Hard to believe how fast time flies. As we near the end of the 2017, we felt it was an appropriate time to reflect on what has been yet another eventful year for Canadian online brokerages. And, while we could comment on the rise of roboadvisors or the changing preferences of online investors, we figured it would be far more interesting to hear what Canada’s online brokerages had to say about their milestones in 2017 and what they have planned for 2018.

In total, we received submissions from 9 Canadian online brokerages and we’re excited to share these perspectives from, in many cases, the voices of the individuals leading these organizations.

• BMO InvestorLine
• Credential Direct
• Interactive Brokers Canada
• Jitneytrade
• National Bank Direct Brokerage
• Qtrade Investor
• Questrade
• RBC Direct Investing
• TD Direct Investing

In keeping with the spirit of the exercise, we’ll keep the commentary to a minimum but before diving in, we highlight three interesting themes we noted shine through from comparing all of the submissions. If there’s one takeaway for online brokerage industry however, it’s that brokerages can no longer afford to stand still.

Theme 1: It’s a technological arms race

While it hardly seems surprising that online brokerages would naturally be heavily reliant on technology, the rapidly changing nature of technology has required all of Canada’s online brokerages to become more adept at leveraging this technology in their favour.

Larger online brokerages have had to adapt their technology development cycles to be faster and more agile; smaller online brokerages have had to learn how to leverage technology to do more to compete with larger bank-owned brokerages and nearly all online brokerages have had to learn how to create a seamless trading experience across screens and devices.

As smartphones continue to surpass home computers in usage, price and functionality, and as internet speed and coverage increase, there’s a greater likelihood that consumers will be using smartphones for many aspects of the trading experience. A very interesting example of this from 2017 has been the investment in enhancing options trading capability by Questrade and TD Direct Investing.

A noteworthy mention is Interactive Brokers’ deployment of a ‘personal assistant’ style trading interface (called IBot) which offers a view of how ‘AI’ might find its way into online brokerage services and help online investors execute and manage trades with simplified text and spoken commands.

Theme 2: Delivering more value to DIY investors

In a fiercely competitive discount brokerage landscape, commission costs still stand out as one of the most (if not the most) important factor for many Canadian DIY investors to consider when choosing an online brokerage. While prices still have room to fall (and they are falling), the reductions in standard commission pricing are not likely to be as significant as they were in 2014 and as a result, other features have to help Canadian online brokerages stand out.

Enhancing the value that DIY investors receive, and more importantly perceive, is one strategy online brokerages can use to keep from having to lower trading commissions.

While none of the online brokerages who provided a submission lowered their standard commission pricing this year (so far), they have found ways to lower commission pricing on certain products – such as ETFs in the case of National Bank Direct Brokerage, or to enable DIY investors to use loyalty points to pay for commissions (RBC Direct Investing).

Other sources for enhancing value came from improving and creating DIY investor content. Whether it was through investor newsletters, blogs or other content sources and streams, a number of Canadian online brokerages were actively creating and curating DIY investor-focused content.

Theme 3: Focus on better trading experiences

A third interesting theme for 2017 was to improve the trading experience. Whether it was focusing on making complex trading strategies easier to execute (e.g. TD Direct Investing and Questrade deployed improvements to complex options trading execution) or improving management of holdings and documentation (as in the case of BMO InvestorLine and Qtrade Investor), there has been and will continue to be a lot of resources devoted to enhancing how and where online trading takes place.

Like a good Netflix series, we’ve released all of the submissions provided to us by Canada’s online brokerages – although there are no shadow monsters or stranger things (we promise). So, go ahead and binge-read about some of the highlights from 2017 and get a sneak peek at what’s in store for 2018.

BMO InvestorLine

Effortless investing with BMO Wealth Management

By Silvio Stroescu, President, BMO InvestorLine

This year we continued our pursuit of redefining digital investing to inspire and empower Canadians to invest smarter.

