Margin Lending at Listed Brokers, 2026: Balances, Accounts and Trading Activity

1 Margin Lending Across Listed Brokers

• Thirteen listed brokers were screened; twelve disclose a margin balance. eToro reports leverage through CFD style positions and no margin loan balance.
• Definitions differ: Interactive Brokers, Schwab and Robinhood state margin loans directly; Morgan Stanley's Wealth Management figure adds securities based lending to non bank entities; Raymond James, Stifel, LPL, Webull and Freedom use balance sheet receivables lines that consist mainly of margin loans.
• Year on year growth at the latest period: Webull +230% (on balance sheet receivables only), Schwab +93%, Futu +85%, Robinhood +59%, Stifel +49%, LPL +44%, Interactive Brokers +36%, Morgan Stanley +33%, UP Fintech +30%, Raymond James +14%.
• Quarter on quarter, Interactive Brokers fell 3.0% from a record $108.5bn at Jun 2026 to $105.2bn at Sep 2026, while Schwab rose 13.8% and Robinhood 2.3%.

2 Interactive Brokers: Margin Loans at 10.9% of Customer Equity

• Customer margin loans $105.2bn at 30 Sep 2026, +36.1%; average balance in Q3 2026 $104.0bn, +46.9%. Customer equity $964.7bn, +27.4%; customer credits $186.2bn, +20.3%.
• Margin loans equal 10.9% of customer equity, against 14.6% at Dec 2021 and 12.7% at Dec 2022, when balances troughed at $38.9bn; the low was 9.8% at Jun 2025.
• Accounts 5.58m, +35.1%; DARTs 4.27m, +18.2%. Net revenue $1.91bn, +15.6%; pretax margin 78%.
• Net interest income on margin loans $1.11bn in Q3 2026, +35.7%, at a 4.25% yield; total NII $1.15bn, 60.3% of net revenue. From Q4 2024 the company attributes NII growth mainly to higher margin loans and credit balances rather than rates.
• Securities lending NII $427m in Q3 2026 ($343m in Q2 2026), as disclosed in the Q2 and Q3 2026 releases. Customer bad debt was a $1m recovery.

3 Charles Schwab: Largest Balance, Driven by Long/Short Strategies

• Margin loans $187.9bn at 30 Sep 2026, +93.3%, +13.8% on Jun 2026; month end balances rose every month from $76.2bn in Apr 2025 to $187.9bn in Sep 2026.
• $60.7bn relates to long/short strategies run by registered investment advisers, from $9.6bn at Dec 2025 and $21.3bn at Mar 2026. From Q4 2025 Schwab excludes these balances from interest earning assets because it earns a fixed net yield on them; transactional sweep cash rose to $492.8bn.
• Client assets $13.3tn, +15.0%; active brokerage accounts 40.26m, +6.1%; daily average trades 10.69m, +44.0%.
• Interest revenue on margin loans $1.79bn in Q3 2026, +23.2%, on an average balance of $123.1bn at 5.70% (6.52% a year earlier); net interest revenue $3.48bn, 48.5% of net revenue; pretax margin 52.7%.

4 Robinhood: Margin Book 2.8x Its Dec 2024 Level

• Margin Book $22.1bn at 30 Sep 2026, +59.0%, against $7.9bn at Dec 2024 and a $3.1bn trough at Dec 2022.
• Funded customers 28.7m, +7.1%; Gold subscribers 5.2m, +33.3%; total platform assets $396bn, +18.9%.
• Volumes Q3 2026: equity notional $992bn, +53.3%; options contracts 905m, +48.4%; crypto notional $50bn, (37.5%).
• Funding shift: in Feb 2026 Robinhood moved over $6bn of high yield cash from off balance sheet sweep to on balance sheet free credit balances to fund margin lending; payables to users rose to $18.5bn, +50.0% year on year; cash sweep was $32.3bn, (8.8%) year on year.
• Net interest revenue $415m in Q3 2026, (9.0%); net revenue $1.42bn, +11.8%. Margin rates of 5.7% to 6.75% launched in May 2024.

