NZZ's new finance portal triggers strong reactions

 NZZ has not only made friends with its new finance portal. In reader comments on NZZ-Finance, various users react with "utter disappointment" to the changes made to the service and accuse NZZ of "arrogance" and disregard for customer needs. Fredy Greuter, Editorial Director of NZZ-Online, is not fazed by the almost sixty negative comments from his users: "There are all kinds of reactions to our new finance portal, both positive and negative. Virtually all of the negative comments relate to the removal of the portfolio function. And in this context, I can certainly understand the anger." Previously, registered users were able to use this portfolio function to evaluate securities according to their preferences and create daily portfolio statements, as is familiar from the bank. The service was offered in cooperation with the company Ecofin. After the contract expired at the end of 2007, NZZ was unable to reach an agreement with Ecofin on an extension of the jointly managed Finfox portal. This was one of the reasons why NZZ finally decided to realign the portal. "Operating a portfolio function is not part of our core business. We have decided to concentrate more on providing and analyzing information again," said Greuter. This change is annoying for established Finfox users, as Ecofin is in possession of all portfolio data but has discontinued the current offering. If they want to continue comparing and evaluating securities, they will now have to switch to other portals such as Cash or UBS. "We were aware that there would be reactions. I'm also not surprised by the volume. What did surprise me a little, however, was the tone. Online, people react much more directly, emotionally and therefore more strongly," Greuter told Werbewoche. However, the company has no intention of changing course. The portfolio was a free offer and we had to expect that users would switch to another provider, Greuter continued. The initial technical problems have now been resolved and initial usage figures prove that they are on the right track with their new focus on editorial content. However, NZZ did not want to disclose what this means in absolute figures.