Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the Charles Schwab Corporation's 2020 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. This is Rich Fowler, Head of Investor Relations for Schwab, speaking to you from the Schwab Center in San Francisco, where we normally hold our in person annual meetings, are now of course reaching out via the Internet so that we can gather to conduct today's business while maintaining appropriate social distancing. Thank you for joining us today, and we certainly hope you're all safe and well wherever you may be. While the virtual format of this year's meeting will certainly feel different than prior years, today's agenda should provide a sense of familiarity with Chuck starting us off and walking us through the rest of the day. We will be able to take questions later on, and there's a box on your webcast console for submitting them.
I'm going to quickly say thank you in advance for your patience with any technical hiccups that might arise during the course of today's meeting. The production team here at Schwab has done their usual incredible job of helping us prepare for this inaugural virtual format, but we're well aware of the famous quote about plans not surviving their first run-in with reality. We look forward to getting through this together with you. Now without further ado, I'm honored to introduce our Founder and Chairman, Chuck Schwab.
Thank you very much, Rich, and good afternoon, shareholders. This is an unusual situation to address you this way, but hopefully it won't go on for too long in our lives that we'll get back to being able to see one another face to face. So given the situation with sheltering at home guidelines, we are holding our annual meeting in this virtual fashion as we all are aware. This is our 33rd annual meeting of our company and I'm very pleased to have that. That's been 33 years since we went public.
Amazing how quickly time flies by. Our agenda today will cover the following. First, Peter Morgan, our General Counsel and Corporate Secretary will cover the business agenda, including a number of proxy proposals. 2, then we'll hear from Peter Crawford, our CFO who will talk about the spectacular business results of 2019 just a short while ago and how things are going so far in this year. 1st 2 months were great and then we've had some things to face, which we'll discuss a little bit later.
After Peter's presentation, Walter Boettinger will provide the CEO report. He'll share his perspectives on the company's strategy and how we plan to execute against that strategy. Then as usual, following all that, then Walt and I will take a few questions from those who would like to call in and be thinking about those questions as we deliver our messages here in the next few minutes. But first, I'd like to recognize our Board of Directors, people who work so hard for us day in, day out, month by month, come to meetings, committee meetings long and hard and every year it seems like this stack of material gets bigger and more dense. And I guess as a result of our wonderful growing company, which we take and have responsible to make sure we guided carefully.
I'd like to extend a special thank you to Steve Macklin, who is retiring from the Board after 32 years of service. He was very instrumental way back when we got together with the Bank of America and he had worked for the BofA, was Head of strategy thinking then and led to our acquisition shortly way back in 1980. And then when we spun off from BofA 1986 and went public. Many of you probably remember those times. But Steve has decided to play more golf I think.
So we have a great appreciation for all the expertise he has extended to us, his deep knowledge of the company and banking and its business throughout a large portion of the growth of our company. So Steve, thank you very, very much. We at our Board meeting just before this, we tended to see a resolution of our appreciation. Thank you again, Steve. I'd like to also introduce John Adams, a member of our Board, Walt Benninger, Joan Day, Chris Dodd, Steve Ellis, Mark Goldfarb, Bill Harrah, Frank Harringer, Steve Macklin, again, Charles Ruffle, Arun Sarin, Paula Snead and Roger Walter.
And I wanted to thank personally all of you for your services in the last 12 months and looking greatly forward to our next 12 months. 3 current board members are up for reelection this year. Bill Harrell, Frank Harringer and Roger Waller are up for reelection and we'll hear the results of that shortly. I would also like to make a very special acknowledgment of our management team at Schwab and our thousands of employees who together made 20 19-eight an incredible year and have done extraordinary work really in the last few months. It's just been I can't thank them enough for their devotion, their commitment, their loyalty, all the things I could possibly come up with words of appreciation.
Thank you to the teams. And indeed it does take a lot of great teams here at Schwab that make things really work and function. And just I think on behalf the Board and myself, thank you for all your great efforts. It's taken professionalism and true grit I think in this environment. And now I'd like to move on to the business portion of our meeting.
Peter Morgan, who took over his new role as Corporate Counsel following our tragic loss for our great friend and colleague David Garfield last year. We certainly miss David's wisdom and warmth and have welcomed Peter to that new role. Peter has been a long time executive here at Schwab, has deep understanding of all aspects of the business and our legal regulatory requirements and all of that. And he has, I have to say with great compliment, he has stepped into his new role without missing a beat. Thank you, Peter, and welcome to the Board meeting here.
