Merrill Lynch settles cash sweep interest lawsuit for $39 million

Bank of America's Merrill Lynch brokerage has agreed to pay $39 million to settle a class action accusing it of routing customer cash into deposit accounts paying near-zero interest rates while market rates ran substantially higher.

The settlement, confirmed in court documents filed Wednesday, covers customers who held Merrill Edge online accounts between December 15, 2016 and March 15, 2020. Those customers alleged Merrill automatically swept idle cash into accounts yielding between 0.05% and 0.14% annually at a time when competing brokerages were paying roughly 2%. The case had been weeks from trial. Merrill denied wrongdoing in agreeing to settle.

The action is one of several sweep account suits to move through federal courts over the past two years. A Manhattan federal judge ruled in February that JPMorgan Chase must face a similar claim after it sought dismissal, arguing it had followed customer instructions in placing uninvested cash into interest-bearing accounts. Merrill and two Wells Fargo advisory firms separately settled SEC charges last year over their sweep programs, with the commission finding the firms had not acted in clients' best interests when setting deposit rates as the federal funds rate climbed above 5%.