Flat Fee Trading | Financial Crooks

I’ve been on a mission over the last three years to re-organize our finances. This included opening some online brokerage accounts and moving funds in from all the various banks, trust companies and government offices where they’d been mouldering. I am by no means an expert on brokerages and I am still learning new things each day as I work. Recently, I learned, somewhat to my surprise, that it is possible to group BMO InvestorLine accounts under one User ID even if they don’t all belong to one person.

Why Do You Want to Group InvestorLine Accounts Under a User ID?

For the reasons why grouping accounts is a good idea, please see Why You Should Group Your BMO InvestorLine Accounts Under a Single User ID.

The key point:

If you can group accounts with $250 000 or more, you will get a different type of trading quote and you will get “exclusive access to a dedicated service team.”

Which Accounts Can I Group Under a BMO InvestorLine User ID to Qualify for the 5 Star Trader Program and Level II quotes?

If you’re like me, you can group your

RRSP
LIRA
TFSA
RESP
spousal RRSP
unregistered regular trading account

and still not get close to $250 000 in assets.

That left me wondering, is it possible to add accounts belonging to anyone else to my User ID?

Will I Be Able to See the Portfolio Details for Each Account I Group?

While I was wondering whether I could group other people’s accounts under my User ID, I also started wondering whether doing so would let me see

their total investments,
their portfolios and
their transaction history.

After all, I can see all of those things for my own accounts which are grouped under one User ID.

I knew it would NOT allow me to trade on their accounts. You need a trading password to execute a trade at BMO InvestorLine and it is different from your sign in password.

So now I have three questions to resolve:

Can I add another person’s accounts to my InvestorLine User ID?
Do they need to sign a form authorizing my access to their account information?
Who would let me see everything in their account, every asset they hold and what they’ve been doing?

I can think of one very kind man who might let me peek into his portfolio. Admittedly if I do, he will lean over my shoulder and gloat at how much better his returns are than mine, but still, no pain no gain, right?

Now to check InvestorLine’s rules.
Well at
https://www.bmoinvestorline.com/home/popups/user-id they say you can consolidate accounts under one User ID if you own them or “manage accounts for others.”
And at
http://www.bmoinvestorline.com/home/popups/5-star-program-terms-conditions
It says that the accounts cannot be “Investment Club” or “Partnership” accounts.

Whose Accounts Can be Grouped Under One InvestorLine User ID?

I wrote InvestorLine to ask this question using their secure email MyLink.

Their response was:
I can add anyone’s accounts to my User ID if I know the account numbers and the account sign in passwords.

Wow. That’s almost scary.

So I can add

my husband’s account/s
my parents’ account/s
my aunts’, uncles’, nieces’, nephews’, sister’s, brothers’, cousins’ and grandchildrens’ account/s
my friends’ account/s

If they change their sign in password, then I will also have to update their sign in password under my User ID or their account will be removed from the User ID.

Will I Be Able to See the Portfolio and Holdings for Any Accounts I Link to my InvestorLine User ID?

Once I linked someone else’s account to my User ID, I signed in using my User ID to see what I could see.

I could look at:

their account balance
their holdings
their transaction history

Eeps! You’d better make this part very clear to any friends or relatives BEFORE you ask them to link their account to your User ID.

Note: I can’t trade on their account because I don’t have their trading password.

Also note: They cannot see MY account information unless I add my account to their User ID. This might be handy if you want to add your children or parents to your User ID but you are not willing to reciprocate by opening your finances for review and discussion.

Do I Need Written Permission from Another Person Before I Can Add Their Account to my InvestorLine User ID?

According to the MyLink InvestorLine representative “There is no form required to be completed for this purpose.”

That also is a wee bit disturbing. I guess it’s a good reminder to keep your sign in password secure from prying eyes!

Before You Start to Create your InvestorLine User ID

You may wish to think ahead about

What 8-20 letters and numbers you want to use for your User ID. You may not use special characters such as &.
What unique challenge question that you type yourself that you would like to use to help confirm your identity. It has a maximum length of 60 characters.

To create a BMO InvestorLine User ID to Group Accounts

Sign in to one of your InvestorLine accounts.
From the Account Services tab, under the heading Account Profile, click on Create User ID.

On the screen: Step 1 of 3: Choose a User ID and Password

In the User ID: field, type the alphanumeric id you want to use to sign on to your group of accounts.
In the Password: field, type a password to use when signing in to your accounts. This can be different from the Password used to sign in to a single account.
In the Confirm Password: field, type the password again.
From the drop-down list in the Challenge Question 1: field, select a security question.
In the Response 1: field, type the answer.
From the drop-down list in the Challenge Question 2: field, select a security question.
In the Response 2: field, type the answer.
In the Challenge Question 3: field, type your own security question.
In the Response 3: field, type the answer.
Click on the Continue button.

OK, I made every possible error!

Your User ID must start with a letter.
Your responses must be at least 6 characters in length.

Now it accepts them. Phew.

On the Step 2 or 3: Link Accounts to Your User ID screen

In the Account Number field, your current account number is listed. To add this account to the User ID you must input the existing password for that account (not the new password for the User ID).
In the Account Password column, type the password for signing into the numbered account.
If desired, in the Account Nickname (optional) column, type a nickname for that specific account.
If desired, on the next line, type the values in the columns
- Account Number
- Account Password, and
- Account Nickname (optional)
for your other InvestorLine accounts.
Click on the Add More Accounts button if you have more than 5 accounts to link up.
Once complete, click on the Continue button.

