Qtrade Investor named top online brokerage in Canada by Surviscor

VANCOUVER, Dec. 2, 2016 /CNW/ - Qtrade Investor provides the best overall online customer experience among Canada's online brokerages, by a significant margin, according to the 2016 Canadian Online Discount Brokerage Review by Surviscor. The review, now in its 11^th year, is a comprehensive assessment of the online service, features and functionality of Canada's online discount brokerage providers.

"The year was a busy one for many of the firms, which was great to see," said Glenn LaCoste, President of Surviscor. "We are excited with the amount of movement in the rankings and to acknowledge the work of a few progressive firms who are taking customer experience to the next level. We congratulate Qtrade Investor for its return to number one and for its commitment to improvement, particularly its un-matched service levels in an aggressive and ultra-competitive industry."

Qtrade Investor earned 87% in the 2016 review, which was nine percentage points better than the nearest competitor, 19 points higher than the average score, and a 10-percentage-point leap from Qtrade's top-three placement in the 2015 review.

"We're honored to be recognized as a leader by Surviscor," said Catherine Wood, Qtrade Financial Group's Senior VP and Head of Online Brokerage. "The results of this assessment validate our commitment to improving and streamlining the client experience and to offering competitive pricing in order to provide the absolute best value among Canada's online brokerages. The enhancements we made this year were inspired by client feedback and supported by client usage analytics, and thus far we've been very pleased by the positive reaction from our clients."

Qtrade also earned first place in Surviscor's most recent Service Level Assessment program, which measures how efficiently firms respond to service enquiries. Qtrade was first in that category for 2016, 2013 and 2012.

According to Surviscor, which specializes in impartial analysis and ranking of digital financial offerings, including banks and credit unions, its proprietary methodology for its online brokerage review measures thousands of usage-related criteria questions, along with cost of services analysis. The complete brokerage rankings can be found at www.surviscor.com.

About Qtrade Investor

Qtrade Investor is the award-winning online brokerage division of Qtrade Securities Inc., Member of the Canadian Investor Protection Fund. Qtrade Securities is a wholly owned subsidiary of Qtrade Financial Group, a national, award-winning, integrated financial services company with over $13 billion in assets. Qtrade Financial Group provides online brokerage services to individual investors along with full-service brokerage, wealth and investment management platforms and services, custodial services, introducing broker services, and insurance solutions to meet the diverse needs of over 150 financial institutions, as well as their members and clients, across Canada. Qtrade's partners include credit unions, banks, trust companies, insurance companies, investment dealers, portfolio managers and financial planning firms. Qtrade Financial Group is backed by Desjardins Group, the leading cooperative financial group in Canada and the sixth largest cooperative financial group in the world. For more information, visit www.qtrade.ca/investor.

SOURCE Qtrade Canada Inc.

Sean Kelly, Senior Communications Specialist, Qtrade Financial Group, 778.328.7583, [email protected]