When you invest with your chosen investment manager via OpenInvest, you're investing in the OpenInvest Portfolio Service, which is registered with and regulated by ASIC and subject to all the protections afforded under Australian law.
Your investment is administered by OpenInvest and held on trust for you by an independently-appointed custodian, Sandhurst Trustees Limited (part of one of Australia's most respected banks, Bendigo and Adelaide Bank). This means your assets are held for safekeeping, on your behalf, by Bendigo Bank and you hold a right to receive the benefit of the investments in your Investment Account. While investments are held and traded at a ‘pooled’ level (meaning many small investments are handled as one large one) each investor has a separate Investment Account which reflects their position only.
As required by law, the OpenInvest Portfolio Service is regularly audited by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, one the world's largest auditors. As an independent and external auditor, Deloitte is responsible for, among other things:
· reviewing our financial statements;
· auditing our compliance with our Australian Financial Services Licence; and
· auditing our adherence to the compliance plan for the Service.
Deloitte also has an obligation to report to ASIC if it believes that OpenInvest has significantly contravened the law. Reports from each audit will be made available to investors, in accordance with OpenInvest’s principle of transparency. All investors will be able to see that everything is being done ‘by the book’.