Versed in technology that could improve their industry's traditional processes, Lori Livingston and David Lafayette established their own stock transfer agency in 1999.

Now employing eight people, their firm, Transfer Online, serves 165 clients and is on pace to generate revenue this year of $1 million. Along the way, Transfer Online is demonstrating that new approaches can work in the arcane world of stock transfers.

Unlike brokerage houses and investment banks, "we're not the glamour end of the industry, we're more the workhorses," said Livingston, Transfer Online's president and CEO and a 20-year veteran of the transfer agent business. "Transfer agents are like this weird stepchild to the financial industry, [a] record-keeping, old-school kind of business."

While some corporations administer stock transfers internally, Transfer Online states that about 85 percent of public companies, and many private companies, contract with an agent. The agents keep shareholder records and issue new certificates while also providing reports on those transactions. Transfer agents, which are regulated by the Securities & Exchange Commission, also distribute proxies, dividends and annual reports, along with company correspondence, to shareholders and brokers.

The industry has bifurcated into major providers--large commercial banks and trust companies--and small independents, Livingston said. The large providers deploy the latest technology, but focus on Fortune 500 companies. Smaller providers may lack the latest technical advances.

Independent transfer agents are computerized, but not necessarily in tune with the internet age, said Lafayette, chief technical officer. It's hard to blame the older ones that don't operate online: Converting large amounts of shareholder data to web-based systems would be an expensive and time-consuming operation.

Livingston and Lafayette previously worked in the Portland office of Oxford Transfer Registrar. By starting a new agency, they avoided the need to convert old data, and could simply input data into their new system as customers signed up.

"We started off fresh and developed all of our systems in-house to attack the problem the way we thought it should be attacked, to push the information out to our clients, the issuers, and their shareholders, online and in real time, any time they wanted," Lafayette said.

Compared to some other transfer agents around the country, Transfer Online offers a newer, more user friendly approach, said Dave Carlson, executive vice president for Portland-based Lacrosse Footwear, which became a Transfer Online customer nine months ago. The agency's use of the internet for delivering reports, as well as its prices, make for an attractive package, he said.

"Their approach seemed to me more one of allowing the information to be at your fingertips, a menu approach, versus one-size-fits-all."

Another client, Portland Brewing Co., illustrates some of the additional services Transfer Online brings to customers. Although privately held, the local brewery has some 5,700 shareholders, many of which buy and sell shares regularly. Transfer Online not only serves as Portland Brewing's transfer agent, but hosts an online trading board that allows those trades to take place quickly and efficiently.

Transfer Online's fees are substantially lower than those of other transfer agents Portland Brewing has used in the past, said the brewery's office manager, Jill James. The additional services, such as the trading site and the tabulation of votes at shareholder meetings also make them a valuable service provider, she said.