I’ve often voiced my displeasure for the way Canadian brokerage firms mistreat their customers with high fees, poor tools and poor services. You can find the many dissatisfied customer comments on my previous post regarding the TD Waterhouse / Ameritrade merger.

But those same brokerage firms insist that they are improving their services. For example, here’s TD Waterhouse telling you what they’re doing for their customers in their own words!

Wow, my heart is thoroughly pulpitating! Or maybe it’s a heart-attack at how amish and hill-billy the Canadian brokerage system can prove to be sometimes! Finally, 20-minute delayed updates to a TD Waterhouse investor’s portfolio holdings! Is this supposed to uplift them from the depression of losing free streaming and level II quotes from their Ameritrade days (TD charges $99/month in Canada). I still don’t get why such technology is free for TD Ameritrade customers in the United States. What are the issues surrounding that?

Not surprisingly, this new “innovation” has took TD Waterhouse years to develop. I wonder how that speaks to the talent they have in the company. For comparison, you can take a journey down memory lane to the Globe’s 2003 online broker survey (which conveniently did not include Ameritrade) to see the criticism regarding real-time account summaries existed even back then. We finally hear TD’s reponse 3 years later! I wonder how could Bill Hatanaka sleep well on his bed, even if it’s a bed of dollar bills?