Royal Bank of Scotland announced today that it has sold a 50 per cent stake in NatWest Personal Financial Management Limited, the holding company for NatWest Stockbrokers to Toronto-Dominion Bank, owners of TD Waterhouse. Under the terms of the deal the joint venture will continue to operate under the name of NatWest Stockbrokers (NWS). Completion of the transaction is conditional upon the necessary regulatory consents.
The new partnership will see TD Waterhouse, one of the UK’s largest brokers, provide the operational and settlement platform to NatWest and Royal Bank customers for execution only share deals. By outsourcing this to TD Waterhouse NWS will benefit from the significant investment TD Waterhouse has made in its UK platform. NWS will also have the opportunity to expand and enhance the services it can offer the bank’s retail customer base while TD Waterhouse will benefit from increased order flow through its share-dealing infrastructure. The head office for the new joint venture will be based in Edinburgh.
TD Waterhouse is a leader in execution-only share dealing services and it will continue to offer share-dealing services to UK investors under the TD Waterhouse brand. NWS will continue to offer its stockbroking services to its own customers via its BrokerLine service. It will also offer dealing services to The Royal Bank of Scotland and NatWest customers through their respective branches. In addition, NWS will continue to offer specialist share-scheme dealing services through its corporate and employee services division, currently used by around 35% of the FTSE 100 companies.
Gordon Pell, Chairman, Retail Banking and Wealth Management, The Royal Bank of Scotland Group, said, “This is an ideal partnership. NatWest Stockbrokers is one of the most highly regarded providers of execution only share dealing services in the UK and TD Waterhouse is a world leader who has already made a significant investment in its operating platform in the UK and enjoyed considerable success. The new partnership will allow us to focus on delivering a quality service to our customers as well as giving us the capability to extend our offering to our entire retail customer base.”
Bharat Masrani, Executive Vice President of TD Bank Financial Group and Vice Chairman of TD Waterhouse Group, said, “As a world leader in execution-only brokerage, TD Waterhouse has an unrivalled breadth of experience in this area and has invested considerable resources globally in developing excellent settlement and transaction platforms.
“The joint venture will consolidate TD Waterhouse’s position as the UK’s largest execution-only stockbroker. The share dealing market is fast moving and customers demand the very highest levels of service when settling their trades, and that is exactly what we provide. This joint venture is testament to the quality, capacity and capabilities of the TD Waterhouse operational platform and NatWest Stockbroker’s reputation for customer service.”