Thank you very much, Chuck. As the first item of business, would like to introduce our Inspector of Election and our independent auditors. The Board of Directors appointed the Inspector of Election to conduct the voting for this meeting. This year, our Inspector of Election is Equiniti Trust Company. A representative of Equiniti, Bradley Krieger is with us today.
Mr. Krieger has filed an oath of Inspector with me. He also has informed me that based on a preliminary count, we have a quorum for this meeting because more than 90% of the company's approximately 1,300,000,000 shares that are entitled to vote are represented by proxy at this meeting. Our independent auditors are Deloitte and Touche LLP, Ms. Carol Larson of Deloitte and Touche is here at the meeting and we'll be happy to respond to your questions during the questions and answer period.
Polls are now open for voting on the proposals. If you are a stockholder as of March 16 this year and have not returned your proxy card, voted by telephone or voted on the Internet or would like to change the instructions in your proxy card or your telephone or Internet vote, you may vote at this time. For those of you attending our virtual meeting, you may click on the vote now button on the webcast console to cast your ballot. Now I would like to present the 5 proposals we are asking stockholders to vote on this year. The first proposal is to elect 3 directors.
This year William S. Hariff, Frank C. Harringer and Roger O. Walther have been nominated for election to the Board of Directors. The second proposal is to ratify the selection of Deloitte and Touche LLP as the company's independent auditors.
The 3rd proposal is for advisory approval of named executive officer compensation. The 4th proposal is for approval of the 2013 stock incentive plan as amended and restated. The 5th proposal is for approval of the amended and restated bylaws to adopt proxy access. The Board of Directors has recommended that you vote in favor of each of the proposals to elect directors, ratify the independent auditors, provide advisory approval of named executive compensation, approve the 2013 stock incentive plan as amended and restated and approve the amended and restated bylaws to adopt proxy access. Each of these proposals is described in the company's 2020 proxy statement.
If you would like to review our 2020 proxy statement, you can review it online at www.schwab.com. We also have been notified that stockholders intend to present 2 proposals for your consideration at this meeting. Yumi Narita, representing the New York City Employees Retirement System and the New York City Teachers Retirement System will present the 1st stockholder proposal requesting annual disclosure of EE01 data. Ms. Narita, will you please present the proposal?
My name is Yumi Narita, and I'm here on behalf of the New York City Comptroller, Scott M. Stringer, and 2 of the 5 New York City pension funds. I'm pleased to introduce the funds proposal, proposal number 6, requesting that the company disclose its EEO-one data that break down its workforce by race and gender, something the company currently provides to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. I'd like to start out by commending Charles Schwab on disclosing more information on their workforce this year. We would like however to push the company a little further in terms of transparency.
According to SaaS B, diversity and inclusion is a metric which is material for your industry and your peers such as T. Rowe Price and BONI disclose their EEO-one data along with a growing list of companies in the financial industry. We understand that the company is preserving the baseline for future benchmarking until the proposed acquisition of TD Ameritrade is completed. In light of this, we'd like to highlight some improvements the company might make going forward when considering diversity and inclusion holistically. We have voted against the nominating and governance committee of Schwab historically for lack of gender diversity.
We would note that since 2015 this board has been made up of less than 16% woman. The Spencer Stuart Board Index notes that 26% of all S and P 500 directors are now women. Furthermore, we found that Schwab trails in comparison to the Board of TD Ameritrade and in fact has the lowest percentage of all 23 companies that it has disclosed as its peers in the proxy. 1 of your peers boards has female representation at 38% and the median percentage of female representation on these boards is 29. We believe that diversity is something that begins at the top and thinking strategically about board composition might be another way in which Schwab can show that action matter more than words.
We also encourage the company to improve disclosure of ethnic or racial minorities on the board. In terms of employee data, we would like to see 1, specific ethnic representation disclosed across all job categories and 2, actual numbers provided for the workforce as opposed to just percentages. Bank of America is a good example for such disclosure. Actual numbers would be more meaningful for investors as we could analyze trends and get a window into Schwab's progress on its inclusion efforts. Finally, it's unclear reviewing the governance documents on the website if any specific committee or if the full Board is responsible for human capital management and in particular the oversight of diversity and inclusion initiatives at Schwab.
