Who are Morgan Stanley's competitors, and what are the alternatives?
Morgan Stanley's 10-K lists its rivals by type: commercial banks, global investment banks, regional banks, broker-dealers, private banks, registered investment advisers, digital investing platforms, asset managers and financial technology firms. By line, the names are clear. In investment banking it ranked third globally in 2025 M&A fees with $3 billion, behind Goldman Sachs ($4.6 billion) and JPMorgan ($3.1 billion) and ahead of Citi, with Bank of America and Wells Fargo also in the league tables (LSEG via Reuters). In markets it posted record equities revenue of $5.15 billion in the first quarter of 2026, the same quarter Goldman, JPMorgan, Citigroup and Bank of America reported surges. In wealth management, the business it is built around, its advisor force competes with Bank of America's Merrill, Wells Fargo, UBS, Charles Schwab and RBC, which hired many of the nearly 200 advisers who left UBS's US business in 2025. The non-bank rivals are real in two places: E*Trade, with 8.6 million clients, competes with Robinhood, Coinbase and Schwab and undercut all three on crypto trading in May 2026; and AI-native advice tools such as Altruist's Hazel, whose tax-planning launch hit wealth-manager stocks in February 2026.[1][2][3][4][5][6]
Data as of Oct 20, 2026 · Morgan Stanley profile updated Oct 13, 2026 · computed tables recalculate from the 140 bank profiles on this site · Markdown
What does Morgan Stanley say about its competition?
"All aspects of our businesses are highly competitive, and we expect them to remain so. We compete in the U.S. and globally for clients, market share and human talent. [...] Our competitive position depends on a number of factors, including our reputation, client experience, the quality and consistency of our long-term investment performance, innovation, execution, relative pricing and other factors [...] We compete with commercial banks, global investment banks, regional banks, broker-dealers, private banks, registered investment advisers, digital investing platforms, traditional and alternative asset managers, financial technology firms and other companies offering financial and ancillary services in the U.S. and globally."[1]
"There is increased competition in the U.S. and globally driven by established financial services firms and emerging firms, including non-financial companies and business models focusing on technology innovation, such as tokenization, competing for the same clients and/or assets, or offering similar products and services to retail and/or institutional customers. [...] We also continue to experience price competition in our Institutional Securities business segment's products. In particular, the ability to execute securities, derivatives and other financial instrument trades electronically on exchanges, swap execution facilities and other automated trading platforms, and the introduction and application of new technologies, including generative artificial intelligence and tokenization, will likely continue the pressure on our revenues."[1]
"Our Wealth Management business segment is primarily in the U.S., and our ability to effectively compete against many of our competitors across different channels (i.e., advisor led, workplace and digital direct) is affected by multiple factors including our brand and reputation, the breadth, depth and pricing of our product offerings and our technology supporting evolving client needs, including generative artificial intelligence and tokenization." (Form 10-K for 2025, Item 1, filed February 19, 2026.)[1]
Who competes with Morgan Stanley in each of its businesses?
| Business line | Competitor | Type | Why it competes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Investment banking: M&A advice and underwriting | Goldman Sachs | Bank | Goldman ranked first in 2025 global M&A by fees ($4.6 billion) and deal value ($1.48 trillion, 32% of the market), advising on 38 of 68 deals above $10 billion; Morgan Stanley was third by fees ($3 billion) and by deal volume (LSEG via Reuters, January 2026).[2] |
| Investment banking: M&A advice and underwriting | JPMorgan Chase | Bank | JPMorgan was second in 2025 M&A fees ($3.1 billion) and deal volume, and the highest-paid investment bank overall once equity and debt capital markets fees are counted, $10.1 billion (Reuters, January 2026).[2] |
| Investment banking: M&A advice and underwriting | Citigroup | Bank | Citi followed Morgan Stanley in 2025 M&A fee rankings and was fifth by deal volume behind Goldman, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America (LSEG via Reuters).[2] |
