A New York City start up has come up with a wireless device it claims will revolutionize on line trading of stocks and securities. W-Trade Technologies Inc has developed the W-Trade Internet Trading System, software designed to run on wireless mobile devices that will enable users to trade stocks and securities over a wireless network. The company claims it is the first company to come up with such a system, which has already attracted attention from a number of large companies. AT&T Corp is working with W-Trade enabling the start up to gain access to its network. The first company to sign up for the software is the Wall Street Discount Corp, a member of the New York Stock Exchange. The software is customizable to each user’s requirements. It is capable of supporting a number of handheld devices such as mobile telephones, handheld personal computer devices and internet-enabled handheld devices. The software provides a portable online trading environment where individual users and organizations can receive alerts to financial fluctuations, obtain real time price quotes, and execute the trading of stocks, securities, bonds and mutual funds. W-Trade chief executive officer Donna Oliva claims that trading over a wireless network is safer than over the ‘traditional internet’. When the data is sent it is encrypted before traveling over the network in data packets, whereby interception would require an intruder to gather all the different packets together and untangle user identification in the form of passwords and personal identification numbers. Oliva claims the system is more secure because the software does not take on board the concept of public and private keys, on which the Secure Electronic Transaction protocol is based. The basic cost of the software is $151, 700, which Oliva claims has the capacity to support 500 users. The software is being targeted at the Online brokers who are looking to enable a wireless facility, existing brokers who have not made it on to the internet and institutions who want to trade online, on a wireless basis. W-Trade is a privately traded company that came into existence last year, as a spin off from Unifax Inc. The company will be demonstrating the device at the Online Investing 98 conference in San Francisco this week, and is available immediately from the company.
