Broker vs Issuer Sponsored Shares

Comparison

What is CHESS/Broker Sponsorship?

CHESS stands for Clearing House Electronic Subregister System which is the computer system used by the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) to record shareholdings and manage the settlement of share transactions.

If your holdings are CHESS sponsored, it means your shares are held and managed with a broker such as Netwealth Share Trading. CHESS shares are issued a Holder Identification Number (HIN) which starts with the letter ‘X’.

For more information, please refer to our education article ‘Holder Identification Number (HIN)’ on our Support Hub.

When you purchase shares via the Netwealth Share Trading platform, they will automatically become CHESS sponsored.

Benefits of broker sponsored shares:

  • Efficiently manage your share portfolio registered under a single HIN online;
  • Reduced paperwork;
  • Direct ownership and access to shares;
  • Ease of Maintenance i.e., Change of personal details and Tax File Number (TFN) can be easily updated by your broker.

What is Issuer Sponsorship?

Issuer sponsored shares means your shares are held and managed by the company’s relevant share registry. These shares are issued a Shareholder Reference Number (SRN). An SRN starts with the letter ‘I’.

Issuer sponsored shares are held under separate SRNs for each separate shareholding.

You can locate your SRN number on your issuer sponsored holding statements or by directly contacting the share registry. For more information, please refer to our education article ‘Share Registry’ on our Support Hub.

Share registries can help you retrieve any information regarding your issuer sponsored shares i.e., contact, and personal details, tradable and non-tradeable units, and SRN numbers.

Examples when holdings may be Issuer sponsored:

  • Employee Scheme Shares (shares issued to you by your employer);
  • Acquired shares from a share transfer;
  • Shares issued in a float or an Initial Public Offering (IPO).

How do I identify if my shares are broker or issuer sponsored?

Look for the following numbers on shareholding statements to identify sponsorship:

  • HIN starting with ‘X’ indicates CHESS/Broker sponsorship.
  • SRN starting with ‘I’ indicates Issuer sponsorship.

Where can I view my CHESS holdings with Netwealth Share Trading?

To view your holdings, go to My Account > My Portfolio > Actions and click on Holdings.

View Holdings Screenshot

You can also add issuer holdings to your portfolio. To do this, select ‘Add Issuer Holdings’ and manually add your issuer sponsored shares to see a more complete overview of your investment portfolio.

This information is intended to provide information for educational purposes only and is subject to change at anytime without notice.

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