As long term investors, we believe that directors are our fiduciaries in the boardroom and we would like to better understand who on the board is accountable for oversight of Schwab employees. We appreciate the engagement that we have had with the company management this year on this issue. We urge Charles Schwab to recognize the increasing support for the proposal over time and to reveal its EEO-one data for the benefit of its investors, its clients and its employees. Thank you. I've finished presenting the stockholder proposal.
Thank you. Kate Monahan representing Friends Fiduciary Corporation will present the 2nd stockholder proposal requesting disclosure of lobbying policy, procedures and oversight, lobbying expenditures and participation in organizations engaged in lobbying. Ms. Monahan, would you please present the proposal?
Thank you, Mr. Morgan. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the Board and fellow share owners. My name is Kate Monahan, and I'm the Shareholder Engagement Manager at Friends Sidotiall Corporation, and we are long term shareholders of Charles Schwab.
I hereby move Proposal 7 asking our company to provide a report on its state and federal lobbying expenditures and its indirect funding of lobbying for trade associations and other non profit entities. Company transparency and accountability are in the best interest of Charles Schwab shareholders. This proposal would allow shareholders to evaluate lobbying spending and ensure that sufficient internal accountability structures are in place to manage and minimize risk. Our proposal asks Schwab to disclose its memberships in and payments to trade associations, including any portion used for lobbying. Schwab does not disclose its membership center payments to trade associations or the amounts used for lobbying and these amounts can be quite large.
For example, Schwab serves on the Board of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, which spent over $58,000,000 on lobbying from 2010 to 2018. And Schwab previously served on the Board of the Chamber of Commerce, which has spent over $1,500,000,000 on lobbying since 1998. We also do not know Schwab's process for evaluating the potential reputational risk posed by misalignment of the company's policy positions with the positions of its trade associations. In the midst of this global health crisis, the Chamber of Commerce has received negative scrutiny for its lobbying against the full use of the Defense Production Act to increase production of necessary medical equipment, even as organizations like the American Medical Association have called for its use to ensure healthcare workers have the protective equipment they need. Proxy advisor, ISS supports this proposal, noting that Schwab's overall lobbying disclosure is not sufficiently transparent.
Shareholders need complete disclosure to be able to evaluate the use of corporate assets for lobbying and any risks that spending can pose. The company could easily and inexpensively provide this information. We urge shareowners to vote for proposal 7. I'm finished presenting the stockholder proposal.
Thank you. The Board of Directors has recommended that you vote against these stock holder proposals. The statements against these proposals are contained in the 2020 proxy statement. If you are participating in the virtual annual meeting, please click on the vote now button to cast your ballot electronically through the Internet at this time. If you have completed a ballot during the meeting, your vote will be counted at the end of the meeting and reflected in the final report of the Inspector of Election and in the minutes of the annual meeting.
The polls are now closed. The Inspector of Election has completed a preliminary count of the proxies that were voted during the weeks leading up to this meeting. The preliminary count shows that more than 88% of the shares voting on the proposal and present at the meeting by proxy have been voted in favor of each of William S. Hariff, Frank C. Harringer and Roger O.
Waffler. They have been elected to the Board of Directors. More than 94% of the shares voting on the proposal and present at the meeting by proxy have been voted in favor of the ratification of the selection of Deloitte and Touche LLP as the company's independent auditors and that proposal has been approved. More than 93% of the shares voting on the proposal and present at the meeting by proxy have been voted in favor of the advisory approval of named executive officer compensation and that proposal has been approved. More than 96% of the shares voting on the proposal and present at the meeting by proxy have been voted in favor of the approval of the 13 stock incentive plan as amended and restated and that proposal has been approved.
Less than 75% of outstanding shares have been voted in favor of the approval of the amended and restated bylaws to adopt proxy access. That proposal requires 80% of all outstanding shares voting in favor for approval and it has been defeated. Less than 43% of the shares voting on the proposal and present at the meeting by proxy have been voted in favor of the approval of the stockholder proposal requesting annual disclosure of EE01 data and that proposal has been defeated. Less than 35% of the shares voting on the proposal and present at the meeting by proxy have been voted in favor of approval of the stockholder proposal requesting disclosure of lobbying policy, procedures and oversight, lobbying expenditures and participation organizations engaged in lobbying and that proposal has been defeated. This adjourns the business portion of the meeting.
Thank you very much for your attention. We will now hear from our Chief Financial Officer, Peter Crocker.
