$1.2 trillion brokerage giant TD Ameritrade is working on a new technology similar to Domino's pizza tracker, and it could save them millions

Domino's

• TD Ameritrade, a brokerage with $1.2 trillion in assets under management, is working on a system that allows its employees and customers to track customer requests as they work their way through the organization.
• Tim Hockey, TD's CEO and president, compares the technology to Domino's pizza tracker or Uber displaying the status of your driver.
• Vijay Sankaran, TD's chief information officer, estimates that the system could save the brokerage millions of dollars.

The future of getting questions answered from your brokerage might be as easy as checking when your pizza will be delivered or if your Uber driver has arrived.

That's the idea behind a new tool TD Ameritrade is developing to help employees, and eventually customers, keep track of processes like adding additional funds into their account or filing paperwork, as they move their way through the organization.

Tim Hockey, CEO of the Omaha-based brokerage, told Business Insider in a Wednesday interview that while customers do a majority of their trading and investments online, any questions they might have are typically made via the phone.

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"Our customers call in and say, 'Hey, I sent you this check,' or 'I have this piece of paperwork that I submitted. Where is it?' And the answer to that question is often you can't tell because it is working its way through the system," Hockey said.

The calls are not only a cost to TD Ameritrade, but also a pain point for customers, who typically don't want to pick up the phone to get an update, Hockey said.

Thus the idea of creating a platform that tracks submissions by customers was born. Known as the enterprise workflow automation engine, Hockey said the firm is converting around 260 processes onto the system that can be tracked.

TD Ameritrade is about a third of the way through setting up the system, Hockey said, and hopes to eventually roll the offering out to its customers too.

"It is like a pizza tracker or knowing where your Uber guy is in terms of coming to pick you up," he said. "It is a similar opportunity to improve the experience and lower the cost and stop people from having to call us."

Vijay Sankaran, TD Ameritrade's chief information officer, told Business Insider that the firm is still collecting metrics on cost savings achieved from the technology. However, the system allowed TD Ameritrade to avoid having to add headcount in many areas to handle the accounts it picked up from its acquisition of brokerage Scottrade, which were fully transferred at the beginning of 2018.

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Once fully up and running, Sankaran said the engine will create cost savings in the millions of dollars.

"This enterprise workflow automation engine is going to be the backbone for how our associates in our institutional, retail, and brokerage operations groups - the operations team - do their work," Sankaran said.

It's these types of innovations Hockey said the brokerage is looking to develop in 2019: Improving the customer experience while also cutting costs for the firm.

Hockey said TD Ameritrade, which has $1.2 trillion in assets under management, doesn't disclose it's annual tech budget. However, in the three years he's been with the firm he estimates it has nearly tripled in size. Productivity for those tech investments has increased too.

"A. We have to invest more money, no question," Hockey said. "B. I want the amplification of that dollar to go further and faster."