Charles Schwab to Close Down its Office in Singapore

Charles Schwab Corp, , has announced this Thursday that it will be closing its office in Singapore by the end of this year, according to a statement on its website.
Specifically, the company said: “Charles Schwab Singapore will cease to provide services and will close its office in Singapore. We will no longer open new accounts for prospective clients.

“For existing Charles Schwab Singapore clients, you will receive communications from us providing more information about how this change impacts your account.”
Charles Schwab to focus on LatAm, Europe and Hong Kong
The statement released today comes almost two years after the broker opened its office in Singapore in late 2017. According to a separate statement emailed to Reuters,  a spokeswoman said that its Singapore office will no longer be licenced to hold accounts.
Furthermore, the spokeswoman clarified that all its client funds will either be transferred to a new broker-dealer or liquidated and returned to clients. It is not clear if the closing down of its Singapore offices will lead to job losses. 
In a reply to finews.asia, a spokesperson with the company added: “Our long-term international strategy is to focus on regions where we can most effectively and efficiently serve retail investors at scale. As we reviewed our footprint outside the U.S., we have made the decision to concentrate our resources on markets where we can most effectively serve clients and where we can do it most efficiently for the firm.
“As a result, going forward we will focus on growing our business in Hong Kong/China, Latin America and in the United Kingdom and Europe – utilizing our office in Hong Kong, our Latin American service center in Coral Gables, FL, and our office in London, in addition to the U.S.-based international service teams.”
Singapore office opened in November 2017
The financial services giant first opened its Singapore office back in November of 2017. The motivation for the office was to provide Singapore-based investors with greater access to the US market.
In Singapore, Charles Schwab offers Singapore-based clients the opportunity to invest in a number of assets including US stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), options and futures, fixed income and offshore mutual funds.
The office was launched after the discount brokerage completed the integration and account migration from optionsXpress. As , the broker acquired the derivatives trading platform back in 2011.
In the second quarter of 2019, the brokerage and financial advisory services provider reported a net income of $937 million, which was 8 per cent higher when measured against the same period of the previous year. As of July, it had total client assets of $3.75 trillion.