| Investment banking: M&A advice and underwriting | Bank of America | Bank | Bank of America ranked fourth in 2025 global M&A by deal volume, just behind Morgan Stanley (LSEG via Reuters, January 2026).[2] |
| Investment banking: M&A advice and underwriting | Boutique advisers such as Moelis | Other | Independent advisers compete for the largest mandates: Moelis rose three places to No. 16 in 2025 on five deals above $5 billion, including advising Netflix on its Warner Bros bid (Reuters, January 2026).[2] |
| Institutional equities and fixed income | Goldman Sachs | Bank | Reuters names Goldman first among the peers that reported a surge in trading and investment banking in the first quarter of 2026, when Morgan Stanley's equities revenue hit a record $5.15 billion; Morgan Stanley's 10-K cites price competition from electronic and automated trading platforms.[3][1] |
| Institutional equities and fixed income | JPMorgan Chase | Bank | JPMorgan is among the peers Reuters lists as reporting surging trading and banking revenue in the first quarter of 2026 alongside Morgan Stanley's record equities quarter.[3] |
| Institutional equities and fixed income | Citigroup | Bank | Citigroup is one of the four peers Reuters lists as reporting a surge in trading and investment banking revenue in the first quarter of 2026, the quarter Morgan Stanley's fixed income revenue rose 29% to $3.36 billion on commodities trading.[3] |
| Institutional equities and fixed income | Bank of America | Bank | Bank of America is among the peers Reuters names alongside Goldman, JPMorgan and Citigroup as reporting surging trading and banking revenue in the first quarter of 2026.[3] |
| Advisor-led wealth management | Bank of America (Merrill) | Bank | Reuters lists Bank of America with Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo and Schwab as the rivals that took advisers and client assets from UBS in 2025, and reports it hired UBS teams in Rhode Island, Texas and California.[4] |
| Advisor-led wealth management | Wells Fargo | Bank | Wells Fargo's largest adviser hire of 2025 was Hingham Street Partners, a $6.3 billion team recruited from UBS, one of the moves Reuters lists among rivals including Morgan Stanley (March 2026).[4] |
| Advisor-led wealth management | UBS | Bank | UBS lost nearly 200 US advisers in 2025, ending with 5,772, and $6 billion of net new assets in the Americas, with clients going to rivals such as Morgan Stanley; its US wealth pre-tax margin of 13% is 'significantly lower than rivals' (Reuters, March 2026).[4] |
| Advisor-led wealth management | Charles Schwab | Bank | Schwab is on Reuters' list of rivals hiring UBS advisers, and its shares fell with Raymond James, LPL and Stifel in February 2026 when AI tax-planning tools hit wealth stocks, the same pressure Morgan Stanley's wealth head addressed.[4][6] |
| Advisor-led wealth management | RBC Wealth Management | Bank | RBC attracted 90 experienced advisers to its US wealth management division in 2025, about 80% of them producing more than $2 million of revenue, with some of the largest teams coming from UBS (Reuters, March 2026), the same recruiting market Morgan Stanley competes in.[4] |
| Advisor-led wealth management | Altruist | Fintech | WealthManagement.com attributed a February 2026 selloff in Schwab, Raymond James, LPL and Stifel to Altruist's launch of AI-powered tax planning in its Hazel platform; Morgan Stanley's wealth head answered that the firm already has more than 3,500 tools, several for tax planning.[6] |
| Self-directed brokerage, crypto trading and digital-asset custody (E*Trade) | Robinhood | Fintech | Morgan Stanley's $13 billion purchase of E*Trade in 2020 'came with a new suite of rivals in the digital brokerage space', including Robinhood, which made $901 million in crypto transaction revenue in 2025; E*Trade's crypto pricing launched in May 2026 at about half of Robinhood's.[5] |
| Self-directed brokerage, crypto trading and digital-asset custody (E*Trade) | Coinbase | Fintech | E*Trade's crypto trading, rolling out to all 8.6 million E*Trade clients, undercuts Coinbase, the biggest US crypto exchange, on price; Morgan Stanley also applied in February 2026 for a national trust bank charter to custody digital assets (Bloomberg via Financial Planning).[5] |
| Self-directed brokerage, crypto trading and digital-asset custody (E*Trade) | Charles Schwab | Bank | Schwab set out its own crypto trading pricing in April 2026 and is one of the three rivals E*Trade undercut on price at launch (May 2026).[5] |
How do the AI and digital offerings of Morgan Stanley's competitors compare?
Morgan Stanley first, then each competitor. Use-case counts, index scores and latest moves are computed from our profiles of each company; "No profile" means this site has no page on it yet.
