Business Continuity

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 is reviewed, updated and tested on a regular basis. The program provides for continuation of client service within minutes in most cases.

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

• If one of our telephone service centers became unavailable for any reason, calls would be immediately re-routed 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, where account access would be made available. Our data centers are on separate power grids, separate flood plains and fault lines, and within different transportation networks.
• If we had a power outage in a particular region or business district, telephone and electronic communications would be immediately and seamlessly re-routed 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, Schwab would focus available personnel on critical business functions that directly support client needs. Additionally, we would enact our workforce continuity plan which includes social distancing and other policies to limit exposure.

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.

This disclosure is subject to modification.