RBC Investments, the wealth management arm of the Royal Bank of Canada, has signed a five year global agreement with Thomson Financial for the supply of 3300 ILX Workstations, market data and services. The deal also includes the renewal of 4000 Thomson Workstations at RBC's US broker deal firm Dain Rauscher.
When the rollout is completed in Canada this year, RBC Investments will have approximately 7300 Thomson Workstations across its businesses, including RBC Investments Dominion Securities, the full-service brokerage in Canada, discount broker RBC Investments Action Direct, RBC Dain Rauscher and select international offices in Asia and the Caribbean.
Thomson says the Workstations will have a migration path to the Thomson One framework and users will have access to real-time data, full charting capabilities and access to fundamental data and dynamic data exchange (DDE).
The agreement also includes Thomson's dual server farm delivery system which will replace RBC's current configuration of seperate circuits and servers at branches in Canada and deliver data to the firm's existing Wide Area Network (WAN). The new configuration should remove hundreds of potential points of failure and provide a more robust and cost effective delivery of market data.
John Truman, senior vice president and head of technology, RBC Investments, says the firm's pilot of the technology comfirmed it is stable and reliable.
"Thomson Financial also has superior redundancy systems which will ensure that our users can always access the information they need," he adds.