With the future in our sights, we’ve made enhancements to BMO Wealth Management’s full spectrum of online services:  BMO InvestorLine Self-Directed for DIY investors, adviceDirect for investors who seek recommendations to inform their trading decisions, and BMO SmartFolio, a product of BMO Nesbitt Burns, for Canadians who prefer to have their portfolios managed by our experts.

Recent enhancements across the board

BMO Market Pro, our active trader platform within BMO InvestorLine Self-Directed, evolved this year. We listened to our clients and introduced improvements to make the trading experience effortless.

This summer, decision-making became simpler for adviceDirect clients with a new Sample Portfolio feature that provides a snapshot of a well-balanced portfolio for their particular profile, updated as regularly as each day.

As of last month, our Self-Directed investors have new self-serve capabilities to save time and money when performing transactions with their dividends and registered accounts.

While most of us don’t find tax season particularly sexy, we’re making it easier with better online access to tax forms within all three digital services.

SmartFolio helps even more Canadians invest smarter

When we launched SmartFolio last year, it struck a chord and investors have embraced this innovative solution that’s redefining investing.

We made it easier for new clients coming on-board, enhanced the financial goal-planning tools and introduced new account types to meet the demands of retirees who are digital investors. We launched innovative e-signature capabilities for joint accounts, the first of its type in Canada.

Working with our clients, we will continue to co-create more evolved financial planning tools.

We listen to our clients

Even the most independent investors still want to connect with a person when they have a question or need assistance, and we’re here to help. We listen to our clients in our day-to-day interactions and act on feedback from our client surveys and advisory councils. We know where we already provide terrific service and where we must invest, pun intended, to get better.

Getting better at getting better

This summer we refined the way we innovate and deliver enhancements, by establishing an agile working model that will allow us to operate at an accelerated pace. We’re getting better at getting better because executing with pace and quality should be the norm, not the exception.

The future of digital investing

Across the full spectrum of online investors, one thing we see is increased cross-migration, as investors discover one size doesn’t always fit all. Self-directed investors are using SmartFolio for certain goals and some adviceDirect clients are preparing to become more self-directed as they approach retirement. We anticipate more robust activity as traditional investors and advisors discover what you already know about the value of digital investing.

We’re excited to be a catalyst for digital investing and look forward to making 2018 a banner year. While BMO has been around for over 200 years, in many ways we’re just getting started.

President of BMO InvestorLine since October 2016, Silvio Stroescu is the driving force behind the well-recognized performance and client experience of BMO Wealth Management’s three online investing services. A pioneer in digital banking, he first made his mark launching innovative services with Tangerine Bank in anticipation of evolving customer preferences.

BMO Wealth Management is the brand name for a business group consisting of Bank of Montreal and certain of its affiliates, including BMO InvestorLine and BMO Nesbitt Burns in providing wealth management products and services. Not all products and services are offered by all legal entities within BMO Wealth Management.

To learn more about BMO InvestorLine, visit their website at www.bmo.com/self-directed or view our profile of BMO InvestorLine here.

Credential Direct

By Kim Thompson, SVP, Advisory Services, Credential Financial Inc.

At Credential Direct, we’re proud to provide high quality, accessible online investing for all Canadians. And like the credit unions we partner with, we’re a values-based financial firm that puts clients’ needs first. We deliver high touch customer service and an intuitive online experience, along with affordable commissions so investors receive the best experience possible.

While the traditional online brokerage model is more of a ‘bigger, faster, stronger’ mentality, mostly benefiting active or wealthy traders, we make decisions based on what will be most beneficial to the ‘everyday investor’. With the increased use of mobile devices to access financial information and conduct transactions, we focused on delivering a premium responsive experience. To make sure we got it right, we engaged directly with our clients to find out exactly what parts of the trading experience were most meaningful to them. As a result, this year brought some exciting and significant enhancements to both the public and trading sites.

