CREST is the central settlement system for UK shares; it is now part of the European stock settlement system Euroclear. If you hold your shares in electronic form- as you have to do when trading through an online broker- your shares will be held in the broker’s nominee account with CREST. Instead of receiving an old-fashioned paper share certificate, your ownership is represented by an entry in the CREST system. This all-electronic mechanism is one reason why online dealing charges are low.
The one big disadvantage of this is that because your name does not appear on the company’s share register, you do not get sent the company’s announcements and reports. There are three ways round this:
* Write or call each company asking them to put you on the list of investors to whom they send reports
* Use our
company report request service to get the ones you want
* Pay for personal membership of CREST. You can only do this if your broker permits it, and the broker sets the charge, which may be as little as £25 a year or more than £100. You will then receive all the reports and announcements that each UK company in which you hold shares sends to its shareholders.
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