Considering the importance, benefits and convenience of instant messaging, it is surprising that only about 10% of e-Monitor firms offer such a tool. While several firms offer non-brokerage chat features or chat features that focus on one specific area (i.e., account opening) only Fidelity and optionsXpress offer general online chat capabilities. In addition, both firms offer their respective IM tool on their public and private sites.

Given Gen-Y's predilection towards communicating using IM and texting, it's likely that the firms that offer such tools will be among the ones to solidify a relationship with this demographic.