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Creating your Odin account (Wealth managers)

  • Updated

On Odin, wealth managers and other intermediaries sometimes create accounts and/or invest on behalf of their clients. In these cases, it is important to follow the right process when creating an account and certifying.

 

Key Principles

  1. Every account owner must complete FCA (UK regulator) verification and an appropriateness assessment. This must be done by the individual who owns the account. 
  2. Every Legal Entity making an investment must complete KYC and AML checks. A Legal Entity is not the same as an account owner, since eg. John Smith can create an account, but Smith Wealth Management Limited or even Jane Doe, a client of John Smith may be the Legal Entity making investments. KYC & AML on the legal entity making the investment happens later in the process. 
  3. The account owner must be an authorised signatory for the Legal Entity to complete an investment without their involvement.

To summarise: 

  1. We complete regulatory assessments at the level of the account owner immediately after account creation, confirming that the account owner is a sophisticated or professional investor, and
  2. KYC/AML checks at the Legal Entity level later on in the process, confirming that the individual/business that is investing is verified and legitimate

 

What This Means in Practice

If you are an authorised signatory for the legal entity (usually a company, trust or similar) investing:

  • Create an Odin account in your own name.
  • Complete the certification process yourself.
  • Follow the standard investment process to register your client’s Legal Entity and complete the investment on their behalf.

If you are not an authorised signatory and your client needs to be the signatory (eg. they’re investing in their personal name):

  • Create the account in your client’s name, ideally using their name & email address. Do not proceed with the FCA appropriateness assessment - your client will need to do this themselves. 
  • Navigate to account settings, where you can upload KYC & AML documents on behalf of your client so that their Legal Entity is verified (reduces admin for them later on).
  • Share your account details with your client (the actual signatory) so that they can log in, complete the FCA verification process, and then proceed to sign for the investment on behalf of the Legal Entity you have created. If needed, they can reset their password via the process outlined here.

 

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