On the Step 3 of 3: Provide Contact Information for your User ID screen

Review the information in the Email Address: field and make sure it is correct.
If that is the address at which you wish to receive your InvestorLine email, type it again in the Confirm Email Address: field.
In the How you would like to be greeted when we correspond with you: field, type your favourite. For example, you could try
Supreme Grand Emperor Smith
I’m not sure if that will work or not. Guess I’ll have to update my profile and see!
Rats. You can’t use that particular title as there is a character length limit of 20.
Click on the Continue button.

On the Register your User ID for an opportunity to enjoy our 5 Star program and $9.95 Flat fee commissions – Optional screen

If you wish, click to select the radio button beside Yes to have the User ID evaluated for the 5 star program.
Click on the Continue button.
If you select Yes, look at the linked accounts summary to ensure it is correct.
Click on the Continue button.

To check if all of the accounts for the User ID are set up to be evaluated for the 5 Star Program

Click on the $9.95 Pricing & 5 Star Program tab.
Under the Receive Program Benefits tab, the account should be listed as Yes. If not, click on the Edit button to update the setting.

When Will I Start to Receive the 5 Star Program Benefits?

If the combined holdings in all of the accounts under the User ID add up to at least $250 000, the accounts will become eligible for the 5 Star Program benefits. User IDs are evaluated 4 times a year, at the end of

March,
June,
September and
December.

The benefits should be available the day after the evaluation date.

So I guess I won’t know till April Fool’s Day if this worked. How appropriate!

Related Reading

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Do you group accounts to get better services at your brokerage? Please share your experiences with a comment.

If every account you have at InvestorLine has over $500,000 in it, this article doesn’t apply to you. On the other hand, if you have that much money at InvestorLine, why do you even need to read articles on my website? You could stimulate the economy by paying someone else read them for you. For the rest of us, here’s why you should group your BMO InvestorLine accounts under a single User ID.

Like a late night talk show, I’ll list the reasons you should group your accounts in order from least important to most likely to make you nod your head in agreement:

Reason Five: Grouping InvestorLine Accounts Can Help You Manage Your Passwords

While for maximum security you should have a unique sign in password and trading password for each of your InvestorLine accounts, you may find it difficult to remember all of those alphanumeric strings without using string theory. It’s nice to only have to remember one password if all you want to do is check your portfolios, not change them.

When you sign in using your User ID, you can look at your holdings for each account linked to the id. You can only look at the holdings in one account at a time, however. You decide which account to look at by clicking on a drop-down list of the linked accounts.

Reason Four: Grouping InvestorLine Accounts Can Save You Time

One Id. One password. Access to all of your account information. Quick. Fast. Simple. Easy.

Reason Three: Grouping InvestorLine Accounts Can Get Your Deeper Kowtows

Why would this one surprise anyone? If you have over $250,000 in your User ID-linked accounts, you can get “exclusive access to a dedicated service team.”

Well, at least between 8 and 8, weekdays, Eastern Time.

I guess that shows Westerners how prejudiced InvestorLine can be. Frankly, it’s a bit bizarre given how many millionaires live west of Ontario.

Reason Two: Grouping InvestorLine Accounts Can Gain You More Information

This one will take a LOT of money.

But, if you can amass a group of accounts with over $250,000 in them, you qualify for Real Time Quotes and Level II Quotes.

From what I’ve been able to find out so far (I don’t qualify for the 5 Star program) it appears these quotes include some information on who is buying or selling and how many lots they are offering or seeking.

One article I read listed about 6 ways large dealers can conceal what they are doing or even deliberately enter buy and sell orders to trick the market. So if information is power, make sure you know who’s got the true data and what they plan to do with that wattage.

If you can combine over $500 000 in accounts, you can also get the Market Streamer and some additional reports and research information.

According to the short summary on the InvestorLine website, the research on offer is “access to BMO Capital Markets research on only the top 60 TSX stocks.”

Perhaps they figure if you already have $500,000 in assets you already know what you want to buy?

The Market Streamer is a tool to “track a virtual portfolio throughout the day.” You can see an image of it on the InvestorLine website. The data should be real-time.

Reason One: Grouping InvestorLine Accounts Under One User ID Can Save You Money

It used to be you needed to group accounts to achieve $50 000 in assets so that you could qualify for $9.95 trades. As of February 2014, though, all accounts of any size now qualify for $9.95 trades. So this incentive is no longer relevant.

Being honest, the $9.95 trades was the best advantage most of us could hope to achieve by grouping only our personal accounts. Getting to $50 000 was quite do-able. I’m not so sure about that $500 000 stuff, unless I get my Mom to shift all her GICs and CSBs to an InvestorLine account. : )

However, if you can get your grouped assets to $250,000, you also get

reduced margin rates on non-registered accounts
discounts on agent trading costs for some types of assisted transactions
reduced annual fees for accounts such as small RRSPs

And if you get up to $500 000, you get

even further reduced margin rates
even more discounted agent trading costs, and
some lower administrative fees for non-trade transactions

(Frankly, I think most people find the Market Streamer described in Reason Two as the only real perk at this level.)

I Guess I Want a User ID; What Now?

So have I convinced you to set up a User ID for your InvestorLine accounts? If so, you can tune in for the next exciting article: How Do I Group InvestorLine Accounts Under One User ID and Whose Accounts Can I Group?

The problem is I haven’t written it yet because I’m still trying to find out the rules about whose accounts can be grouped. After all, maybe I *could* get Mom to move those GICs and CSBs. A girl can dream!