Sydney, October 27: Bell Direct has launched another Australian "first" with its new "Placement Guarantee" facility for online traders and investors.
With the new facility, all Bell Direct customers will be guaranteed that any "at market" share trade order will be placed with the ASX within two seconds. If placement of the order does not take place within that time, customers will pay no fee for that trade.
Not only is the Bell Direct Placement Guarantee unique in Australia, the company is introducing another innovation called the "Eligibility Scorecard", a web page on the Bell Direct website where customers can track the progress and speed of orders.
By checking this webpage customers can see whether their order was placed within the two second guaranteed time. The order placement speed will also be noted on the customer order itself so that the process is completely transparent.
Bell Direct CEO, Arnie Selvarajah, said the introduction of the Placement Guarantee was particularly timely and relevant in light of the recent volatility on the share market that had triggered massive share trading volumes.
"For active investors and frequent traders, even small delays in being able to place orders are frustrating and potentially very costly. So we're putting our money where our mouth is and saying to customers that if their order is not placed within two seconds, it's free," Selvarajah said.
"Unlike any of our competitors, we can offer this guarantee because our technology is more robust and advanced than any other online share trading platform," he added, pointing to the fact that during unprecedented trading volumes in early October, the performance of Bell Direct's online platform was flawless.
The new Placement Guarantee is automatically applied to all "at market" orders placed with Bell Direct, although it does not apply to "limit" orders.
"Our Placement Guarantee is not an opt-in facility, so our customers don't need to do anything extra for it – all at market orders are now subject to the maximum two second time limit or the transaction is free," Selvarajah said.
Bell Direct will have no trouble meeting its own self-imposed time restriction. Even with the higher volumes experienced during the market volatility in early October the average order placement time for Bell Direct customers was always below two seconds.
"During the recent market turmoil, some of our competitors' customers had to wait minutes to get their orders placed. There's no reason any share trader should tolerate that sort of delay, and with Bell Direct's superior technology, they never have to," Selvarajah said.