They open the brokerage account when you open a checking account with them, but you're not required to fund or use it. I use it for my personal investing and lo

They open the brokerage account when you open a checking account with them, but you're not required to fund or use it. I use it for my personal investing and love that when I overdraft my checking it just immediately takes it from cash in my brokerage (rather than savings which has a limit on monthly withdrawals or charging me a fee). There have even been times when there wasn't enough cash in my brokerage acct and it just went negative.. I didn't let it stay that long enough to find out if there were any consequences but for the few days it was like that there weren't any.