Skip the navigation

Top Banks Launch Joint Site for Corporate Clients

TheMarkets.com will debut later this year

By Maria Trombly
September 18, 2000 12:00 PM ET

Computerworld - Seven of the world's leading investment banks last week announced plans to launch a joint financial information Web site for their institutional clients.
The site, TheMarkets.com, is expected to make it easier for corporate customers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to find equity research, market data and other investment information in one place. But customers won't be able to use the site to buy or sell stocks online, at least not initially, which may hinder customer adoption, analysts warned.
Big institutional investors, which typically have accounts with multiple investment banks, have grumbled about how they have had to jump around among different bank Web sites to locate and gather market information, said Don Callahan, a managing director at New York-based Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co., one of the banks in the venture.
Using TheMarkets.com, customers should be able to get at this information more easily by going to a single, consolidated location, he added. The effort is akin to the kind of aggregation portal Citibank recently launched - MyCiti.com - that allows retail customers to view all their accounts from a variety of U.S. financial institutions.
But unlike the MyCiti.com site, which is available to Citibank and non-Citibank customers alike, TheMarkets.com will be available only to institutional clients of the participating banks, such as pension funds, asset managers and hedge funds.
Multex.com Inc. in New York will provide the infrastructure for the site, which will link investors to Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co., Salomon Smith Barney Holdings Inc., Credit Suisse First Boston, Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown Inc. and UBS Warburg. The site is scheduled to launch in the fourth quarter.
Still, the inability to trade on the site could deter customers from using it, said Dana Stiffler, an analyst at Newton, Mass.-based Meridien Research Inc. "Until there's some kind of transactional capability, it's basically like putting a catalog online," she said.
Eventually, information-only sites and trading sites will converge, because it's logical for them to be linked and because customers will demand it, said Larry Tabb, an analyst at Needham, Mass.-based TowerGroup.
According to executives at the participating investment banks, there will be no additional costs for clients to use the service. Callahan said the group is talking with other investment banks about joining the venture in the future.

Read more about Financial Services in Computerworld's Financial Services Topic Center.



Additional Resources
Forrester Consulting - Optimizing Users and Applications in a Mobile World
WHITE PAPER
Solving application issues over the WAN requires careful consideration. Based on their independent research, Forrester Consulting offers recommendations on how to tackle application performance issues, insufficient bandwidth and the inability to quickly restore users in a disaster.

Read now.

Security KnowledgeVault
WHITE PAPER
Security is not an option. This KnowledgeVault Series offers professional advice how to be proactive in the fight against cybercrimes and multi-layered security threats; how to adopt a holistic approach to protecting and managing data; and how to hire a qualified security assessor. Make security your Number 1 priority.

Read now.

Cut Communications Costs Once and for All
WHITE PAPER
New IP-based communications systems are being deployed by small and midsized businesses at a rapid rate. Learn how these organizations are enabling faster responsiveness, creating better customer experiences, speeding office or mobile interactions, and dramatically reducing existing communications costs.

Read now.

Financial Services White Papers
End to End Unified Fabric TCO Calculator
This tool will help you demonstrate financial justification for a unified fabric networking solution.
Overcome Top 7 Admin Challenges of Active Directory
As Active Directory's role in the enterprise has drastically increased, so has the need to secure the data. Gain insight on creating repeatable,...
Insiders Can Ruin Your Company. Take Action.
Did you know that 80 percent of threats to an organization come from the inside? The threat from insiders is often overlooked in...
Top Solutions and Tools to Prevent Devastating Malware
Custom malware frequently goes undetected. According to Forrester Research, the best way to reduce risk of breach is to deploy file integrity monitoring...
Streamline Compliance and Increase ROI
Streamline, simplify, and automate compliance related activities; especially those that impact multiple business units. This white paper from NetIQ, outlines solutions that will...
All Financial Services White Papers
Financial Services Webcasts
Banking on the Mainframe
This presentation will look at banking application issues and provide examples on how banks and financial market clients are responding to these challenges.
Optimizing Networks for the Cloud
Join guest speaker, Rohit Mehra, IDC Director of Enterprise Communications Infrastructure, to explore current trends, discuss best practices for optimizing Data Center and...
Apps QuickStart Series Part 2: Designing and Deploying SQL Server on VMware vSphere
Download this webcast to learn about the design considerations for virtualizing SQL workloads, performance and scalability information and high-availability options, as well as...
Apps QuickStart Series Part 1: Designing and Deploying Exchange 2010 on VMware vSphere
Download this webcast to learn the virtual hardware design considerations for Exchange 2010, deployment using the building block approach, options for high-availability and...
Customer Spotlight: How IPC The Hospitalist Company Implemented Oracle on VMware
Have you been looking to hear about customer's experiences with the new VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager product? View this webcast to learn...
All Financial Services Webcasts
Newsletter Sign-Up

Receive the latest news test, reviews and trends on your favorite technology topics

Choose a newsletter
  1. View all newsletters | Privacy Policy
IT Jobs