T D Waterhouse also announced that it will open branches in Australia to match its global rival Charles Schwab's plans to expand there, released earlier this week.

Meanwhile, as American brokerages advance, the Europeans retreat: UBS, Europe's third-largest bank, has abandoned plans to create an online personal investment unit for European 'mass affluent' investors. UBS said its $11bn acquisition of Paine Webber had changed its strategy and it would now focus on classical private banking, advising its most wealthy clients. UBS will therefore no longer require large customer service centers and so will not proceed with operations in Edinburgh and Maastricht, with the loss of 30 jobs in Edinburgh and 110 in Maastricht. Edinburgh had been slated to receiv another 400 jobs if UBS had gone ahead with its original plans to use telephone and Internet technologies to target the 'mass affluent' market.

UBS acquired Paine Webber in July, and is combining it with UBS Warburg; Paine Webber is said to have 2.5m US investment management clients with account sizes averaging $180,000. Most of them must be under this figure, therefore, which sounds pretty close to 'mass affluent'. The $50,000 to $150,000 sector of the market is said to be the fastest-growing, but it is also the most competitive, with almost every bank and brokerage of any size targetting it through on-line investment management products and up-scale high-street financial clinics. It probably makes sense for UBS to focus on private banking.