5 Wealth Managers: Smaller Margin Books, Growing Securities Based Lending

• Morgan Stanley Wealth Management margin and other lending $37.1bn at Sep 2026, +33.0%, on client assets of $8.43tn; firmwide margin and other lending incl. institutional equity financing was $100.3bn at Jun 2026.
• Raymond James brokerage client receivables $3.3bn at Jun 2026, +14.2%, against $26.2bn of bank securities based loans at Sep 2026 (+32.4%); yield on brokerage client receivables 6.15% in the Sep 2026 quarter (6.94%).
• Stifel receivables from brokerage clients $1.4bn at Jun 2026, +48.6%; client assets $576.5bn, +6.0%; bank loans $26.1bn, +21%.
• LPL receivables from clients $1.1bn at Sep 2026, +43.9%; average margin receivables $0.9bn at a 792bp net yield; LPL funds margin lending mainly from client payables and reports losses on margin accounts as not material.

6 Asia Focused and App Brokers: Higher Margin to Asset Ratios

• Futu margin financing and securities lending balance HK$95.1bn at Jun 2026, +85.0% and +30.5% on the quarter, which management linked to an active Hong Kong IPO market; funded accounts 3.84m, +33.6%; trading volume HK$6.42tn in Q2 2026, +78.8%.
• UP Fintech margin financing and securities lending balance $7.4bn, +29.8% (balance sheet receivables from customers $2.19bn); customers with deposits 1.32m; Q1 2026 net loss of $26.9m after China regulator penalties of about $59.7m.
• Webull on balance sheet receivables from customers $1.0bn at Jun 2026, from $306.4m a year earlier; the 20-F gives a 2025 average margin balance of $542.4m incl. loans carried by its clearing firm; funded accounts 5.13m; record Q2 2026 volumes after the end of the Pattern Day Trader Rule on 4 Jun 2026; margin yield 7.23% in FY2025 (8.37%).
• Freedom Holding average margin lending $4.59bn in the Jun 2026 quarter, +85.2%, at a 9.8% yield; one institutional market maker generated 71% of FY2026 fee and commission income.
• eToro reports no margin balance; it began stock margin trading in Q4 2025 and equity buying power in Q2 2026; interest earning assets $6.8bn in Jul 2026, (8%).

7 Accounts, Client Assets and Trading Activity Compared

• Accounts grew fastest at Interactive Brokers (+35.1%) and Futu (+33.6%); Schwab added 1.24m new brokerage accounts in Q3 2026.
• Trading activity rose more than accounts: Schwab daily average trades +44.0%, Robinhood equity notional +53.3%, Webull equity notional +73.3%, Futu volume +78.8%, against account growth of 6% to 34%.
• Leverage of client assets ranges from 12.2% at UP Fintech to 0.04% at LPL; the asset measures differ, from customer equity to total client assets incl. advisory assets.

8 Margin Economics and Risk

• Yields fell where a prior period is disclosed, while balances rose: Interactive Brokers 4.25% (4.60%), Schwab 5.70% (6.52%), LPL net 7.92% (8.20%), Raymond James 6.15% (6.94%) and Freedom 9.8% (10.1%) year on year by quarter; Webull 7.23% in FY2025 (8.37% in FY2024).
• Net interest income share of Q3 2026 net revenue: Interactive Brokers 60.3%, Schwab 48.5%, Robinhood 29.1%.
• Credit losses stay small in filed figures: Interactive Brokers booked a $1m bad debt recovery in Q3 2026; LPL reports losses on margin accounts as not material; Webull's allowance was $2.6m at Dec 2025. Futu's allowance on loans and advances rose to HK$1.21bn from HK$148m a year earlier.
• Regulation: Futu booked a China Securities Regulatory Commission penalty pre notification of about RMB1.85bn and UP Fintech penalties of about RMB411m for unlicensed cross border business, both as Q1 2026 subsequent events; FINRA ended the Pattern Day Trader Rule on 4 Jun 2026.
• Rate sensitivity: Siebert simulates +22% net interest revenue for +100bp and (15%) for (100bp) at Jun 2026; it attributes the change since Dec 2025 partly to the mix of margin debits and cash credits.

Disclaimer

This analysis is for information only and is not financial advice. It is derived from public SEC filings retrieved via sec-api.io and is not a publication of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Data as of 29 October 2026.

Sources

All figures are read from SEC filings retrieved through the sec-api.io MCP server. Each row lists a filing used and the period ends it supports.