CHESS
Keeping track of your portfolio

The Clearing House Electronic Sub-register System (CHESS) is the computer-based tracking system that manages the buying and selling of all Australian shares.

Fast, secure and reliable, CHESS helps to make share trading seamless and trouble-free. Managed by the Australian Securities Exchange, CHESS has been proven over more than 15 years of successful operations.

Before you can trade securities online with InvestSMART, you need to be CHESS-sponsored by CMC Markets Stockbroking.

How it works

When a broker sponsors you in CHESS, you’re given a unique Holder Identification Number (HIN), which identifies all of your securities and the broker who holds them for you. If you have more than one broker, you’ll also have more than one HIN. Then, when you buy and sell shares, you’ll be sent a contract note showing your HIN and the details of your holdings.

Issuer-sponsored shares

If you receive securities directly from the issuer, rather than buying them on the ASX, then they will not be recorded against your HIN. In that case, they’re held on a register sponsored by the issuer and identified by your Securityholder Reference Number (SRN).

Issuer sponsored shares cannot be sold online until you transfer them to CHESS. Transfer your issuer-sponsored shares to your InvestSMART trading account

Transferring shares

Once you start trading with InvestSMART, you can transfer CHESS holdings and issuer sponsored holdings shares to your InvestSMART account — so you can track, manage and trade them in the same place.

Next steps