BT Wrap has contested claims made by Sirius Funds Management managing director Kieran Kelly that it was withholding information about client's holdings in the platform, stating it had been in regular contact with Kelly since he first raised the issues in October 2013.
Kelly made the claims in a press release yesterday , stating that BT Wrap had not provided information regarding individual client balances for audit purposes and did not confirm if client stocks were loaned out to third parties.
Kelly also claimed that BT Wrap did not provide a copy of its agreement with a third party share transaction provider, Core Equity Services, nor did BT Wrap give assurances that Core was part of the ASX Fidelity Fund. He also claimed that he was still waiting for a copy of the BT Portfolio Services' GS007 Audit Report.
BT Platforms responded in kind to Kelly's claims with a press release of its own "corrections and comments", stating Kelly's requests had not gone unanswered and that BT Platforms had been in regular contact with Kelly by email and phone since October.
BT Platforms said Kelly and his clients have up-to-date, client-level online reporting available to them via the platform, and that it had also verbally told Kelly that the BT Wrap did not engage in securities lending.
The BT Platforms statement also said that its annual BT Portfolio Services' GS007 Audit Report, which Kelly claimed he had requested but not yet received, also confirmed that BT did not undertake securities lending. BT said the report, which details the platform's internal controls and legal structure, was held back while it was approved by BT's Board of Directors, and that Kelly was informed recently that it would be available after that time.
In its statement BT Platforms made a number of corrections regarding Kelly's claims that it used Core Equity Services for share transactions.
BT Platforms stated it actually used Australian Investment Exchange (Ausiex), a wholly-owned subsidiary of CommSec, which was covered by the National Guarantee Fund and not the Fidelity Fund as Kelly implied, which is specific to the Futures Exchange.
While the commercial relationship between the two was confidential, BT Platforms said the arrangement was transparent. Ausiex executed share trades through the platform on behalf of BT, while the legal ownership of the assets remained with BT Portfolio Services.
