Since early November, a frenzy of retail investing activity has hit Canadian firms hard. While the surge has been felt most by discounters, ramifications are rippling throughout the industry.The rush came in the fourth quarter, but the heavy...

Merrill Lynch Canada and its homegrown competitor Nesbitt Burns are racing to see which firm can deliver more online services first.Merrill, which this past summer unveiled unlimited online trading to fee and discount customers in the United...

In April, Prudential Securities will launch a second version of its Advisor account that will charge a higher fee but have no transaction charges.Dubbed "Pru Advisor II" to distinguish it from the first version, the new account will allow...

Merrill Lynch plans to offer the online services now available to retail clients, such as research and trading, to institutions worldwide. No timetable has been set.Merrill's service expansion is part of a five-year development deal with Multex...

A rush of new millennium registration activity clogged the NASD's Web-based CRD system, launched this past August.The combination of heavy traffic, particularly during the first week of 2000, along with existing glitches combined to cause...

This summer, Minneapolis-based Dain Rauscher plans to launch a new system that, once fully developed, will enable reps to see what research a client has been accessing on Dain's Web site.The new database system combines Web-tracking software...

Wanna-be millionaires have been calling A.G. Edwards in droves.And it has nothing to do with the firm's investment acumen. (Sorry, Ben.)According to a Jan. 14 memo distributed to the sales force, here's what happened: The 800 number reps use to...

If you walk into a Citibank branch, now called a financial center, you'll be greeted by a smiling employee and handed a "CitiPromise" card. The card guarantees that if you don't get good service and a free financial needs analysis, Citibank will...

Internet investing is heating up on the Continent. Online accounts of European investors are expected to rise from 1.3 million today to 14 million in 2004, according to a report from Forrester Research, a Cambridge, Mass., technology research...

Talk to four marketing experts about how to increase production and you'll get one answer--drop the sales pitch. The key to boosting your income, they say, is focusing on client relationships, not transactions."The financial services industry has...