As part of the agreement, E*Trade Securities is converting its brokerage back office books and records system to ADP's Brokerage Processing Services (BPS). ADP will also provide regulatory document delivery services through its Investor Communication Services unit, as well as new brokerage account processing of paper applications. The implementation will take a phased approach and ADP's system will replace existing proprietary and vendor systems.

Jarrett Lilien, president and COO, E*Trade Group, says: "This move, first and foremost, will save us money. Strategically, we will also see benefit, as ADP will allow us greater opportunity to centralise our global securities operations, as well as allowing us to achieve operational synergies between bank and broker."

In an unrelated deal, Canada's Scotia Trust has begun to migrate its personal trust accounting requirements from an inhouse system to ADP Brokerage Services Trust System, an outsourced platform that went live in Toronto in Q1 2003 following a two-year development programme. The ADP Trust System was added to the existing ADP Brokerage Processing Services (BPS) system to provide consolidation of positions and balances allowing processing of dividend, interest, corporate actions, and settlements to be centralized on a common platform.

The system is browser-based using Websphere and DB2 technologies to deliver an interactive system incorporating real-time positions and balances, payment scheduling, diaries, transaction history and statement generation.

Seperately, ADP has announced plans to acquire the Salem, New Hampshire, and Kansas City, Missouri, retirement plan recordkeeping operations of investment management firm Scudder. Approximately 350 Scudder staff employed in these service centres will join with 510 employees from ADP's Roseland, New Jersey, and Louisville, Kentucky, plants to provide processing services to a client base of over 30,000 retirement plans. Scudder retains a financial interest in the performance of the unit.