In the mid-90s a handful of talented visionaries saw the power of the Internet for automating the process of trading and created a new product for the marketplace named; “webBroker”.
We were not the only ones, others such as ETrade, Schwab were already creating similar solutions and launching online trading and portfolio access through their own systems. I’ve often reflected on those days; the naysayers who told us this was a fad and would never work and those like my old friend Frank Conti; then CIO of Waterhouse Securities who believed in our vision and introduced us to his Chairman; Larry Waterhouse. Our story started with Waterhouse Securities; our first client and partner. We began our development during the blizzard of 1996, a nor’easter that paralyzed the East Coast but not our resolve. We anchored down and kept up our programming efforts to produce and launch webBroker in January of 1997 with Waterhouse. In December of the same year we launched the same product in French and English in Toronto for RBC as NetAction. At the end of 1997, with a team of just four (4) people we did the impossible and began a journey that has lasted over 15 years.
Along the way, the Internet created opportunities we couldn't have imagined and new opportunities for many, the dot com days came and left, webBroker survived and grew internationally under the TD Waterhouse brand and others in Hong Kong, Japan, Australia, India, the UK, Luxembourg, Canada and other areas — all powered by an awesome Marketware team in Holmdel, NJ. “Local development touching the world…” this team was one of the best I have ever worked with.
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