I recently Emailed Mr. Chu, President and CEO of CPT, to ask about the possible competition from Charles Schwab, who recently announced that they were developing a foreign trading system (see previous post). This is the response I received back today.
Mr. Keith Massey,
Because our business model truly believes in "partners in enterprising", all the research reports from each country are provided by our partner brokerage firms free of charge to us. We will in turn post these reports onto the web in its original language and the basic language of English. Unlike most on-line brokers, they have to either build their own research department, buy them from some one or have none at all. Our operating model offers us a low cost overhead which ensures survivability.
I understand Charles Schwab is setting up a broker network similar to our model instead of setting up shops of their own. They will have a number of obstacles to overcome. These are the feedbacks from overseas Brokers.
1. SEG model will always operate as a marketing portal, not Broker. SEG cooperates with brokerage firms from around the globe instead of competing with them. SEG focuses its effort in marketing, advertising and bringing potential investors to the web so that our Broker Partners can concentrate their efforts on their securities business. Charles Schwab is known as an on-line broker competing with brokerage firms at every country. Furthermore, Brokers among Brokers have this China Wall built between them. From what I heard, brokerage firms are hesitant to join CS?s network because they are afraid once CS is up and running in their backyard, the local broker is no longer needed.
2. No brokerage firm would want their account data base shared with a "competition", and to make the matter worse, this potential competition is too big for them to ignore, and these overseas brokers rather work with SEG to compliment their market exposure to take on the giant instead of assisting their competition to expand into their territory.
3. Having an alliance with CS offers the local brokers little or no marketing value. CS will continue to promote their own name instead of their local partner?s name. SEG instead will advertise the portal?s name, and have the logo, profile, and research report of our partner brokers prominently displayed everywhere, offering them a global presence.
Cheers.
Toby Chu |
