IBM’s Smarter Computing approach to information technology has been selected by E*TRADE Korea to secure a more advanced level of IT competitiveness in the complex financial services market.

With the new service, E*TRADE Korea’s customers will be able to access up-to-date account information, stock quotes, community bulletin boards and online help features to better manage their financial portfolios.

The new E*TRADE Korea online trading system based on IBM Power Systems will settle about 970,000 transactions per hour in real-time.

E*TRADE Korea has teamed with IBM business partner LG CNS to replace its existing Oracle/Sun Solaris systems with IBM POWER7 processor-based systems to gain more system utilisation, availability and flexibility.

The company said IBM’s technology offering will enable the company to directly integrate its front-end business applications with back-end processes that are linked to the Korea Stock Exchange, resulting in higher transaction results per hour.

E*TRADE Korea will also be able to utilise the new platform for business application development, reducing the time it takes to deliver new products and services to customers in its core business areas.

E*TRADE Korea offers trading in Korea Stock Exchange (KSE) listed securities, and KOSDAQ equities, futures, options, beneficiary certificates and mutual funds.