We acknowledge your concerns regarding the increase in brokerage rates effective July 1.
Westpac remains committed to offering a competitive discount broking service. In the past 12 months we have introduced several initiatives to improve our service. These have included straight through processing, electronic contract notes and additional free market information.
We are committed to continuing to invest to offer customers additional features and functionality. Later in the year we will be introducing the following: · ASX announcements. · More detailed transaction history (including detail of offset transactions). · Custom portfolios to enable you to track stocks not held with Westpac Broking. · Changes to our current Holdings screen, which enables you to edit the cost of acquisition fields. · More charting features, including charting stocks against indices. · Online stock transfer form that will enable you to transfer stock to your account by electronic instruction.
Westpac is also currently working to bring you online Margin Lending with straight through processing capability.
We remain price competitive in the discount broking market. Our pricing structure has always been different to other brokers. It's simple, cost effective, easy to understand and does not have the 'hidden catches' to qualify for advertised rates. Many of our competitors require a Cash Management Trust with a minimum investment, place restrictions on trading outside the ASX150 or only apply competitive brokerage rates when you trade in excess of 20 times per month.
We hope that this addresses your concerns in relation to the changes to our base Internet brokerage rate.
To discuss this further or for any other inquiries please e-mail us or call our Trading Room on 13 13 31, (7am to 7pm EST weekdays) for the cost of a local call. One of our representatives will be happy to assist you.
