In the days leading up to its merger announcement last week with Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Toronto-Dominion Bank was adding luster to its high-tech brokerage reputation.
TD Green Line Investor Services, the unit that is Canada's largest discount broker, deployed a TalkBroker speech-recognition system from Nuance Communications and Periphonics Corp.
Canada's fifth-largest bank, which would be part of the second-largest if merged into CIBC, also began using a system from Brightware Inc. that automates customer service on Toronto-Dominion's Internet site.
The moves reflect the bank's aggressiveness both in securities services and on the Internet.
The World Wide Web site, tdbank.ca, has long been one of the biggest in banking, offering links to 28 lines of business and attracting 300,000 visitors a month.
Like another well-regarded Internet operator, Wells Fargo Bank, Toronto- Dominion sees the technology of Novato, Calif.-based Brightware as a way to handle a growing volume of questions and requests through the Web. As the bank expands on-line services over the next year, it anticipates inquiries will increase fivefold, to 25,000 a month.
"We looked at other products, but Brightware stood out as being able to provide tailored answers to questions, find the products customers need, and get their questions answered with a personal touch," said Steve Gesner, vice president of interactive services.
TalkBroker, said to be the first such system in Canada, lets Green Line customers speak the name of a Canadian or U.S. stock, mutual fund, option, or index into the phone and hear an automated-voice-response quote. The investment unit's president and chief operating officer, John See, called it "the perfect complement to other services we offer."
The technology edge is likely to be a factor in the merger and in U.S. activities. TD's Waterhouse Securities and CIBC Oppenheimer have 1.5 million U.S. clients. TD Green Line and CIBC's Investor's Edge would together form the No. 2 discount broker in the world, they said.
