Headlines:
Hitch in Harrisdirect Conversion
E-Trade Financial Corp. said Friday that some former Harrisdirect LLC customers had problems accessing their accounts this month.
E-Trade bought the online brokerage in October from Bank of Montreal and moved the customers to its own system from Jan. 12 to Jan. 16.
The New York company mailed instructions to the customers before the switch, but some did not read or understand them, said a spokeswoman, Pam Erickson. They could fix the problem by phoning the company, which sent them notes of apology, she said.
NCR Cost Cutting Boosts Profits
Cost cutting helped increase NCR Corp.'s net income in the fourth quarter, but currency fluctuations cut into revenue.
Net income of $150 million, or 81 cents a share, climbed 16% from a year earlier, the Dayton, Ohio, company said Thursday. Revenue fell 4%, to $1.72 billion.
The revenue of NCR's automated teller machine business fell 1%, to $446 million, and its operating income fell 4.5%, to $84 million, mostly because of lower sales and continuing price competition, the company said.
Revenue in its Teradata unit fell 1% in the quarter to $408 million.
For the full year, NCR's net income surged 82.4%, to $529 million, largely because of cost cutting. Revenue rose only 1%, to $6 billion.
The company said it expects to earn $1.85 to $1.90 a share this year.
