Reid to lead merged online business

Your Prosperity chief John Reid has been named chief executive of the combined Your Prosperity/ National Online Trading business.

National announced plans for the merger yesterday following the purchase of MLC by National in April last year.

For the moment it is business as usual for the companies, but it is understood that the ultimate aim of this partnership will see the two companies offering the shared client base of 30,000 access to both share trading and fund management resources.

Of the 30,000-strong combined online client base, National Online Trading has 18,000 customers while Your Prosperity Share Trading has 12,000 members and secures about 700 new accounts per week.

The move is in accordance with Prosperity's strategy of developing its retail supermarket concept further, and forecasts growth for both businesses by leveraging off the two services by giving the existing National customer base access to fund trading.

Up until now, National Online customers had no direct online access to managed funds except through a hyperlink to the County Direct Web site, owned by the National Australia Bank.

Whether the link to Your Prosperity's fund management service will be incorporated similarly is still under discussion in the two camps.

Over the next few months, further questions about whether branding of the two companies will remain distinct or whether a new unified brand will be created, will be thrashed out in the integration process.