All right. Well, thank you very much, Peter. It is always a privilege for me to be able to speak to our stockholders, though it feels a little different sitting in this relatively large auditorium, sparsely populated large auditorium this year. What's also different this year is that we have not one, but 2 pages of forward looking statements, but the meaning is the same, which is to remind all of you that Walt and I will be communicating our thoughts on the future. Of course, the future is inherently uncertain.
So please check-in and review our periodic updates, including our quarterly webcast to make sure you have the latest information and perspective on the company. But before we talk about the future, let's talk about the past and specifically 2019, which frankly feels like a lifetime ago. It was certainly an eventful and interesting year highlighted by our 2 groundbreaking acquisitions and our decision to eliminate online equity commissions. But amidst all that, we delivered record financial results, which Chuck Aftley described as spectacular financial results last year, spite of an environment that was generally pretty challenging for our business model. Now 1 year ago today, I was up on stage sharing our expectation for last year.
And we discussed a range of possible outcomes reflecting different scenarios regarding the extent to which our clients would continue sorting their transaction versus investment cash and how that would translate into balance sheet growth. They both were aligned with market expectations at the time for a continuation of the Fed's tightening of monetary policy, as well as modest market appreciation, relatively flat longer term rates and a slight increase in trading activity or DARTs. On balance, the year unfolds in a way that was more challenging for our business model. Though the equity markets were up nearly 30%, the Fed reversed course quickly and dramatically, cutting rates 3 times during the year. Longer term rates finished the year a lot lower than where they started.
Paradoxically, despite the strong equity markets, investors remained apprehensive, which means measures of engagement such as DARTs were a bit softer. And finally, our balance sheet ended the year towards the upper end of our range. As sorting continued albeit at a slowing pace while clients were net sellers of equities. Those interest rate headwinds clearly impacted our top line revenue, but by effectively managing the factors in our control, we're able to deliver bottom line results generally aligned with the expectations we set. Revenue growth of 6% was just shy of the range we communicated as the interest rates declines were too much to overcome.
But we took steps to trim our spending plans, keeping expense growth to 5 below the range we communicated despite some one time items severance and integration costs, which contributed to about 1 third of the growth. In doing so, we delivered a pre tax margin of roughly 45% and $2.67 of EPS, a 9% increase from the previous year. At Schwab, we try not to put an undue focus on the day to day movements of the stock price, recognizing that it's influenced by a number of factors outside of our control. But of course, we're pleased that our stockholders have been rewarded with a compound annual growth rate or CAGR in the stock price of roughly 10% from December 2014 to December 2019. What is more in our control is our financial performance.
Over the last 4 years, we are quite gratified by the dramatic improvement in those results with earnings per share up 160% between 2015 2019 and a return on equity or ROE increasing from 12% to 19%. Now as we turn the page from 2019 to 2020, the environment has clearly shifted a lot as a result of the COVID-nineteen pandemic. While we have a very resilient business model, are driving strong business momentum and are confident we'll emerge from this crisis stronger than when it started, we are not immune to the financial pressures around us. With the Fed having cut rates by 150 basis points in the Q1 and equity markets down, we faced some revenue headwinds, which began to be reflected in our Q1 results. Overall revenue fell 4% year over year in Q1, mostly due to a 6% decline in net interest revenue due to much lower rates across the curve.
Asset management and admin fees were up 10% year over year due to an increase in advised assets and purchase money fund balances. Trading was down 13% year over year as daily average trading nearly doubled from a year ago, but the commission per revenue trade declined. Expenses were up roughly 8%, but that would have been only roughly 3% without the acquisition and integration expenses for our various acquisitions that are underway, USAA, TD Ameritrade and most recently, Wasmus Schroeder, as well as COVID-nineteen related spending on our employees. With revenue down and expenses up, our pre tax margin declined to roughly 40% or 42.5% before the $64,000,000 in unusual items I just referenced. And our return on equity declined to about 14%.
Note however that 2 percentage points of that ROE decline from the prior quarter was due to a $4,000,000,000 increase in GAAP equity resulting from mark to market gains in our available for sale portfolio. And then another point related to the unusual expenses I just mentioned. Turning to our attention to the rest of 2020, a challenging year thus far, but one in which we expect to be able to deliver continue producing very strong organic growth and solid financial performance. Our scenario for the year starts with some basic assumptions, relatively stable interest rates through the rest of the year, average market appreciation and a return of trading activity closer to historical levels versus the relatively torrid pace we saw in the Q1. The big variable in this scenario as with the last scenarios we shared last year is the amount of balance sheet growth from here through the end of the year.
