The General Manager of the Jamaica Central Securities Depository Limited (JCSD), Miss Andrea Kelly, welcomed investors and other stakeholders who were in attendance at the JSE and the over 300 who joined online for the historic launch of the JCSD’s Client Portal. Providing compelling reasons for the launch of the Client Portal, Miss Kelly stated that, “As a market intermediary, the JCSD has always worked with the brokers and the issuers to facilitate market growth and development. Daily we interact with investors from all our brokers and process transactions from these investors. We also processed information for over 101 listed companies and approximately 386 securities, daily.”
Miss. Kelly further provided some statistics which revealed that over the last four months, the JCSD opened over 6,397 new accounts. Currently, the JCSD has over 283,613 active accounts. In 2022, the Registrar processed over 3,427 requests for clients in the form of:
Client maintenance – 768
Follow-ups on requests – 171
Payment details requests – 136
Search of accounts – 308
Revalidation of cheques – 1,123
Transfers – 260
Miss Kelly stated that, interacting with so many clients and accounts it became essential for the JCSD to look at automating these processes to ensure that investors will have faster turnaround time to their queries, easy access to information, and a process to readily monitor the progress of these requests. Thus, the decision to create the JCSD Client portal was a no-brainer. The portal will allow investors to add mandates, submit queries and view statements, and many more. In closing Miss Kelly encouraged everyone present, in-person and online, to sign up for the portal. She also asked that this important news be shared with families, friends, co-workers, and clients.
In her remarks, Dr. Marlene Street Forrest, Managing Director, JSE, congratulated the project team and noted that this project was conceptualized and developed long before the recent focus on investors’ need to track their investments. She noted, that the forward-thinking of the JSE management to provide improved customer service is vital to a fair and transparent stock market. Dr. Street Forrest further noted that with this Client Portal, investors will have easy access to their accounts on one platform regardless of which broker is managing their portfolio.
Chairman of the JSCD and JCSD Trustee Services, Mr. Livingstone Morrison, who was the keynote speaker at the launch, painted a picture from birth of the JCSD on June 1, 1998, and its growth where it’s now settling transactions over one billion dollars daily as well as the creation of the Trustee Services to expand its services based on the demand of the market. Mr. Morrison also noted that the JCSD pivoted during the pandemic with the introduction of Electronic Annual General Meetings (EAGMs) which facilitate listed companies to host virtual AGMs. The new Client Portal is another innovative tool by the JCSD that will allow investors across the globe to manage their stock portfolio and submit enquiries in real time to the JCSD team. In closing, he congratulated Ms. Kelly and her team for their dedication and his fellow Board members for their leadership over the years.
Miss Tamieka Ricketts, Assistant Manager, Registrar Services JCSD, and project lead gave an overview of some of the main features on the Portal. Miss Ricketts first defined the Portal as, “a user-friendly customer self-service portal that allows investors to manage and query their JCSD Accounts.” She highlighted other features of the Portal that the investors can use after completing the easy registration process. These features allowed users to:
- Add and view the details on their JCSD account.
- Edit information on their account; and generate statements.
- Generate e-statements showing holdings and values; shareholder notices.
- View notices based on stocks owned, AGM, and dividend declarations; dividend history, details regarding payment information; mandates, view, edit and add mandates.
She added that Company Registrars managed by JCSD can submit queries and track queries.
Miss Alyssa Dean in her vote of thanks gave special commendation to Software Architects limited, the developers of the JCSD Client Portal.