| Company | AI or digital offering | On the record (our profiles) | Latest dated AI move |
|---|---|---|---|
| Morgan Stanley (this page) | AI @ Morgan Stanley (Assistant, Debrief) and AskResearchGPT[7][8][9] | Index 69.7 (#34); 14 use cases, 9 in production | OpenAI launches ChatGPT for Financial Services, shaped with Morgan Stanley and Evercore (Sep 10, 2026)[10][11] |
| Goldman Sachs | GS AI Assistant for all 46,000 employees; more than a million prompts a month.[12][13] | Index 79.9 (#22); 13 use cases, 7 in production | Q3 2026 call: Solomon sets out AI guardrails and compute-supply risk (Oct 13, 2026)[14][15] |
| JPMorgan Chase | 175-plus AI use cases in production in the commercial and investment bank (May 2025).[16] | Index 89 (#6); 15 use cases, 8 in production | Q3 2026 call: outside AI agents stay blocked; AI spend put near $700 million (Oct 13, 2026)[17][18][19] |
| Citigroup | More than 1,700 hours a month of markets oversight capacity created with AI (Q1 2026).[20] | Index 94.9 (#2); 20 use cases, 15 in production | Payments chief: no AI model to authorise payments (Oct 1, 2026)[21] |
| Bank of America | Erica (and EricaAssist)[22][23][24] | Index 97.3 (#1); 18 use cases, 16 in production | Treasury, FinCEN and OCC impose $1.21 billion in AML and sanctions penalties (Oct 13, 2026)[25][26][27] |
| Boutique advisers such as Moelis | Not disclosed | No profile | Not disclosed |
| Bank of America (Merrill) | AI-Powered Meeting Journey for about 15,000 Merrill and Private Bank employees (March 2026).[28] | Index 97.3 (#1); 18 use cases, 16 in production | Treasury, FinCEN and OCC impose $1.21 billion in AML and sanctions penalties (Oct 13, 2026)[25][26][27] |
| Wells Fargo | Advisor Gateway with more than 200 tools and AI Teammate (May-July 2026).[29][30] | Index 88.8 (#7); 16 use cases, 13 in production | Q3 2026 call: AI agents in code, marketing, cyber, underwriting (Oct 13, 2026)[31][32] |
| UBS | STAAT Insights used by about 80% of US advisors; advisor agents that can trade after approval.[33] | Index 75.3 (#31); 14 use cases, 10 in production | Ermotti at the Bank of America conference (Sep 22, 2026)[34] |
| Charles Schwab | Claude for Financial Advisors connector for 16,000-plus RIAs; Charley for retail clients (September 2026).[35][36] | Index 80.7 (#19); 19 use cases, 15 in production | How Charley was built: employee testing, confirmation before any change (Oct 8, 2026)[37] |
| RBC Wealth Management | Lumina, ATOM and RBC Assist[38][39][40][41][42] | 15 use cases, 11 in production | OSFI semi-annual risk outlook centres on frontier AI (Oct 8, 2026)[43] |
| Altruist | Not disclosed | No profile | Not disclosed |
| Robinhood | Robinhood Cortex[44][45][46][47] | 8 use cases, 3 in production | Robinhood Agents, weekend trading and perpetual futures unveiled at HOOD Summit (Sep 29, 2026)[48][49] |
| Coinbase | x402 and Coinbase for Agents[50][51][52][53][54] | 8 use cases, 8 in production | Chainalysis: 138 million x402 payments on Base (Oct 14, 2026)[51] |
Who should look beyond Morgan Stanley, and where?
| If you are | Look at | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Companies that want the adviser on the most mega-deals | Goldman Sachs | Goldman advised on 38 of the 68 deals above $10 billion in 2025, more than any other bank, and led M&A fees with $4.6 billion against Morgan Stanley's $3 billion (LSEG via Reuters).[2] |
| Advisers who want a larger share of the revenue they generate | Independent RIAs on a custodian such as Charles Schwab | One former UBS adviser told Reuters that going independent raised his share of fee revenue to 70 cents on the dollar from 50 cents; Schwab is the largest RIA custodian and is offering Claude for Financial Advisors to 16,000-plus RIAs.[4][35] |
| Self-directed crypto traders who want coins beyond bitcoin, ether and solana | Crypto-native exchanges such as Coinbase | E*Trade's crypto trading began with bitcoin, ether and solana through Zerohash; at Coinbase, bitcoin and ether made up 45% of trading volume in 2025, the rest coming from other assets (Bloomberg via Financial Planning, May 2026).[5] |
| Retail investors who want a client-facing AI assistant now | Charles Schwab or Bank of America | Morgan Stanley's client-facing digital assistants entered testing in summer 2026. Schwab unveiled Charley, which completes transfers, payments and trades by voice or text, in September 2026, and Bank of America's Erica had nearly 50 million users by August 2025.[55][36][22] |
| Clients who want everyday banking with a branch network alongside their advisor | Bank of America (Merrill) or Wells Fargo | Morgan Stanley's 10-K describes its wealth business as competing across advisor-led, workplace and digital-direct channels; Bank of America and Wells Fargo pair their advisor forces with consumer banks whose assistants, Erica and Fargo, have passed 3 billion and 1 billion interactions.[1][22][56] |
Where did Morgan Stanley rank in M&A in 2025?
