RBC rolls out new name, technology

RBC Dain Rauscher last week rolled out a new name and a new technology platform. Although brokers welcomed the new RBC Wealth Management moniker, the back-office changeover caused some to complain last week about lost functionality and slowness with the new system. "It's frozen everything," said one RBC rep in California, who asked not to be identified. "People are literally paralyzed here." The system was slow to post new trades, and pulling up client information was more difficult, the broker said. "It's very, very slow," said another broker at the firm based in the Midwest, who also asked not to be identified. "It has a lot of quirks." The rep had difficulty entering online bond trades. But other brokers said the new system wasn't a big problem and that they expect the kinks to get worked out. Broker reaction to the new tech platform was positive, said John Taft, head of the Minneapolis-based U.S. unit of RBC Wealth Management. "The [change has] gone very well," he said. Conversion of data, which was done during the first weekend of this month, "was almost flawless," Mr. Taft said. "The first time you take [a new platform] out for a test ride, you're going to have some things that don't work perfectly," he said. "But in my view it was an unqualified success." RBC Wealth Management has about 1,800 financial advisers in the United States who work out of 161 locations in 39 states. The firm includes retail businesses in the United States, Canada and other countries. It is owned by Toronto-based Royal Bank of Canada. RBC's brokerage units in the United States will now be run under one broker-dealer, RBC Capital Markets Corp. of New York.

'OUT OF THE TECH BUSINESS'

Mr. Taft said that RBC Dain Rauscher had been using a proprietary system before the switch to a platform provided by Broadridge Financial Solutions Inc. of Lake Success, N.Y. RBC's other brokerage units use the Broadridge system, Mr. Taft said, and company officials believe it can be scaled up "much more rapidly than we could have scaled our own system." RBC's partnership with Broadridge will cut maintenance costs and allow the firm to put more resources into improving functionality, he said. "The idea is to get out of the tech business," Mr. Taft added. The new tech system integrates the retail side with capital markets and will also make it easier for RBC Wealth Management to integrate any future retail acquisitions, said a RBC rep based on the West Coast. "I haven't had any problems" with the new system, said the broker, who asked not to be identified. "The municipal inventory has gone down, but then it's back up in five minutes. But that happened before" with the old system, he said. The new platform suffered from some slowness, but the "office here has pretty much taken it in stride," said an RBC manager on the East Coast, who asked not to be identified. Most of the representatives in his office went through training on the new system, the manager added. "What I find is that the [report] formatting is easier to read, and the [program] is easier to navigate around," he said. Brokers at the firm generally like the name change. "Royal Bank is a good [brand] name," said the West Coast rep. New e-mail addresses will use an "rbc.com" domain, instead of the old "rbcdain.com" address. The old domain "was inevitably misspelled," the West Coast rep said. "We don't have to spell 'Rauscher' anymore," which is a good thing, said the California rep. "Clearly, they're raising the RBC name to a higher level of visibility." In the United States, RBC is emphasizing the RBC brand, rather than individual business subsidiaries such as the former Dain Rauscher, Mr. Taft said.

REBRANDING WELCOMED

"RBC has tremendous brand equity north of the border, and this [rebranding] brings [the name] down south of the border," he said. But Royal Bank decided not to advertise nationally in the United States this year, the California broker said. Next year, RBC plans to launch a national advertising campaign to U.S. consumers, Mr. Taft said. This year, the firm will limit itself to some trade advertising, he said. The rebranding also involves RBC Centura, the name used by RBC Centura Banks Inc. of Raleigh, N.C., which will now be called RBC Bank. The bank has $25 billion in assets. RBC Wealth Management and RBC Bank now complement the existing institutional unit, RBC Capital Markets. The new brand for the retail brokerage marks the end of the Dain Rauscher name, which was created in 1997 with the merger of two regional firms, Minneapolis-based Dain Bosworth Inc. and Rauscher Pierce Refsnes Inc. of Dallas. Royal Bank of Canada acquired Minneapolis-based Dain Rauscher Inc. in 2000. E-mail Dan Jamieson at djamieson@investmentnews.com.