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Market Meltdown: Top Online Brokerages Saw Website Response Times Dramatically Slow Down

As online demand surged, 12 of the 15 top financial institutions had double-digit percentage increases in response times between 3 and 4 pm, according to Gomez, inc.

Last week’s market meltdown caused several major online brokerages to see their website response times dramatically slow down, with potentially serious financial and reputational consequences.

Many of the nation's largest premium and discount brokerage firms were deluged by last Thursday's unanticipated online demand. Some online securities firms saw their website response times spike to 30 seconds or more, according to Gomez inc., the web performance division of Compuware.

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Website response times for top 15 online brokerages on Thursday, May 6

Gomez said 12 of the 15 top financial institutions had double-digit percentage increases in response times between 3 and 4 pm.

One institution went from a 3-second response time to a 44-second response time, according to Gomez, which tested website performance by navigating to a firm’s homepage, logging in to an account, searching for a stock and preparing for a trade.

“Whenever there’s a high profile media issue consumers will react by flooding the websites which they associate it with. To avoid the damage a slow website response time can cause a firm during a crisis, they must ensure that they perform thorough load testing,” says Matt Poepsel, VP of performance strategies, Gomez.

Load testing usually happens before the launch of a website, where a firm simulates peak demand to make sure its applications and experience are sound. If a bank estimates its peak traffic to be 10,000 people, it will conduct load testing at 20,000, says Poepsel.

But it’s critical for firms to perform load testing regularly. “There can be changes in a company’s hardware investment, in software, or the third parties who provide stock charts. Everything is interconnected. If some part of a bank makes a change to a mainframe, not all groups may realize what is changing. It could happen to anyone,” Poepsel says.

It is also important for firms to test from the perspective of a user, rather than a machine. In other words, they must take into account the experience of users with different browsers, geographies, and service providers, which all have an impact on user experience.

“It’s easy for banks and brokers to get lulled into a false sense of security. But there are a lot of complexities to delivering a great user experience,” Poepsel says.

“Its impossible for a firm to look at all the complexities at once. If you start with load testing today, look at the mobile experience tomorrow,” he suggests.

Melanie Rodier has worked as a print and broadcast journalist for over 10 years, covering business and finance, general news, and film trade news. Prior to joining Wall Street & Technology in April 2007, Melanie lived in Paris, where she worked for the International Herald ... View Full Bio

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