Global tech outage hits financial services companies, including Charles Schwab

Amid a widespread global IT outage, some investors were experiencing disruptions on Friday at financial services companies, including Charles Schwab, one of the country’s largest brokerage firms.

The issues stem from a faulty software update from cybersecurity company CrowdStrike, which affected businesses worldwide, including airlines, banks and media outlets.

CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said the company is “actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts.” 

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DownDetector, which tracks user-reported online outages, showed roughly 500 reports for Charles Schwab around 10 a.m. ET on Friday.

A banner across Charles Schwab’s website said “certain online functionality may be intermittently slow or unavailable,” noting that phone services may be disrupted with “longer than usual hold time.”

The firm’s app warned users not to place trades twice “as duplicate trades may be created,” and said the company was “working with the vendor to resolve the issue.”

Charles Schwab did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

DownDetector did not show significant outage reports for Vanguard or Fidelity.

“After the widespread third-party outage, Vanguard’s portfolio management trading functions across all regions are operating as normal and there is no current impact to our products or pricing,” a Vanguard spokesperson said. “We continue to monitor and assess the situation, and are working diligently to ensure business continuity for our clients globally.” 

Fidelity told CNBC the company was aware of the issues and that it did not appear to be impacted as of midday Friday.