Do clients continue selling out of fixed income and equities or does that stabilize? Depending on the answer to that question, we could see balance sheet growth of 30% to 40% over the course of the year. And based on what happens with the balance sheet, we expect revenue comps to be somewhere in the minus 4% to minus 7% range. Our expectation is that year over year expense growth will be somewhere in the 4.5% to 5.5% range excluding again TD Ameritrade acquisition and integration costs. And that would lead to pre tax margins of at least 38%.
Clearly below where we've been the last few years, but a lot better than the shadow of the financial crisis. And I hope you'd agree quite healthy under the circumstances. One of the dynamics that makes our business model more resilient is that quite often when equity markets fall, our clients increase their allocations to cash. And when interest rates fall, the portion of that cash that stays on our balance sheet often tends to increase. It's an internal hedge if you will in our business model.
We saw that happen during the financial crisis and we saw it happen again in the Q1 of this year. And that cash tends to stick on the balance sheet until interest rates increase or we see a much more optimistic shift in investor sentiment. We cannot control the environment of course, but we can mostly control our spending levels. We have communicated to clients and employees that we do not plan to do any layoffs related to COVID-nineteen or the resulting financial turbulence. We are driving strong organic growth.
We have a lot of momentum right now which creates higher demands on resources. Our clients are highly engaged, which despite the tremendous progress on digital adoption increases the burden on our people and systems. And we have some really important initiatives that we want to invest in. The integration of USAA and TD Ameritrade, our digital transformation work, application modernization to name a few. That being said, we expect core expense growth rate of roughly 2.5% to 3.5% for the year or 5.5% to sorry, 4.5% to 5.5% when you include all the one time items.
Now last but certainly not least, let's turn our attention to capital. We came into the year with capital levels above our operating objective, which itself is far above the regulatory minimum. The dramatic growth in the balance sheet has reduced those capital levels. We recently issued $2,500,000,000 of preferred equity, which will be helpful in funding both the purchase price for the USAA acquisition and supporting the client cash balances that we expect to migrate over at conversion. Even so, we could find our Tier 1 leverage ratio around the 6 percent range post USAA, below our operating objective of 6.75% to 7%.
We're comfortable with that. It is still well above the regulatory minimum for the consolidated company. The Fed has encouraged banks generally and us individually to utilize our capital buffers. That's why you maintain them in good times, so you can utilize them during stressed environments. Now due to restrictions related to the TD Ameritrade acquisitions, we already faced limitations on our ability to buy back stock.
So that's not really a factor anyway. And of course, we'll continue to pay our $0.18 quarterly dividend. Let me close with a few thoughts. This is clearly a very challenging environment for the world and a very challenging environment for this company. At the same time that record low interest rates put some strains on our top line revenue, our clients and our employees need us more than ever.
We're not blind to these near term pressures, but nor are we intimidated by them. We have a strategy that is working and a positioning in the market that is clearly resonating with investors. And what's going to help us get through this crisis are the same attributes that have made us successful in the past. Our focus on clients, the talent and dedication of our employees, the discipline with which we manage expenses and capital and our long term orientation. That's how even as we work to overcome the near term hurdles presented by this crisis, we are confidently facing the future as well.
And with that, let me turn over to Walt to talk more strategic level and also about our operating results and priorities. Walt?
Thank you, Peter. Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks so much for joining us in this unique format, our first virtual annual stockholders meeting. This is actually my 12th opportunity to have the honor as CEO to speak to all of you, my fellow stockholders. So much has changed since we were together last May, certainly some within our control and much outside of our control.
But during these times, nothing has really changed in terms of our focus on serving our valued clients, protecting the safety of our employees and building long term stockholder value. Our strategy, which is based on through client's eyes and our execution of the strategy via the Virtuos cycle has been at work and we've delivered record client results during these most difficult times. I'd like to start by taking a quick look back at 2019 and then focusing on how 2020 is shaping up. 2019 will go down as a special year for Schwab, our clients and all of you my fellow stockholders. In addition to seeing client assets with us grow to exceed $4,000,000,000,000 we generated record earnings while continuing our long term approach of delivering ever better value to our clients.
