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TD is aiming to launch a “robo-guidance” product, which won’t make recommendations, but can be used to create sophisticated portfolios, by the end of this year, Salom said. A follow to that launch will be a robo-advisor platform where clients provide information about risk tolerance and timeline and receive recommendations, he added. The bank is partnering with U.S. firm Hydrogen on these products, Salom added.

TD’s direct investing online platform WebBroker is seeing a surge in demand from self-directed retail investors. The bank recently completed a $100-million revamp of its WebBroker and mobile trading assets over the past 18 months, said Salom.

Yet, at the end of 2017 and early 2018 the platform was plagued with outages amid a spike in trading activity.

A flurry of interest in the pot sector helped to drive trade volumes up by more than two times during that period, said Salom.

“Interest in cannabis by mainstream investors, but also particularly a new generation of investors that wanted to participate in the growth of the industry… created some capacity challenges for the entire industry, and we were not immune to it,” he said.

Interest from investors continues to rise as Canada prepares to legalize cannabis for recreational use on Oct. 17.

TD last month expanded its approved list of cannabis stocks its staff are allowed to recommend from three to 19. The “eligible for solicitation” list originally included licensed producers Canopy Growth Corp., Emerald Health Therapeutics and Emblem Corp. It has been expanded to include MedReleaf Corp. and the Hydropothecary Corp., and others, but not Aurora Cannabis or Aphria Inc., two of the largest licensed producers in Canada.

TD does not restrict clients from investing in certain marijuana stocks, but does not want its advisers to offer certain stocks without a certain level of due diligence first, Salom said. The bank is concerned about cannabis firms’ operations in the U.S., he said, where pot has been legalized in several states but remains illegal at the federal level.

“We are a North American bank and we have certain obligations to our regulators on both sides of the border,” said Salom.