NatWest broker's Canadian tie-up

NATWEST Stockbrokers is to close its back-office operation and merge with TD Waterhouse, the Canadian-owned online broker. The move could result in many of NatWest broker's 290 London staff losing or moving jobs. Waterhouse's back-office services are run from Leeds and Manchester.

In the deal, said to be worth less than £10m, NatWest Stockbrokers will become a 50:50 joint venture between NatWest owner Royal Bank of Scotland and TD Waterhouse. The NatWest brand will stay and there are no plans to sell the entire business to the Canadians.

A NatWest spokesman said the group had had to decide whether to spend significant amounts upgrading technology or move to a partner. 'Waterhouse has state-of-the-art systems and this will enable us to launch new products and services.'

NatWest Stockbrokers handled just over a million trades last year, making it Britain's third-largest retail broker. TD Waterhouse is Britain's largest execution-only stockbroker. Managing director Bharat Masrani said: 'This business is all about scale and any way which one can achieve that scale is positive both for our business and for UK retail investors.'

NatWest said staff would be offered the chance to move within the group, move north or take voluntary redundancy.