Sri Lanka It's Happening

September 27, 2005

My stock broker has finally made online share trading available to retail clients after threatening to do so for nearly an year. Their software is supposedly written by a Houston based company. Turns out the Houstan based company is not more than 2 Km from the brokers office in Colombo Sri Lanka. It is easily the worst software I have ever seen.

The IT manager of the brokerage firm hasn't yet figured out how to make the software available for download, I had to visit their office to obtain a CD. I rushed back through the downtown traffic half an hour before the closing time, only to find that the account has not been activated. Despite an email and a phone call the account was not activated before the closing bell. And wasn't activated until a day and a half later.

While at their office, the IT manager, after realsing who I am tried to pump me for information. He didn't understand a word I said, which is not altogether suprising for Sri Lankan IT managers.

Last but not least the username and password were given to me over a plain old email. Again you can't expect a Sri Lankan IT manager to know that plain/text email is not a secure medium.

Posted by raditha at September 27, 2005 3:35 PM