Addressing a media conference here on Thursday, Mercantile Securities CEO Sarath Reddy said that the name Navia meant navigating in Sanskrit. In line with emerging trends, the company will be shortly changing its name to Naviamarkets Ltd.

This move would facilitate the brand-building of Naviamarkets, while ensuring that resources do not get diluted by having two brands within the company, said Reddy.

The Internet project is getting technical support from Satyam Computers' Financial Services Division. The highlights would be online rates with a response time of 10 seconds, online trading with a round time of 60 seconds from the time of placing the order, online and historical graph plotting with technical tools for analysis, a portfolio tracker with a capital gains calculator, corporate and financial information on 5,000 companies (including quarterly results), business news articles from over 20 periodicals and magazines that can be sorted on a company, industry or data- wise basis (updated daily) and extensive research reports on economy, industry and corporates.

The back office facilities are being provided by Right Choice Technologies Limited. MSL is looking at a tie-up with a bank to provide clients the opportunity of writing cheques on their cash balances. This will allow for the integration of the site online with the bank and back office. An Interactive voice response solution to provide clients online trading and account information is also on the anvil. ``The system should work like anywhere banking'' said Reddy. Growth of cross sales of mutual funds, loans against shares and other related products through the web is also on the anvil. Functionality of the website along with brand growth is expected to enable brokerage firms face the challenges of globalisation and entry of foreign firms, Reddy said.

While the 13 million NRIs are the prime target for immediate action on the site, Net trading would become a way of life in three years, according to Reddy.