the plumbing and saying,
Speaker: Don't worry about it. We're automating this. Don't worry about it. AI is going to help you with this. Don't worry about it. We're going to make this so efficient. All you're going to do is spend time on things that you think are valuable. Yeah, so you're removing that process transaction, giving the advisor more of an opportunity to create clarity for their clients. Well, I'd say the most extreme example of it is, um you know, in today's market, 60% of U.S. households are participating.
Speaker: We're the envy of the world. That was couple years ago, 10 years ago, 12 years ago. That was below 50. Robinhood's largely credited with that, and it's because we removed the friction.
Speaker: And that friction exists, it doesn't matter if it's on the self-directed side or the wealth management side, there's friction in the system, and we're good at removing that. And once you remove it, it becomes so much easier for you to do more for your customers and your customers to reward you with more business.
Speaker: I know tomorrow at the conference there's going to be a lot of announcements. yeah You and Rob are gonna go through some. We have a whole panel on our our products and and a lot of things coming out. Probably can't cover them all right now, but if you had to pick one that's got you most excited, well what would you say for our audience ah listening at home? I think it's got to be the pinnacle, which is the advisor network and the referral that's going to happen.
Speaker: um The reason I think it's so powerful is because, you know, we've talked ad nauseum and you've probably all heard this many times about this wealth transfer that's already underway.
Speaker: And listen, those the recipients of that wealth are sitting at Robinhood. our Our customers are very clear. They're either accumulating wealth at a clip or coming into wealth at a clip that makes them a little uncomfortable managing all that wealth on their own.
Speaker: So they want a solution. Some of them might still self-direct a portion of it, but they want a solution or advisors that can help them with all the things they need to do.
Speaker: And we are going to make that connection in a magical way for both the advisor and the end customer. I've gone through it. i already have an advisor.
Speaker: And it was great. It was fantastic. I think what you're going to see is this is going to grow. This is going to mushroom into something that's so big that you'll, we got to take a Blake canvas to this whole referral network, having had experience with them in my past career, and say to some very large advisors and some current advisors at Trade PMR,
Speaker: Blank canvas. what would What do you like? What don't you like? And we we weren't wedded to anything because we didn't have anything. yeah It's very easy to build something new when you have a blank canvas. So we said, we're going to build the best of it for you and deliver upon that. And we'll continue to iterate. It's not going to be perfect day one. Well, actually, you got that current advisor through this new network. No, I did. Yeah, that's i I got my advisor through this network. thought you had one. in that No, no, no, no, no. i I got my advisor through this network. Yeah, yeah. And you know what's interesting here is that a lot of folks may misunderstand the Robinhood client, but we, yeah this is the three of us kind of represent the generations here that reflect to a large degree that Robinhood client base.
Speaker: And the one thing we all do have in common are those various stages of life we go through. And those needs seem to be pretty consistent. Steve, you know, in your experience here at Robinhood, You've seen a lot occur and a lot of change take place.
Speaker: you What's the driving force behind that? I think even in the time, you know, having been with other firms as well, um I think there's, first of all, there's all kinds of legacy beliefs about different firms and the customers within those firms. um And customers change. You know, they life comes.
Speaker: You're in your 20s. You're self-directed. Your account maybe isn't that big. You're having fun. You're managing it. It's interesting. And then life hits you. You got a couple of kids. You bought a house. Now you're doing this. I just don't have time to look at that in the way that I need to, especially if I'm starting to accumulate wealth.
Speaker: And so I'm looking for a solution. And that happens. that' That's very common. I would also say there's a belief that Robinhood customers are all small accounts. And you and I know because we've all looked at the data.
Speaker: It's not the case. There are some very, very large accounts that um can be even larger because they've told us, listen, I have other wealth. It's being advised elsewhere or I want advised.
Speaker: And I would reward you with more of my wall share of wallet um should you be able to accommodate me. Great. That's great. Well, Q, thanks for stopping by the podcast. know you've got to run. You've got a busy schedule. But for all of our listeners that weren't able to make it here this week, what's one thing you'd like to leave them with, one thing they can bring back to their business? I would say every year you're going to come back. We're going to do this podcast. We do podcasts in between, too. And they're going to say, i can't believe how much got done in a year.
Speaker: Love that. Love that. Great answer. That's a great note to end on. Thank you very much, Steve, for joining us Thank you.
Speaker: If you want to join the conversation or connect with us, please visit us at SynergizePodcast.com. This content is provided for general information purposes only. The views expressed by non-affiliated guest speakers are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Trade PMR or its affiliates. Trade PMR and its affiliates do not endorse any guest speakers or their companies and therefore give no assurances as to the quality of their products and services. This channel is not monitored by Trade PMR.
Speaker: Trade PMR does not provide investment advice, tax advice, or legal advice. Trade PMR is a member of FINRA and SIPC. Trade PMR Inc. is registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, and the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board, MSRB.
Speaker: For a transcript of this episode with sources, visit synergizepodcast.com. custodial services provided by first clearing first clearing is a trade name used by wells fargo clearing services l lc member s ipc a registered broker dealer and nonbank affiliate of wells fargo and company copyright twenty twenty six trade pmr inc for a transcript of this episode with sources visit synergizepocast dot
