TD Taps Fiserv Service for U.K. Subsidiary

TD Waterhouse has opened its United Kingdom bank with an old, reliable partner, Fiserv, which will provide the discount broker with a range of banking services.

TD Waterhouse U.K. is an execution-only broker, offering online and telephone brokerage services to 600,000 customers.

The new U.K. bank offering is "very much intended to be an integrated service with the brokerage firm," said Philip Ireland, managing director of the U.K. division of TD Waterhouse Bank.

To date, the discount brokerage has relied on a cash account system, which allows investors to deposit cash and pay for stocks. The bank service will crank that up a notch and turn it from a cash management account to a current account. It will include checking and debit services, as well as a savings account component that will pay a better interest rate than the cash account.

"It's an add on to the brokerage service," Ireland explained. "What we're hoping is that customers see the flexibility, convenience and simplicity of moving money across accounts and going online."

The bank doesn't plan to offer loans or credit cards.

"Down the road we'll look to add other services," said Ireland. "In the long-term we see value in it."

Fiserv will provide the account processing and customer call center applications for the bank.

TD Waterhouse and Fiserv have a longstanding relationship that began in North America. TD Waterhouse, which now has more than 3.3 million customers, was one of the world's first electronic banks.

TD Waterhouse U.K. is using Fiserv's International Comprehensive Banking System to manage its accounts.

The service, delivered through an ASP model that's hosted at Fiserv's U.K. data center, is linked to TD's Web system through middleware.

"They already have a Web system in place for brokerage," said Mike Aldren, business development director of Fiserv Europe. "We've gone in through our open system interface and linked their system into our banking system to keep the look and feel."

The service provides real-time automated payment processing and customer relationship management.