Earlier in the year we proudly launched Credential Direct’s new public website, completely redesigned for a more approachable experience for DIY investors and fully optimized for mobile devices. The new site introduces a friendly persona-based approach, inviting traders to learn about online investing at their level – whether that’s as a novice, intermediate, or expert investor. A functional layout with a ‘less is more’ design guides visitors to the information that resonates most with them, providing flexibility to drill down into the information they are most curious about. We also introduced additional resources with How-to Guides and our blog called The Ticker which features all our wisdom, from money to life.

As for the Credential Direct trading site, it now provides a fully responsive experience that adapts to the devices our clients use to manage their investments. Based on user data and client research, we concentrated on the most frequently used areas, and with these responsive capabilities now in place, we retired the mobile microsite. We also partnered with a new quote provider offering responsive widgets to improve the way our clients view and interact with quote information. Finally, we optimized layouts and navigation on both desktop and mobile, plus added some great new features in the form of enhanced email alerts and additional news feeds.

As we look ahead to 2018, there are more exciting enhancements in store. Highest on the list is the scheduled launch of a new mobile app for Credential Direct traders. We’ll also continue to add new educational resources that empower investors’ trading knowledge and confidence – including our ongoing webinar series, new How-to Guides and weekly blog posts on The Ticker. As always, we will continually look for ways to improve the Credential Direct trading experience for clients.

This was definitely an exciting year for Credential Direct and our clients, but there’s plenty more to look forward to in 2018!

Kim provides strategic direction and oversight in the creation of wealth management programs, products and services to accelerate growth across all distribution channels, including Credential Financial’s online brokerage channel, Credential Direct. She also provides strategic guidance on corporate positioning and profile, and overall partner and client experience.

To learn more about Credential Direct, visit their website at www.credentialdirect.com or view our profile of Credential Direct here.

Interactive Brokers Canada

By Jean-François Bernier, Managing Director of Interactive Brokers Canada Inc.

2017 has been an exciting year for the Interactive Brokers Group and Interactive Brokers Canada. This year, Interactive Brokers Group continued to win accolades for its technology, low prices and extensive product offerings.

Interactive Brokers Group has more than $6 billion in equity capital and serves over 457,000 clients worldwide. Year-over-year account growth has been brisk at 23%, as of September 30^th. Clients reside in over 200 countries, with 63% based outside of the U.S.

IB Canada is among the most cost-effective and technologically sophisticated brokerage firms serving Canada. IB Canada provides direct market access to stocks, options, futures, forex, bonds, and ETFs from a single account in over 120 markets in 26 countries globally.
In 2017, IB Canada continued its mission of providing clients with new technology tools and ways to lower their costs to maximize their returns. In the midst of price wars among competitors, the company is particularly proud of remaining one of the lowest cost brokers. Many of the new tools developed and products added are in response to client requests.

The launch of our Stock Yield Enhancement Program was one major milestone for IB Canada this year. This program provides clients with the opportunity to earn additional income on fully-paid shares they own by lending those shares to IB Canada in exchange for fees short sellers are willing to pay to borrow them. The company splits fees earned with clients 50-50. Clients with US $50,000 or more held at IB Canada in any cash or margin account can participate in this program.

Known as a technology innovator, Interactive Brokers Group continues to introduce and improve its technology. This year, the company enhanced its IBot, which lets clients access market and account information and place trades using simple spoken or text commands. You can ask IBot to “Buy 100 shares of IBKR”, “Plot SPY”, “Show my account margin” and more.

In 2017, the company completely revamped its popular PortfolioAnalyst. This easy-to-use, free tool provides customizable reports with a variety of sophisticated performance analyses and comparisons. New this year is the ability to view the performance, balances, assets and transactions of all of your accounts on a single screen – including accounts held at other financial institutions.

IB Canada prides itself on its breadth of products and continued to expand its offerings in 2017 with the addition of commission free ETFs, 222 China A Large Cap Stocks, FTSE 250 futures on ICEEU, and KOSDAQ 150 Index Futures.  IB Canada has offered Registered Retirement Savings Plan and Tax Free Savings Accounts since 2014.

