Morgan Stanley, which spent $13 billion to acquire E*Trade six years ago, is now using that platform to offer crypto trading at lower fees than its competitors.
The bank charges clients 50 basis points (half a penny on every dollar traded) for crypto transactions on E*Trade. Robinhood charges nearly double that at 95 basis points. Coinbase takes 60 basis points.
Charles Schwab, which announced its own crypto push last month, charges 75 basis points. The service is currently in pilot mode, with all 8.6 million E*Trade account holders expected to get access before the end of the year, starting with Bitcoin, Ether, and Solana.
“This is much bigger than trading crypto at a cheaper rate,” said Jed Finn, who leads Morgan Stanley’s wealth management division. “In a way, the strategy is disintermediating the disintermediators.”
The launch is part of the firm’s strategy to expand across the crypto ecosystem as Wall Street firms increasingly compete with native exchanges. Executives argue that traditional finance and decentralized finance are converging, with Morgan Stanley embedding crypto capabilities across trading, wealth, and institutional services.
The expansion gained momentum after a shift in US policy direction under President Donald Trump, whose administration has taken a more crypto-friendly stance, encouraging banks to move into digital assets after years of regulatory hesitation.
This is a developing story.
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