Schwab's Business Continuity and Contingency Planning

Securities industry regulations require that brokerage firms inform their clients of their plans to address the possibility of a business disruption that potentially results from power outages, natural disasters, or other events. Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. has a comprehensive business continuity program in place, which we review, update and test on a regular basis. The plan provides for continuation of client service within minutes in most cases.

Here are a few examples of what might occur if we were to experience a business disruption of varying magnitude:

• If one of our telephone service centers were to become unavailable for any reason, we would re-route calls to our other service centers across the country.
• In the event that our primary data center became unavailable for any reason, we would transition to a separate back-up location. Our data centers are on separate power grids, separate flood plains and fault lines, and within different transportation networks. Account access would be made available through the back-up location.
• If we had a power outage in a particular region or business district, we would re-route telephone and electronic communications to alternate locations for the duration of the outage.
• In the event of a public health crisis that resulted in a high rate of employee absenteeism, we would enact a workforce continuity plan that includes social distancing and other policies to limit exposure, and also focus available personnel on critical business functions that directly support client needs.

While no contingency plan can eliminate all risk of service interruption or temporarily impeded account access, we continually assess and update our plans to mitigate all reasonable risk.