There are several items being Beta-tested, including the new PortfolioAnalyst and a revamped Account Management system. Watch for more products and services in 2018 as the company looks for new ways to exceed clients’ expectations.

Jean-François Bernier is Managing Director of Interactive Brokers Canada Inc., a subsidiary of the Interactive Brokers Group LLC, a global electronic brokerage firm. Based in IB Canada’s Montreal headquarters, Mr. Bernier oversees the company’s operations, including legal and compliance issues. He previously served as Director of Corporate Finance for the Quebec Securities Commission. Earlier in his career, he was a securities attorney with Stikeman, Elliott, and worked as a registered representative for the Canadian investment dealer Nesbitt Burns Ltd.

To learn more about Interactive Brokers Canada, visit their website at www.interactivebrokers.ca or view our profile of Interactive Brokers Canada here.

Jitneytrade

By Jean-Francois Sabourin, President & CEO, Jitneytrade

In 2017, clients of Jitneytrade continued to trust us to handle their trading and order execution needs. Founded by traders, for traders, Jitneytrade offers its clients the ability to maintain their competitive edge through secure, fast and direct access to markets with tailored cutting-edge solutions.

This year, Jitneytrade continued to be a leading participant on the Montreal Exchange futures board. With well over 400,000 single stock futures contracts (a product that was reintroduced on the Montreal Exchange at the end of 2016) executed by the end of Q3 in 2017, as well as being a leading brokerage for execution of ten-year government bond futures, STIR futures, and equity options, Jitneytrade stands out for our ability to attract and support high volume trading clients.

Our ability to attract some of the largest independent traders, market makers, trading arcades and institutional traders in Canada is the result of a combination of our competitive pricing, performance and above all, outstanding service. That reputation for excellence in order execution has extended beyond Canada. In 2017, we have continued to expand our service footprint internationally, with clients reaching Canadian markets from Australia, China, the Netherlands, France, London and Germany.

Closer to home, Jitneytrade remains an active member of the Canadian capital markets trading community. We look forward to meeting with and supporting the trading community once again at the upcoming Canadian Annual Derivatives Conference in Montreal as well as at the many Trade Canada events and Equities Trading Conferences organized by the Toronto Stock Exchange.

In 2018, we look forward to continuing to service active, high volume and professional traders looking to get the most competitive pricing, professional technology and exceptional service in Canada.  In a landscape filled with off-the-rack solutions, we continue to stand out by offering a personalized approach that makes Jitneytrade the choice of professional traders and investors in Canada.

We wish all the traders and investors a safe and prosperous holiday season and continued success for the year ahead.

To learn more about Jitneytrade, visit their website at www.jitneytrade.com or view our profile of Jitneytrade here.

National Bank Direct Brokerage

The past year:

All ETF trades are now commission free

NBDB extended the commission free ETF offering to include American ETFs following the success of last year’s free trading for Canadian ETFs. This permanent pricing schedule allows investors to create a diversified portfolio of North American ETFs for $0.

InvestCube

NBDB reviewed the pricing for InvestCube, the ETF automatic rebalancing service, with a tiered fee schedule ranging from 0.48% to 0.73% depending on the value of assets held.

Promotional and Educational Activities

• Sponsored an ETF trading contest with Horizons for the 6^th year in a row with a 34% increase in participation compared to 2016.
• Seminars, webinars, special presentations and active presence in trading shows. Over a hundred events where investors could meet with NBDB representatives to receive training on specific investment topics or to gather information about NBDB’s offers.
• Email Newsletter launched in the winter with contributions from third party experts writing about financial topics and articles related to events and promotions from NBDB.

Special Events

• Economic diner featuring National Bank’s renowned top economist Stéfane Marion.
• Luncheons held as part of the International Finance Club of Montreal.

The year ahead:

Redesigned Trading Platform

• Improved features, design and user experience.
• Addition of decision making tools.
• Always-on trading screen that allows clients to trade from any page of their accounts.
• Multiple trading tickets ready to be sent at any time.
• Customized views.
• API ready.