In the Q4, we eliminated web and mobile equity and ETF commissions for all of our clients, removing the last barrier to opening up investing for everyone. In addition, in the second half of last year, we announced 2 major acquisitions. First, in July, we announced we would be acquiring the wealth management and investment brokerage business of USAA, one of the premier service oriented companies in the country. And then in November, we announced the planned acquisition of TD Ameritrade. As expected, this acquisition is undergoing review by the Department of Justice, and we are responding to their questions.
We remain optimistic that we will receive approval in time for a second half of twenty twenty closing. Once completed, the combined company operating under the Charles Schwab brand name would serve approximately 20,000,000 investor and banking accounts and approximately $5,000,000,000,000 in client assets. We believe that the long term benefits of this acquisition will be apparent to the clients we serve as well as our stockholders as we deliver quality investing platforms serving our retail and investor investment advisor clients of all sizes. $212,000,000,000 of core net new assets in 2019 followed on by $73,000,000,000 of core net new assets in Q1. In some ways, as I looked at this slide, it almost felt like there was nothing else for me to say.
Certainly, Q1 of 2020 was a record for Schwab and frankly an astonishing number when compared to any of our publicly traded competitors in brokerage, investment services or asset management who issue audited metrics to the public markets. But I think what makes this accomplishment all the more remarkable is that typically in times of market stress, investors retreat from investing and we see net new assets and new accounts soften. Although this might still play out in the coming months, through the Q1, we saw the opposite with investors turning to Schwab and we've been there to support them. Clients engaged with us at levels that we have never seen before. In addition to opening a record number of new brokerage and investment accounts, we experienced high levels of phone calls and digital engagement as investors turn to us for help navigating the equity market decline and the collapsing interest rates.
And during these times, we continued our track record of serving clients in a manner that is consistently recognized by independent third parties. Earlier this year, we were recognized as number 1 by J. D. Power for self directed investors investing on their own, number 1 by J. D.
Power for direct banking and number 2 by J. D. Power for self directed investors seeking guidance, falling a single point behind Vanguard on a 1,000 point scale. I guess the optimist in me calls that a tie. And although I think we all recognize that 3rd party recognition is most helpful from a marketing standpoint, our superior organic growth is a result of a combination of great value, high quality service, consistent availability, trustworthy brand fundamentally are no trade offs approach to delighting clients.
Critically, we achieved these results while protecting the safety and health of our employees and also supporting them with special financial recognition, no cost COVID-nineteen testing and other efforts designed to support them during this crisis. Caring for our clients begins with caring for our employees. And make no mistake, our employees care deeply about serving our clients. They've demonstrated exceptional commitment and dedication throughout this crisis and the success we have enjoyed with clients wouldn't be possible without their collective service mentality. Transitioning from the discussion of near term issues to longer term opportunities, there are 3 key strategic priorities that we think will make a big difference for our clients and stockholders: driving greater scale and efficiency throughout our business, capturing monetization opportunities beyond net interest revenue, and creating targeted solutions for key segments of our client base with a near term focus on high net worth investors.
Our technology investments are paying off with an over 90% straight through processing rate for key service and operational areas like trading, settlement and custody. And our technology systems capability and capacity to manage high volumes of trades was validated with a doubling of trades relative to the prior 4th quarters. We announced the pending acquisition of Wozmer Schroeder, a high quality fixed income manager based out of Naples, Florida. Wozmer is known throughout the industry as a premier bond manager as evidenced by their historical placement on the recommendation platform of a number of our competitors. Wazmer will help us better serve clients with quality, low cost solutions as well as contribute to asset management revenue growth.
And our recently announced acquisition of Motif's technology, patents and intellectual property will contribute to our efforts to delivering modern investing experiences for investors, ranging from theme based investing and trading to direct indexing. Many of the key professionals from Motif will also be joining Schwab in helping design and build these key capabilities. Our client segmentation efforts were also successful in Q1 as we continued growing our mortgage lending offering, building deeper relationships with many of our investor clients. This capability is key as many of our major banking competitors try to leverage low rate lending solutions by linking them to the transfer of investable assets. So by offering competitive lending programs to these same clients, these assets tend to stay at Schwab.
