UPDATE: Bank of America Says Access to Merrill Accounts Has Been Restored

Bank of America’s wealth management platform stumbled on Tuesday as advisors and self-directed investors were snarled by technology outages for about four hours.
A bank spokesman said around 1:30 Eastern Time that access to accounts had been restored.
“@MerrillEdge fix your platform! This is ridiculous,” Twitter user @gadawg80 wrote. “Why can you not have the resources to keep your platform working in not even volatile market conditions.”
Several other customers posted screenshots that said Edge access was down due to “scheduled maintenance.”
“Our app is temporarily unavailable,” read another screenshot. “Your relationship is important to us, and we’re working to restore service as quickly as possible. Your data and transactions remain safe.”
Mark Pipitone, a Bank of America spokesman, declined to comment on what caused the technology problems or whether clients would be reimbursed.
A range of brokerage firms throughout the work-from-home constraints of the pandemic have periodically experienced temporary outages, primarily on volatile days that generate high trading volume.
Merrill advisors were unable to transfer funds or enter notes in client accounts for two hours on an exceptionally active trading day in September that also affected Edge customer account access. The S&P 500 that day fell 3.5%, the tech-focused Nasdaq was down 5% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled more than 800 points, or 2.8%.
Volume and market direction on Tuesday was less active, although the Dow Jones Industrial Average was nearing a milestone benchmark of 30,000 when the outage began.
“@MerrillEdge it’s so nice Dow hits 30k and I can’t make a trade,” user @jeffabro tweeted.
Merrill Edge clients lost access in March to accounts for about 20 minutes. Merrill brokers on April 21 were unable to see customer accounts and directly input trade orders because of what the firm characterized as an internet service provider issue.
Merrill in June said an enhanced broker workstation called Client Engagement Works would be in place this month to create more efficiencies for all of its 22,000 advisors, private bankers and client associates.
Morgan Stanley brokers and customers lost access to order-entry and trading systems on March 25 for more than four hours as a result of a problem the firm attributed to IBM software. It reimbursed clients whose brokers documented missed transactions that disadvantaged the clients.
Wealth management clients at JP Morgan Chase lost access to an electronic trading platform as markets were sinking on March 12.
Self-directed customers of discount brokers Charles Schwab Corp., Robinhood Markets, Vanguard, TD Ameritrade and Fidelity Investments temporarily lost access to their online accounts in September.
Plaintiffs’ lawyers have filed several putative class action suits against Robinhood over a systemwide crash that prevented customers from trading amid volatile market action in early March.
We can deliver!!!
LOL…deliver what,,,headaches?
Good news! Advisors will be unable to serve “small accounts!” Since that is apparently the root of all evil, this is good news!!
It’s 2:50 pm eastern, and my “edge” account is still frozen…
Merril Lynch Edge has been unavailable for at least 2 hours now. They have have cost me $$ not being able to carry out any trades. I think I need to look at other more reliable brokerage companies
JANNEY – AWARD WINNING TECHNOLOGY
agreed, this is killing me. Fidelity is working, maybe I should move everything over there ML!
Fidelity is working great. Never had a problem with them. I’ve got accounts at both. I’ll be moving all my funds to fidelity after this. I day trade and this is unacceptable!!!
We’re better when we’re connected.
Same here
I been on hold for more than an hour i gave up! I lost money not being able to trade! This is ridiculous!
I agree this is ridiculous!
Ameriprise is the place everyone needs to call home
It’s 2:27pm in Michigan…..still down. False information.
Merrill Edge was “unavailable” to me for about seven hours today with no explanation or apology. What the hell does Merrill think their money is for? Unreliable client service should not be on their list of things to provide customers. I worked for Merrill for 35 years and used to be proud to say so. Wouldn’t feel that way now, and haven’t since 2008 when management at the very top took us to the brink of bankruptcy. I retired in 2009 out of disgust.
It’s not Merrill Lynch anymore. It is 1000% Bank of America, a company that couldn’t figure out brokerage before, who bought Merrill in 2008, and has spent the past few years in particular “fixing” something that wasn’t broken. It is a complete disaster. Service model completely gone. All that matters is more checking accounts and loans. Edge clients today are getting a taste of daily life as a Merrill advisor—
Hard to exceed 100% in this case. It either is BOA or it is not. But surely not 10x BOA.