Redesigned Website

• New personae based website.
• Improved user experience.
• Easy access to information.

Digital Account Opening

• Simple, automated and paperless.

Closer Ties with Online Banking

• Single sign on with the bank’s online site.
• Seamless money transfers.

Laurent Blanchard is an experienced manager who has been in the online brokerage industry for more than 20 years. His responsibilities with different brokerage firms have enabled him to develop cutting-edge expertise in the brokerage, information technology, and operations fields.

To learn more about National Bank Direct Brokerage, visit their website at www.nbdb.ca or view our profile of National Bank Direct Brokerage here.

Qtrade Investor

Qtrade Investor – Getting ready to deliver even more value to investors in 2018

By Catherine Wood, Senior VP and Head of Online Brokerage, Digital Advice, Insurance, Product and Marketing, Qtrade Financial Group

This year has been a remarkable and rewarding one for Qtrade Investor so far. We were honoured to receive first-place online brokerage rankings by The Globe and Mail, MoneySense and Surviscor, along with a high customer satisfaction rating from J.D. Power. This kind of recognition matters to us because it shows that we’re giving our clients the service and tools they’re looking for.

It also validates our ongoing commitment to continually improving our platform. Earlier this year, we expanded our selection of commission-free ETFs to include smart beta options.

For investors opening new accounts, we introduced an all-new online account application. Whether they’re starting out with Qtrade Investor or adding an account to an existing service, investors will no longer need to print and mail in paperwork—it can be done entirely online or even on a mobile device. A void cheque is no longer required, and the account can be funded at the same time—all of which means a new account can be up and running much sooner.

We also launched a brand new digital advice (robo) service called VirtualWealth.

We are now starting to roll out a whole new set of enhancements and innovations that will deliver more value and an even better user experience for investors in 2018. Many of these updates are based on feedback from our clients, usage analytics and the results of our annual investor survey. We are pleased to give Sparx Trading readers a sneak preview.

Simpler, quicker online funding

We have streamlined and simplified our account funding options, making more of them paperless.

• We’ve made moving money in and out easier and more efficient with revamped funding capabilities. Notably, a recurring contribution can now be set up from a banking account without having to print and submit a form.
• We’ve also streamlined the process of withdrawing funds from a TFSA or RRSP and made it simpler to transfer an account to Qtrade from another institution.

Convenient new mobile trading tools

We’ve leveraged some of the most popular parts of our web service to deliver a more comprehensive mobile trading experience from our Qtrade Investor app for iOS (with enhancements for Android users coming soon):

• Expanded and improved home dashboard
• New Ratings Portfolio View including Recognia Technical Summary Score and Morningstar Analyst Rating
• Added the option to set up, change or cancel recurring contributions from your banking account
• Access portfolio gain/loss data in portrait view

Track the income generated in a portfolio

The new Portfolio Income View lets income investors effortlessly track how much income their portfolio generates:

• See income earned over a specified time period with Income History
• See top 3 income-generating holdings at a glance
• Understand a portfolio’s income yield with Income Summary
• View a detailed listing of income received with Income Breakdown

Check in with registered accounts

The new Registered Account Centre makes it much easier for clients to see, at a glance, the status of their TFSA and RRSP contributions, helping them make the most of their tax-sheltered accounts. The Registered Account Centre is accessible with a single click from the home dashboard.

These are just a few of the enhancements that Qtrade Investor clients will soon see. We’ve also done away with account minimums, included a new view and tools for value investors, and incorporated quantitative insights from Morningstar as well as technical data from Recognia.

We also have many more enhancements planned for 2018, with a particular focus on mobile capabilities—all designed to deliver a more powerful, faster and more intuitive trading experience for our clients. Learn more about Qtrade Investor’s enhancements.

