When BellSouth Wireless Data L.P. introduced its Interactive Paging service at PCS ’98 last year,
Senior Vice President of Strategic Marketing Janet Boudris said she expected financial applications to be a big driver of
the two-way messaging paradigm.
If recent announcements are any indication, that prophecy has been
met.
BellSouth’s network, together with the Inter@ctive 950 pager from Research In Motion Ltd., has proven to be
the popular choice among various companies implementing wireless financial solutions-from simple stock alerts to
placing buy and sell orders from the device.
In the last month alone, Fidelity Investments, R.J. Forbes Group and
Muriel Siebert & Co. all implemented some sort of wireless solution for their customers. Additionally, software
companies like Mobeo Inc., formerly DocuPro, and w-Trade Wireless Technologies Inc. have integrated their systems
with the BellSouth network and RIM pager.
“It’s a situation where you have a combination of our network …
combined with a wearable device, (that’s) really driving this emerging market,” said John Kampfe, director of
corporate communication at BellSouth.
These recently announced financial applications are not part of the basic
BellSouth service. All are applications designed separately from the peer-to-peer messaging focus, although messaging
capabilities are included in the financial solutions.
What BellSouth and others are banking on is that business users
attracted to these financial alert and trading applications will come to realize the benefits of two-way messaging,
thereby bringing more attention to the space among business users. In other words, they hope these financial
applications will act as the gateway that exposes the value-chain of two-way messaging.
In early January, Fidelity
Investments became the first brokerage house to offer such applications over BellSouth’s network. Called
InstantBroker, the service allowed those paying a flat fee of $50 a month to receive personalized investment data such
as account balances, position valuations, real-time stock alerts and execution notifications on the RIM pager. Users can
receive information either as an alert pushed to them or pull the data by initiating a request from the device.
Fidelity
expects to announce any day now an extension of that service, allowing users to place buy and sell orders from the
device so customers can take immediate advantage of the information sent.
Some 400 active traders bought the
solution when it was first announced.
Muriel Siebert, a customer of Fidelity, offers essentially the same service to
its customers, in this case branded as the MobileBroker.
Offering customers the ability to place wireless trade orders
today is a system designed by w-Trade technologies, a spinoff of UNIF/X Inc. Last month, the R.J. Forbes Group
began offering wireless trading to its customers using the company’s Wireless Internet Trading System.
The service
simply extends current online trading systems to the wireless environment, allowing users to trade stocks, options and
mutual funds with trade confirmations. It also provides broker alerts with personalized buy/sell recommendations,
access to quotes and other financial information.
The w-Trade system works with several wireless networks, in
partnership with such industry notables as AT&T Wireless Services Inc.’s PocketNet phone and Unwired Planet Inc.’s
UP.Browser and UP.Link server. BellSouth said its network allows those using the RIM pager and the Palm III from
3Com Corp. to join in as well.
The most recent announcement came from Mobeo. The company introduced mobeo
1.0, an interactive quote service that provides real-time access to price and other information on stocks, options,
futures, foreign exchange and global indices using the RIM pager and BellSouth’s network. Users may request
information by entering the stock or contract symbol or by setting up personalized portfolio pages.
Unlike the other
systems, which get their stock information from each brokerage’s own database, the mobeo service uses its own data
server, which relies on a number of different sources.
BellSouth is by no means the only two-way data provider in
the country. Paging carriers SkyTel Communications Inc. and PageMart Wireless Inc. both have two-way
networks.
Paging Network Inc., reselling SkyTel two-way airtime, created a similar financial solution for the
Chicago Board of Trade. The solution was the first designed by PageNet’s Advanced Wireless Integration Group. Every
three minutes, it sends data feeds that include graphs, spreadsheets and customized alerts when specific pricing
thresholds are crossed for commodities such as wheat and corn, as well as the Dow Jones Industrial Average equity
index and financial futures like bonds and notes.
Other paging carriers offer more generic financial information
services at no extra cost to subscribers, although they say they plan to offer more value-added services in the
future.
BellSouth’s Kampfe said he feels the carrier’s packet data network sets BellSouth apart from ReFLEX
carriers because the BellSouth network transmits in real time, while paging networks are all store-and-forward. Those
using BellSouth’s network for their financial solutions all cited speed and coverage as the determining
factors.
Kampfe added he expects to see much more growth in the financial services market.
“This is the
right time. All the factors have come together,” he said. “We see great promise in this market because you
have not only the w-Trades and mobeos, but you’re now getting these large financial companies like Fidelity that are
looking to do that kind of thing. You just have to think that other people are going to take notice of this.”