Global M&A advisory fees and deal-volume rank for 2025, LSEG data as reported by Reuters on January 6, 2026.
| Bank | M&A fees, 2025 | Rank by deal volume | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Goldman Sachs | $4.6 billion | 1 | Advised on $1.48 trillion, 32% of the market; 38 deals above $10 billion[2] |
| JPMorgan Chase | $3.1 billion | 2 | Highest-paid investment bank overall, $10.1 billion including capital markets[2] |
| Morgan Stanley | $3 billion | 3 | Record equities trading revenue of $5.15 billion followed in Q1 2026[2][3] |
| Bank of America | Not given | 4 | [2] |
| Citigroup | Next after Morgan Stanley | 5 | [2] |
Who are Morgan Stanley's biggest competitors?
In investment banking, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, which ranked first and second in 2025 M&A fees ahead of Morgan Stanley, plus Citi and Bank of America. In wealth management, Bank of America's Merrill, Wells Fargo, UBS and Charles Schwab. In self-directed brokerage and crypto, Robinhood, Coinbase and Schwab. Its own 10-K names the types: commercial and investment banks, broker-dealers, RIAs, digital investing platforms, asset managers and fintechs.[2][4][5][1]
Morgan Stanley vs Goldman Sachs: which is bigger in investment banking?
Goldman. In 2025 it led global M&A by fees ($4.6 billion) and deal value ($1.48 trillion), while Morgan Stanley ranked third with $3 billion of fees behind JPMorgan's $3.1 billion (LSEG via Reuters). Morgan Stanley's weight is in wealth management, which produced record revenue of $8.5 billion in the first quarter of 2026 and $9.1 billion in the third.[2][3][57]
Is Robinhood a competitor of Morgan Stanley?
Yes, through E*Trade. Bloomberg reports that Morgan Stanley's $13 billion purchase of E*Trade in 2020 brought a new suite of digital-brokerage rivals, Robinhood among them. When E*Trade launched crypto trading in May 2026 it priced it at about half of Robinhood's rate, and also below Coinbase and Schwab; Robinhood made $901 million from crypto transactions in 2025.[5]
Who competes with Morgan Stanley for financial advisors?
Bank of America's Merrill, Wells Fargo, UBS, Charles Schwab and RBC. Reuters reports nearly 200 advisers left UBS's US business in 2025 for rivals such as Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Schwab; RBC hired 90 experienced advisers in 2025, some of its largest teams from UBS. Independent RIAs are the other destination, offering a larger revenue share.[4]
Does AI threaten Morgan Stanley's wealth business?
Investors worried in February 2026, when Altruist's AI tax-planning tool knocked 7% to 8% off Schwab, Raymond James, LPL and Stifel and Morgan Stanley fell about 2.4%. Wealth head Jed Finn replied that the firm has more than 3,500 tools and that the advisor-client relationship will persist; CEO Ted Pick said in October 2026 that wealth management is 'a people business'.[6][57]
Morgan Stanley vs UBS: who is winning in US wealth management?
On flows, Morgan Stanley. UBS had net outflows of $6 billion in the Americas in 2025 and ended the year with 5,772 advisers, 196 fewer, with a US wealth pre-tax margin of 13% that Reuters calls significantly lower than rivals'. Morgan Stanley's wealth business took in $232 billion of net new assets in the third quarter of 2026, up 187% on a year earlier.[4][6][57]
Is Coinbase a competitor of Morgan Stanley?
Since May 2026, directly. E*Trade began offering spot crypto trading in bitcoin, ether and solana through Zerohash, priced below Coinbase, the biggest US crypto exchange, as well as Robinhood and Schwab, with all 8.6 million E*Trade clients due to get access in 2026. Morgan Stanley also launched a bitcoin ETF and applied for a national trust charter to custody digital assets.[5]
How does Morgan Stanley's equities trading compare with its rivals?