Catherine Wood holds an MBA from the Rotman School of Management as well as a Master’s in Information Studies from University of Toronto and a BA (Hons) from York University. Her professional designations include ICD.D, Certified Financial Planner (CFP), Chartered Life Underwriter (CLU), and Tax and Estate Practitioner (TEP).

To learn more about Qtrade Investor, visit their website at www.qtrade.ca/investor or view our profile of Qtrade Investor here.

Questrade

Tell us about how 2017 went for Questrade:

By all metrics, 2017 was Questrade’s best year ever. We maintained our top spot as the fastest growing broker (as ranked by Investor Economics), and continued to invest aggressively in better serving our clients. Our rapid release schedule and emphasis on continuous improvement allowed us to achieve a number of significant milestones, including:

• The launch of a completely new app, Questrade Mobile
• The launch of a completely new FX trading platform, FX Global
• Multiple enhancements to our web-based trading platform, including:
  • Support for trading multi-leg options (up to 4 legs, including 17 pre-built strategies)
  • New alert functionality allowing clients to better stay on top of their positions
  • Improved order entry functionality for more advanced order types, such as relative stop limit orders
• We also invested heavily in our desktop trading platform, IQ Edge, in order to continue our strong offering for Canada’s active traders. Notably:
  • We released a version of IQ Edge for MacOS
  • Improved charting capability by adding numerous new studies, including fundamental data such as earnings and dividends to the charts
  • Added new order types
  • Added the ability to place order types by specifying the dollar amount you wish to invest (instead of having to manually calculate the number of shares)
  • Added asset allocation graphs of account holdings within the platform so clients can see their holdings across different sectors, groups, asset classes and currencies
  • Drag and drop functionality to make watch lists easier to manage.

What motivated the changes you implemented?

Questrade is focused on helping Canadians become much more financially successful and secure. We believe we can do this by providing the most innovative and cost efficient financial services online. The result we are striving for is nothing short of a revolution in the financial services choices currently available to Canadians.

What do you feel most proud and excited about?

At Questrade we’re excited about helping Canadians keep more of their money. And based on our strong growth this past year, we’re honoured that our message is resonating with Canadians and that they’re increasingly voting with their wallets by moving their accounts to Questrade. We’re excited about the opportunity to continue serving them in 2018 and beyond.

What will Questrade be focusing on for 2018?

Really, it will be more of the same. We have some big plans to exceed what was an outstanding 2017. We’ll do this by continuing to use technology expertise to enhance our product offering, and we’ll keep advocating for Canadians, reminding them to ask tough questions about the financial services status quo.

To learn more about Questrade, visit their website at www.Questrade.com or view our profile of Questrade here.

RBC Direct Investing

By Stacey Petersen, Senior Director, Strategy, RBC Direct Investing

RBC Direct Investing is focused on growing financial literacy by supporting every Canadian investor who wants to build their knowledge and take direct control of their investments. We are doing this by providing innovative tools, research and learning resources.

For 2017, below we have highlighted our innovative “Trade with Points” program and two features RBC Direct Investing introduced that focus on empowering and educating clients with relevant and meaningful information to support them through their self-directed investing journey.

1) Client Experience Innovation: Trade with Points

 RBC Direct Investing partnered with RBC Rewards, RBC’s best-in-class reward program for credit card clients, to offer Trade with Points on the RBC Direct Investing website and mobile app.  This allows clients to leverage their points for:

• A one-click RBC Rewards points redemption to pay for trade commissions
• An online process as simple as transferring cash when redeeming points for contributions/ deposits to RBC Direct Investing accounts

A first among Canadian online brokerages, Trade with Points has been well-received by clients.

See below for visual examples of the Trade with Points experience.

Pay for Trade Commissions

Transfer rewards

2) Notifications

The goal of Notifications is to provide our clients with timely and relevant information – through email and in-site messaging –related to the account(s) they hold with us, to help them manage their portfolios, grow their investing knowledge and make more informed investing decisions.

