00:00 AM
w-Trade Woos Dreyfus to its Wireless Services
Beverly Hills, Calif.-based Dreyfus Brokerage Services has chosen w-Trade to provide wireless handheld trading capabilities at no additional service charge to its clients. The wireless trading is available through w-Trade Technologies wireless trading system on a variety of handheld devices at the same price per trade as Internet trading. Clients with handheld devices must have airtime on a digital network to conduct trades, manage their accounts, check orders and get quotes through the system.
"We are in a very mobile society, and its an added convenience to be able to look at portfolios or make a trade without having to call and talk to a rep or be in front of a computer," says Jeffrey Nachman, CEO of Dreyfus Brokerage Services. Dreyfus is offering the wireless trading on Palm series organizers, Windows CE-based handheld devices, the RIM Interactive pager, the Nokia Communicator and smart cellular phones. Wireless trading service began August 1st for all investors with accounts at Dreyfus. "This wasnt done from a profit motive perspective, this was done for customer service," says Nachman.
Trading through the wireless handheld devices is priced the same as Internet trading, $15 for equity tradeswith no differential for limit orders or sizeand $1.50 per options trade. Dreyfus has also recently introduced fixed-income trading capability, allowing bond orders to be placed via the devices. "Dreyfus is the first brokerage to offer this type of service at no additional cost, whereas the average cost for using the wireless handheld device at other firms runs approximately $30 per month per user," claims Karin Herrmann, COO of w-Trade Technologies.
According to Nachman, Dreyfus chose the w-Trade wireless trading system because, "it interfaces well with our system and is scalable, so we can migrate to higher end technology as the ability to deliver more information over the wireless network improves." w-Trade currently has 20 signed contracts with different brokerages for wireless trading capabilities and offers promotions with many wireless providers to give customers free devices when they pay for wireless service. The w-Trade wireless trading system can either be installed at the brokerage or hosted at the w-Trade Technologies data center.