Morgan Stanley's equities revenue rose 25% to a record $5.15 billion in the first quarter of 2026 and fixed income rose 29% to $3.36 billion, in a quarter when Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Citigroup and Bank of America also reported surging markets and banking revenue (Reuters). Its 10-K warns that electronic trading platforms and generative AI will keep pressure on institutional revenues.[3][1]
- Morgan Stanley Annual Report on Form 10-K for 2025 (Item 1, Business: Competition)
- Goldman Sachs tops global M&A rankings with $1.48 trillion in deals
- Morgan Stanley's profit beats estimates on record trading revenue, dealmaking boost
- Focus: UBS wealth management outflows threaten US turnaround, analysts and sources say
- Morgan Stanley debuts crypto trading, undercuts rivals on price (Bloomberg News)
- Morgan Stanley's Wealth Head Addresses AI-Driven Pressures
- Launch of AI @ Morgan Stanley Debrief
- Morgan Stanley Research Announces AskResearchGPT
- Morgan Stanley Wins Three 2024 Technology Awards
- Introducing ChatGPT for Financial Services
- OpenAI courts Wall Street with ChatGPT for financial services, developed with Morgan Stanley
- Goldman Sachs staff now write a million gen AI prompts a month
- Marco Argenti gives Goldman Sachs coders an AI helper
- Earnings call transcript: Goldman Sachs tops Q3 2026 estimates as revenue rises
- Goldman's Solomon wants 'clear human accountability' on AI
- 2025 Investor Day Transcript - Full Transcript
- JPMorgan Chase blocks outside AI agents like Muse, Instinct from directly accessing accounts
- JPMorgan CEO Dimon warns customers of 'liability transfer' with AI
- JPMorgan warns of risks to consumers who rely on AI agents
- Earnings Results Presentation, First Quarter 2026
- The Most Powerful Women in Banking Women to Watch, #7, Debopama Sen, Citi
- A Decade of AI Innovation: BofA's Virtual Assistant Erica Surpasses 3 Billion Client Interactions
- Bank of America Enhances EricaAssist with Generative AI
- How Bank of America's Erica does the work of 11,000 people
- U.S. Treasury Announces Record Enforcement Actions Against Bank of America
- OCC Imposes $750 Million Assessment Against Bank of America for Deficient BSA/AML Compliance
- BofA fined $1.21 billion over AML
- Merrill and Bank of America Private Bank Launch AI-Powered Meeting Journey
- Wirehouse watch: Wells Fargo debuts AI-powered advisor platform
- Wells Fargo debuts AI-powered teammate for financial advisers
- Wells Fargo Enhances Banking Capabilities Using AI and Digital Assets
- Wells Fargo Reports Third Quarter 2026 Net Income of $6.0 billion, or $1.87 per Diluted Share
- Behind UBS' AI strategy to win wallet share, client leads
- UBS at Bank of America financials conference: growth meets capital pressure (transcript)
- Charles Schwab and Anthropic to Bring Claude to Independent Registered Investment Advisors
- Meet Charley, Schwab's New AI-Powered Assistant Designed to Help Clients Get Answers and Take Action
- Charles Schwab's Amy Ruegg: AI Can Make Investing Easier, but Human Expertise Remains Key
- RBC's proprietary AI foundation model for financial services aims to enhance personalized client experience
- RBC ranks #1 in Canada and #3 globally for AI maturity in financial services for fourth straight year
- RBC creates new AI Group to help bring top AI opportunities to market
- Royal Bank of Canada Annual Report 2025 (EX-99.1, filed with the SEC)
- RBC Capital Markets Advances Research and Banking Capabilities With Agentic AI (undated page, retrieved 2026-10-05)
- Annual Risk Outlook: Semi-annual update, fiscal year 2026-2027
- Introducing Robinhood Strategies, Robinhood Banking, and Robinhood Cortex
- Robinhood unveils latest AI innovations and prediction markets features at Robinhood Presents: YES/NO
- Robinhood Reports First Quarter 2026 Results (Form 8-K, Exhibit 99.1)
- Robinhood and TradePMR Unveil the Future of Wealth Management at SYNERGY26
- Robinhood Puts the Power of Hedge Funds in Every Trader's Pocket
- Robinhood rolls out OpenAI and Anthropic trading agents to millions of users
- Introducing x402: a new standard for internet-native payments
- AI agents are on a shopping spree: Total payments on Base blockchain eclipse 138 million, Chainalysis finds
- Coinbase for Agents adds equities and x402 payments
- Coinbase pushes further into AI payments with new MCP for Base network
- Coinbase (COIN) Q1 2026 Earnings Transcript
- Wall Street banks ramp up digital assistants in bid to win productivity race
- Wells Fargo Reaches Major Digital Milestones
- Amid AI boom, Morgan Stanley leans into role of its people
When Morgan Stanley or its peers move on AI, you'll read it here first.
when one of the banks we cover moves on AI, it is in the next morning's brief · six sourced stories · 7 am PT · free
plus every regulation, bank and agent page update, the morning after · leave any morning