The 3 company acquisitions we've announced remain on track with USAA scheduled to close in late Q2 or early Q3 of this year. On TD Ameritrade, we are as excited as ever about the prospects of bringing our 2 great companies together to better serve clients of all types and sizes. As I mentioned earlier, the Department of Justice continues their responsible and thorough review of the transaction, and we continue to provide them information to perform that review. We remain optimistic about the eventual approval of the transaction given investment advisor side. And we expect the Wassmer Schroeder transaction to close in mid year, again offering our fixed income clients a level of exceptional professional management.
So as we meet today virtually in the midst of this pandemic crisis, I want to assure my fellow stockholders that our time tested strategy through client size is proving once again to pass the test these unpredictable markets have presented. We operate with our 5 guiding principles providing clear direction and focus for our company and our employees. And we remain on offense with our efforts with a clear recognition that when times seem darkest is when the best company's actions create the foundation for long term success. So in closing, I'd just like to restate 4 key points. 1st, our strategy is working and it remains consistent.
2nd, our execution is second to none and was illustrated by our client metrics during the volatile Q1. 3rd, our employees are performing incredibly well during this pandemic, while management has implemented numerous efforts to ensure their safety and health. And last, but certainly not least, throughout we remain on offense, building a world class company, serving millions of clients with the staying power to thrive through the most challenging times. So Rich, let me turn it back over to you for an opportunity to answer questions from our stockholders.
Okay. Thanks, Walt. All right, everyone. We have reached the final segment of today's meeting, Q and A session with Chuck and Walt. As I mentioned earlier, questions can be submitted via your webcast consoles.
You can look for the box. I believe it's on the right hand side. We do have a couple of questions ready to go, so let's dive in. I think the first one is for Chuck. A number of folks have expressed interest in your perspectives on the current environment.
So would you start us off with your thoughts on working through these challenging times from the standpoint of both the investors we serve and the company itself?
Sure, Rich. Thanks, Walt. That was a great presentation you gave to the shareholders. It gives me great confidence that we have lots of wonderful things in our future. As we are now in the throes of dealing with another setback, which we had sort of like in 2009 to 2010, the financial crisis.
And many more that have been sort of entered in my career over the last 40 some years. I just have this great deep down belief that our economy will take on almost anything and through unbelievable ingenuity of free enterprise, we will come up with solutions. We have certainly as a group of people in America, we have the tenacity and we have the creativity to deal and handle and come up with solutions that will put us back in full control. Right now, we're seeing things improvements coming along. We've taken care of the curve we think for the which was very important and now we're getting back to work again.
People are ready to go, just a matter of having the gates open up and I think that will be is happening slowly state by state, having their own different strategies and so forth. But there's no question there are 6,000,000 small business people are ready and raring to go, open their doors up as fast as they possibly can and get back to some level of normal life. Yes, it's going to take probably longer than we all had hoped for. It will probably take a longer time. It won't be just a simple V.
It will be a little bit longer, but I think we have the persistence and the confidence to do that. And so I'm very optimistic and we just have plan on a lot of hard work and I know we're all up to that. Rich, I'll turn it back to you.
All right. Thank you, Chuck. Next one is for Walt asking where we see the greatest opportunities for growth going forward?
Thanks, Rich. Ultimately, we're in the business of trust. Clients trust us with their hard earned money. They trust to offer them the tools to manage it themselves, sometimes to help the management, sometimes to serve an independent advisor who helps them manage it, but it revolves around operating in a trustworthy manner. So as a result, the greatest opportunity for growth always revolves around doing right by our clients by operating under the golden rule.
And in doing so, we create sustainable competitive advantage and that leads to organic growth. If I were to think about it more tactically, the Schwab of today is able to serve a wide variety of investors from those who are just starting out to people who've invested their whole lives and are now using those accumulated assets for income later in life stage. So everyone in between from those with modest means to individuals with ultra high net worth. So our growth opportunities run across the spectrum. We're a place for investors of every type.
Couple of quick examples. We recently introduced Schwab Stock Slices, a service that allows an investor to buy as little as $5 of any S and P 500 stock all for a zero commission. I'm personally excited to see what this can do to help engage younger investors who we need to encourage them to be investors, be excited about the economy and what investing can do for them. And of course, all the things we're doing in digital and mobile technology are important there too. And at the other end of the spectrum, the population of investors who might be more in retirement or looking to build income, we've introduced services like our intelligent income program that shows great promise in helping investors convert assets into income that is deposit into their checkbook.
So there's opportunities across that spectrum. Rich, let me go back to you.
