Schwab adds developer portal for fintechs

The goal of the self-serve portal is for fintechs to identify use cases for the hundreds of APIs Schwab and TD Ameritrade have available.

Charles Schwab & Co. is rolling out a new developer portal to make it easier for hundreds of third-party fintechs on or integrating onto the Schwab and TD Ameritrade Institutional technology platforms to test out their application programming interfaces.

The goal of the self-serve developer portal, which Schwab showcased during its first virtual Technology Forum last Wednesday, is for fintechs to clearly identify use cases and categorize all the APIs Schwab and TD Ameritrade have.

“If someone is looking for how they want to build an account-opening workflow from their system into Schwab, they can browse the APIs that fit that particular use case,” said Kartik Srinivasan, senior managing director of Digital Advisor Solutions at Schwab.

“It provides all the tools that developers need to truly understand what it is that the APIs provide for advisers, as well as how they can get started with developing our APIs,” he said.

The tool should make it less daunting for fintechs and the technology developers for advisory firms to choose from Schwab’s 250 active points of integration and TD Ameritrade’s 175, said Srinivasan. The portal replaces the static documentation that used to be sent to developers, which did not provide a modern user experience.

Schwab and TD Ameritrade have also made it clear that there are plans to create a single platform for its advisers as the firms work closely on new APIs that start to bring the two custody platforms together, said Srinivasan.

Initially, this includes new trading APIs, as well as APIs to the iRebal portfolio rebalancing software, and new APIs to support Move Money workflows. Schwab is looking to close the major critical gaps across each integration offer so that advisers transitioning from TD to Schwab won’t have an issue where they can’t run their business.

Previously, Schwab has announced TD’s thinkorswim, thinkpipes trading platforms and iRebal will be a part of the combined tech platform post-migration.

In the meantime, the developer portal provides a test environment for fintechs to build the integration without it actually being provided for advisers. “They can play around, kick the tires, and then if things look good, the fintechs can work with our team to push it into production, then start piloting it with advisers,” Srinivasan said.

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The newest API that is coming soon will be a “status API that provides advisers with status updates on all their transactions and interactions with Schwab directly in their third-party systems, Srinivasan said.