The huge rise in share ownership in Britain has helped push Bradford firm YorkSHARE into one of the top five in the country.

And since the firm was taken over by North American firm T D Waterhouse, it has become part of a group which is the second-largest in the world.

Britain is now estimated to have 15 million private shareholders and this has helped YorkSHARE -- formerly part of the Bradford-based Yorkshire Building Society - double its staffing to 180 from 90 at the end of 1998.

The firm, which has vowed to stay in the Bradford area, is also planning to take on at least 50 extra staff this year as business takes off even further.

The firm, which started in 1994 with no customers and a staff of 20, now has more than 130,000 clients and deals with 8,500 share transactions on its busiest days - which puts it up with the big players in the UK.

The company, which is based on all four floors of Howard House in Bank Street, is fast running out of space for its bank of 100 call centre workers and 90 administrative staff and managers.

YorkSHARE bosses are now looking for new premises to house their expanding team and aiming to beat Birmingham-based competitors Charles Schwab at its own game.

The biggest proportion of YorkSHARE's customers are in the south-east of Britain but the firm has thousands of Bradford shareholders mainly thanks to its roots with the Yorkshire.

Paul Howard, the company's product development manager, said: "Reasons for the growth in share ownership are the number of people who took up privatisation shares in the 1980s and '90s.

"Then the bank conversions came along offering shares, such as the Abbey National in 1989 and the Halifax, and that increased the number of shareholders.

"We offer what is called an execution-only service which means that we offer everything a stockbroker offers apart from advice. People come to us with information about where they want to buy and sell shares and we do that for them," he added.

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