Nomura to ask retail clients how to improve online services

Tokyo

NOMURA Holdings Inc is getting serious about improving its online brokerage services, going as far as having its executives quiz customers on how to do better.

Senior managers plan to ask a selection of individual clients what they think of Nomura's online platform and how it could be enhanced, Hajime Ikeda, head of the firm's new innovation division, said. "We haven't done this kind of thing much before," he said.

Japan's biggest securities firm is under pressure to attract younger, digital-savvy customers as older account holders increasingly pull money to spend on their retirement. The need to find fixes has taken on added urgency as profitability weakens at the retail segment, long a bulwark that has shielded Nomura from persistent losses abroad.

"It's important to directly ask individual customers how user-friendly our services are and what they think we should do to make them better," Mr Ikeda said. "We really need to act more quickly to improve."

Mr Ikeda is starting the survey this month with three other high-level officials, who may select 10 to 20 retail investors and regularly ask them for advice if appropriate.

Questions will range from what the clients think of Nomura's online platform to why they might also trade through its competitors. BLOOMBERG