Types of Notifications that clients could receive include:

• status of equity or option orders
• stock-split announcements
• upcoming dividend payments
• missing beneficiary reminder
• important account reminders like RESP grant deadlines

Clients can visit our Manage Notifications page to choose the types of notifications they wish to receive and add or change the email address where their notifications are sent. If clients choose not to receive any notifications, they will still get important updates related to the maintenance of their account. From this page clients can also conveniently manage their stock/market, Community and IPO alerts.

Visual Examples of Notifications

3) Inspired Investor

At RBC Direct Investing, we believe that the more our clients know about investing, the better their decisions can be. We also believe that investing principles don’t have to be hard or overwhelming.

That’s why we created Inspired Investor: A digital publication that offers smart ideas that help clients take control of their money through stories that connect.  Inspired Investor is a client-focused content vehicle that provides engaging financial literacy. We publish twice a week, using storytelling and analogies, as well as event-related content, in order to connect with the client’s investment journey.

Articles seek to provide learning and insight through relatable themes.  Some recent examples include:

• Fashion and Style: “Is Loss Aversion Hanging in Your Closet?”
• Sports & Fitness: “How to approach Investing Like a Tennis Pro”
• Tech & Culture: “5 Qualities Good Entrepreneurs and Investors Share”
• Ideas & Motivation: “Pay Yourself First: What Does it Really Mean?”

Visual Examples of Inspired Investor Content

More ways to learn

In addition to helping people learn through stories and analogies, Inspired Investor articles link to how-to tools and resources to provide as many takeaways and opportunities for learning as possible. Further, to foster discussion, each article has a ‘Comment’ link to the secure online RBC Direct Investing Community, a social site where clients can share their investing thoughts and ideas with other members.

Looking forward to 2018

Stayed tuned for more to come in 2018, as we continue to focus on supporting our clients in their investing journey and achieving their goals.

To learn more about RBC Direct Investing, visit their website at www.rbcdirectinvesting.com or view our profile of RBC Direct Investing here.

TD Direct Investing

By Tony Ierullo, VP, TD Direct Investing

I’ve been in the online brokerage industry for 22 years and what we are experiencing right now, with all the change and advancement in technology and client service, is incredible. Canadian DIY investors have always wanted a brokerage that listens and supports them 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And like most consumers, they want products and services that are more convenient, simple to understand, intuitive, and straightforward in delivery.

With that in mind, here are some trends we’re watching in the direct investing industry, and a preview of what’s to come in 2018:

Options

One of our priorities this year was to make life easier for Canadian option traders, many of whom could only execute option strategies like straddles or strangles by calling their brokerage or placing two separate trades.

Our solution was to offer online multi-leg option orders. Now our clients can execute their option strategies quickly, simply and with only one base commission. It’s a great addition to the conditional order types we added last year, which let you automate a sequence of trades for different scenarios instead of making on-the-spot decisions, or missing out altogether.

Mobile trading

We’ve been focused on mobile trading for a while and are seeing a major increase in the number of clients placing trades using the TD app. Our investments in mobile have led to a few firsts. We’re the first bank-owned brokerage in Canada to let investors set push mobile notifications for market alerts. And those multi-leg option orders I mentioned – you can do those in the TD app as well.

We think more people will enjoy the convenience of mobile trading as we continue to integrate the tools and features of our trading platforms into the mobile app. Together with TD’s retail bank, our efforts have helped the TD app become the top rated banking app in Canada.

What’s ahead

At TD, we want to enable investors to do more things easily and independently, whether they’re at home or on the go. Some notable milestones we are working toward for next year include efficient online account opening and an expansion of our investor education program. Active traders can look forward to major enhancements to our Advanced Dashboard platform, including faster, fully-integrated order entry and fill notifications.

As Canada’s first and largest online brokerage, we led the way in making investing easy, accessible, and affordable. We’re building on that legacy with a vision for the future that puts our clients’ experience at the forefront of everything we do.

To learn more about TD Direct Investing visit their website  or  view our profile of TD Direct Investing here.