Thank you. I think the next one, Walt, we'll stick with you for coming from a stockholder. We used to make, we'll say, more money when people traded more. Now perhaps not so much after our recent price cuts. How much does it cost us now when a customer executes that online equity trade to help us understand the earnings implications of changes in trading volume?
Who's that question directed towards?
That'd be for Walt.
So I think it's less an issue of what it costs us to process a trade because that number is very small given the enormous number of trades that we process. It's really about the overall relationship with the client. Whereas 25 or 30 years ago, trading made up a very significant part of our revenue at Schwab. As recently as a year ago, that number was well under 10% of our overall revenue. So, I think our emphasis is on building trust based relationships with all types of investors.
And I think the move to the 0 commissions for web and mobile equity and ETF trades is really fulfilling the vision that Chuck had when he started the company 40 plus years ago, and that is to open up investing to everyone, open up the opportunities to invest to everyone and by going to that 0 commission, it's removed that last barrier. The modest amount it costs us to process a trade pales in comparison to the opportunity to build a lifelong relationship, serving an investor, helping them achieve their goals and earning a little bit of money along the way.
All right. Thank you. Okay. Chuck, this next question is for you. This comes from one of our younger stockholders, whom we have met, Masai, is checking in with us.
And sorry, he can't be with us in person. And Chuck, he's wondering if with the advent of the pandemic that there are any significant changes or impacts on the company's strategy or longer term prospects that might weigh on the value of the company at least temporarily?
Well, Masai, who is one of our young investors and the son of one of our couples who are very good customers of Schwab and thanks for coming again to our virtual meeting this year. I think the company itself is here of course at all times and has right on through the pandemic issues in the beginning to where we are today and hopefully coming out of it. We're here to help our clients and have been and as Walt mentioned earlier on, people many people have really gotten engaged even more so because I think they've had more time on their hands in the last few months to look at their portfolios and think about their investing, think about the decisions they need to make for their long term benefits, whether it's retirement or buying another home or whatever the case may be for them individually. So Schwab is here 24 hours a day to help people even with our branches in a closed situation, but we're open through the web, we're open through the telephone, our call centers, we're open all the time to our clients. And as you know, most of our employees are now operating virtually also by 95% of them working to their homes, which has been a great capability to Schwab.
Given the fact that we invested so much money over the years in technology. And so we're here and ready and we'll take on any environment. I think we'll all be happier when it gets to be an improved environment. But I think your long term view of Schwab, I think can be looked at with great optimism that we're ready, willing and able to be here exactly when our customer needs us.
Okay. Thank you, Chuck. All right. This will be our last question for the session. And I think, Walt, I'll ask you to take the lead on this.
How did Schwab arrive at the decision to acquire TD Ameritrade?
Thanks, Rich. This transaction is squarely in line with our long term strategy. The acquisition enables us to continue to add scale on top of our record setting organic growth rate. It would add approximately 12,000,000 client accounts, over $1,000,000,000,000 in client assets, dollars 5,000,000,000 in annual revenue, at least those were numbers as of the date of the announcement. I would expect that that added scale is going to lead to lower operating expenses for company, which helps us fund enhanced client experience capabilities, value for clients, improve our reach and also, of course further our financial success to reward our stockholders.
It's really the virtuous cycle at work. Both companies, as I mentioned, we're fully cooperating with the Department of Justice and regulators in their thorough and professional review of the transaction. And again, we remain confident that it's on track to close in the second half of this year. Chuck, anything you might want to
add to our I just want to reaffirm Walt's view on this that with this improved scale that we're anticipating with the acquisition, it will lead to certainly the efficiency we had mentioned. But to me, it means we can afford new services that we have not offered to date and we'll be able to do so I think. And the expanded investment that we'll be making in technology will add to more service, more capabilities for our clients. And that's really what we're about. And as Walt talks about our virtuous cycle, this will only just enhance that whole thought process.
All right. Thank you. So Walt, do you have any final thoughts for us before we close out?
Sure. I'd just like to thank all of you for participating in our 2020 Virtual Annual Stockholders Meeting. Although we weren't able to get together in person this year, I am confident that we are all together when it comes to our vision at Schwab to be the most trusted leader in investment services. As stockholders, you have my commitment, the commitment of the Board, the commitment of the management and all of our dedicated employees to continue striving toward that purpose and the opportunities for growth it creates. So thank you again for joining us.
And that concludes our 2020 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. Please stay well, everyone.