"Market and technology developments have led us to believe that mobile commerce will have a very large impact on the financial services sector," says Andreas Raffel, co-head of European e-commerce activities at MSDW.

Radar's initial offering will be in the form of a password-protected proprietary financial information portal for institutional clients which can be accessed by WAP-enabled telephones in Europe and through i-mode telephones in Japan. The Europe and Japan services will be the first of a number of different wireless offerings for institutional clients around the world.

Initially, Radar will deliver access to select Client Link research, financial data, stock earnings estimates and customised notification of stock recommendation changes. Financial news, market movements, indices, sector updates, stock prices and trading information from Reuters will be also be made available.

An additional feature in Europe will be the delivery of MSDW's equity research morning meeting notes. In Japan, clients will also be able to use Radar to access fixed income strategy research, real-time foreign exchange prices and the prices of benchmark fixed income securities.

The service will be made available to institutional clients in Europe and Japan over the course of the next few months. Feedback from clients will be incorporated into further enhancements which, over time, are expected to include client-specific personalisation features, additional interactive functionality and third-party lifestyle content, news and services. New services are likely to include access to a broader range of research as well as a customisable e-mail alert system triggered by client-defined events for individual stocks or portfolios.

Access to Radar will be password protected and only available to Client Link subscribers. In Europe, hosting and telecommunication services are being provided by Logica and Equant.