More likely you made money that day
Made even more getting out of that place and finding a firm that values its advisors. Higher grid, no BS bank contests, and no haircuts to every piece of revenue I generate. People that understand and value advisors and want them working with clients to personalize, not just cramming them in a compliance model. Did B of A pay when they bought Merrill? Yes, but doesn’t mean it was anywhere near competitive nor does it mean I’m excited when essentialy Walmart buys the boutique shop up the street and the uniqueness disappears and another “teammate” is acquired into the masses.
CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT!
Absolutely disgusting that Merrill did not learn from the September, 2020 outage and make sure to have backups, protections, and redundancies in place to prevent such outages from happening again on a HUGE trading day! I have lost at least $50,000 today due to not being able to execute critical trades!
“Alex I’ll take things that never happened for a million”
BS
I’m on board, one time it happens and ok (sort of) but this is systemic! They need to make this right and get a decent system!
I probably couldn’t realize -5k, but that’s a lot for me. I join
WOW THATS ALL YOU HAD LOST IS 50.000? I LOST 600.000 MY HOLDER STOLEN FROM MY ACCOUNTS IN 2009
I am losing money by the minute on a 3x Bear ETF that I needed to dump before it plunged even more. This is costing me $$$$
Well obviously this is a lie since ML doesn’t let clients trade levered ETFs since their idiot lawyers deem it too risky even in a self-directed account…
This is what happens when you out resource IT to Indian, and hire the oversea cheap labors to replace America workers.
Don’t forget that American workers even could not develop the trading system without the Indian talents. The number of quality software developers in USA are extremely low, and lot of talented developers from India contributed in software development.
But I agree with you that, most of the support engineers from Indian IT companies are pure Crap. But it is the greediness of American top management that they engage with crappy IT support companies to increase margins, so that they can get unusually fat bonuses. So the problem actually lies with greedy American corporate management.
Merrill FA here. This has happened many times this year. Disgraceful. CEW is garbage. I am still using WMW. Also today is market linked investment day and can’t put in those orders. Disgraceful! Guess Phil Scott was smart leaving…
3.5 hours so far….Scheduled maint….BS….do maint on holidays…this is costing me $$$
ML is down every high volatility day – today Nov 24th on the other hand there seem to be no reason for this to happen but ML site is still down and since everybody is loosing $$$ there should be class action lawsuit
This is why I have multiple brokerage accounts.. TOS has issues alot as well.. Should rename it to POS!
I was semi-understanding in Sept, but also legitimately concerned about my ability to self-direct during volatile times. Today just baffles me. Sorry to those who are losing money on short positions or the Bear ETF guy above. I will be looking to switch brokers soon, its just too risky to rely on ML right now. I am platinum with ML/BoA but honestly stopped feeling special the moment free trades swept the industry. This is my first time publicly posting as I used to be a very happy customer, but enough is enough. They wont even offer explanations.
I`m really mad that I can`t trade and lost a lot of money . Who is going to paid me that money . it`s been 3 hours still can`t log in . can this be class action lawsuit .
I am disappointed as well. But let’s be honest. The only thing I could not see is how fast my investments were increasing that day. Turned out to be a great day.
This is definitely losing me money here. Trying to be understanding, but it has been nearly 4 hours now. Customer Service lines are jammed too. This cannot be allowed to happen again.
Who is planning to leave Merrill due to untimely maintenance and lack of a quick resolution?
I’m looking for another broker right now. BOA/ ML doesn’t care about it’s customers. I’m platinum (for whatever that means) and will take my platinum account elsewhere.
As of 2;30pm EST site is not fully working. Even worse, service has only been restored to some clients, with site displaying this message:
Some clients may be unable to access our site at this time.
Your relationship is very important to us, and we’re working to restore this service quickly.
Probably for the 1.5%
Love when wire-house brokers taking a check to jump firms tell clients “We’re moving to Merrill Lynch because their platform and technology solutions are 2nd to none.”
Wow you are some bitter people
And that is what they deliver for you paying them over half your revenue! No thanks. The tech is so much better on the RIA side. 1 1/2 years without a single glitch, yet the wires spends hundreds of millions each and can’t compete.
Team,
This comports with our responsible growth, best interest, initiative. Clients who rely on trading on their own were adversely affected. Clients in FEE-BASED Merrill Edge accts were simply unable to see how much money the CIO models were making them throughout the day! Also, we EMPOWERED our failed out PMDs-turned-managers today. They provided us with timely updates such as: firm-wide outage, no idea when system will be back up. Try Back Up Order Entry and hope it works!
Except anyone stuck in a program managed fund is way behind most self directed accounts this year.
T Rowe Price is offline now