Fidelity outage sidelines retail customers, but advisers not affected

Millions of Fidelity Investment's retail customers were unable to access their online accounts on Wednesday morning due to an internal technical error, according to CNBC and other news outlets, but the outage did not appear to affect advisers using the firm's institutional online trading and wealth management platform, WealthScape. Peter Huminski, the founder of Thorium Wealth Management, a hybrid RIA and broker-dealer that clears and custodies $45 million in assets with Fidelity, told InvestmentNews he had no trouble using any of the firm's technology during the outage. "I've been able to do all of my trading," Mr. Huminski said, adding that he was able to access WealthScape on his tablet, smartphone and personal computer. "I checked on my phone just now and I'm able to get in there, no problem." Nor has Mr. Huminski heard of any problems from his clients, though he said they usually only check on their accounts when he notifies them of their latest statement. Mr. Huminski added that he has also been able to use eMoney, a financial planning tool owned by Fidelity. He said he's confident the issue is just a bug with the retail trading platform, not the result data breach. "People would be surprised how often things are down even for short periods of time," Mr. Huminski said. "We've heard no communication from Fidelity, but we also haven't been down at all." Fidelity did not immediately respond to a request for comment by InvestmentNews. Earlier in the day, Fidelity spokesperson Mike Aalto told CNBC, "our site's down, but I can tell you it's an internal issue. Clients aren't able to log in to their accounts right now." He said clients could access the mobile version of Fidelity's site, and that the disruption was not the result of malicious activity or a hack.