Perth-based stockbroker Patersons has signed up for custodial services from RBC Dexia Investor Services to ensure the security of its growing international equities trading business.
Patersons projects office manager Ben Cave said the arrangement gave it access to more than 80 markets and stemmed from growing client demand for offshore-listed stocks.
"As the globalisation of industry as a whole continues, people become more aware of the ability to trade in overseas markets. You hear about companies every night on the news and you buy their products," Cave said.
"This facilitates the ability to invest in those companies. This is our international platform for the future."
RBC Dexia Investor Services managing director David Travers said the company had been active in platform services and was on the lookout for new opportunities.
"This is a pioneering product that delivers a seamless solution to Patersons and would deliver efficiencies to many market participants facing the same challenges," Travers said.
"We have a number of potential clients that we are currently engaged with."
Cave said the 18-month project to deliver transparent, straightforward trading of stocks listed offshore for Patersons' clients was completed last week.
As part of the project, Patersons has also speeded up its trading function through global trading and investment administration developed in Australia by UBS's platform solutions group.
"If we look at the strategy and what we want to achieve, it gives us the ability for any market that we currently trade in - and we're looking to add markets as well - for an adviser, from his or her desktop, to place an instruction that would be routed straight through to UBS for execution, automatic messages sent to RBC Dexia to settle that trade, and then all of those messages flowing back to us so our adviser can see what price the trade is executed at," Cave said.
"This is our international platform for the future."
