Making Canada Whole
The way in which events can be found has also drastically improved. Previously, TD Direct Investing provided a link to download .pdf files of events that were listed simply as either Western Canada or Eastern Canada. Of course they didn’t mention where they divided the country up (it turned out that anything including and west of Manitoba was Western Canada) so that was probably the source of much confusion for those somewhere between BC and PEI. There was also a browser quirk for some Firefox users where .pdf files wouldn’t open unless the user learned to right click the link and open a new window. Thankfully, these problems are now a thing of the past.
With the new format, users can see all events listed by province and click on the province of interest for detailed event information. While most people will likely click in their home province and city for information, sometimes traveling folks may want to catch a session wherever they happen to find themselves.
The drop down menus at the top of the seminars page help to filter out specific cities within a province making the task of finding sessions that are close by much, much simpler than rifling through a .pdf file. This is especially the case in Ontario where there are typically over 100 listings in a given month.
Another nice feature is the fact that additional details can be viewed by expanding the event listing. When users click on the big green plus icon they are able to see a description of the event, the speaker presenting, a mini Google map of the location as well as the event location information.
Don’t Get Too Comfortable Yet
While the upgrade to the investor education site has definitely been a step forward, there are still several features that would and could make this a first class tool. For example, having the option for a calendar view, similar to the way in which Scotia iTrade lays out its events would be handy to see how events are distributed across the month. Given the volume of events at TD, however, this will be a technical challenge to implement correctly (envision cramming a dozen events on a single calendar day) so even though this is a ‘nice to have’, it’s not likely to find its way onto the site anytime soon. Another area where things could be improved is in the filtering. TD Direct Investing has designated “special events” but there is no way to filter through the events for just those sessions. Lastly, there is still significant room to improve on the types of educational materials offered, especially given that the US cousin to TD Direct Investing, TD Ameritrade, has such a mature and structured educational offering.
The Bottom Line
The upgrades to TD Direct Investing’s education seminar section of their website are a drastic improvement over the previous layout. It appears that the recent changes are in line with a much broader upgrade to the front end experience of dealing with TD as a self-directed investor.
While the changes are welcome for existing and potentially new TD Direct Investing clients, TD’s online brokerage competitors, especially other bank-owned brokerages, are probably not as pleased. Given TD’s market share and geographic presence, other brokerages will likely be challenged to come up with something equally as appealing for self-directed investors or risk learning that while investing with TD might be getting more comfortable, competing with them will be anything but.