Low-touch fee, high-touch service

This article is excerpted from "Smaller, cheaper, faster: Trading Asian equities", a supplement to AsianInvestor's April edition. The electronic revolution is putting pressure on the way in which the buy side pays for the services it receives from brokers. The sell side, particularly bulge-bracket firms, has attempted to overcome the problems of fragmentation in Asia through technology. That’s an expensive proposition. Moreover, as clients’ trading strategies become more active …